Rusty Strait | Senior Reporter
Almost daily, someone approaches me about writing a book. Giving assistance on the wing is not the best way to advise anyone serious about writing or struggling with one of the many snags writers stumble into. I will answer your questions and assist in any way a mentor would. I will also write about writing every week because I believe it will be a while before I receive enough questions to fill a column. I invite your questions and suggestions. Simply email me at [email protected]. I promise to respond in the next edition if you get your question to me by Monday morning following our Thursday edition.
Meanwhile, here are a couple of tips:
1. Don’t try to write the greatest novel on earth early on.
2. You probably have a number of ideas, so don’t include them all in one project.
3. Don’t let others who laugh at the idea that you could write get to you. If they knew so much, they would be teaching at some college or competing with Brad Pitt or Meryl Streep on the silver screen.
4. I don’t profess to know everything about writing, but I do know what has and hasn’t worked for me and even for best-selling writers. It’s not all about scribbling a paragraph and sending it off to a publisher, expecting a big advance. It doesn’t work that way.
5. There are several ways and styles of writing: sophisticated, down-home, textbook, etc.
6. The best writers are storytellers. Among the zillions of writers, only a handful are storytellers. I’ll probably be talking about that quite a bit along the way. Meanwhile, I expect my email to be filled with questions from all you guys and gals with a great story to tell.
Till then, just sayin’! Email me at [email protected].
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