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Why I wrote about WRITING
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From decades of experience of working
with writers and being a writer myself,
I know that the thought of writing an
entire book, of somehow progressing from
a concept to a complete manuscript of
hundreds of pages, can be intimidating
and overwhelming. |
Fortunately,
there are ways to make the creative process easier, more
productive, efficient and satisfying, and that is why I wrote for
Writer's Digest (the world's largest magazine for writers), the four-part
How to Write Your Book series.
In the series, I describe how writing is a series of small steps that occur in stages, and I explain what those steps and stages are. When you focus on what you need to do at each step and concentrate on accomplishing that, you'll feel an increase in confidence and energy, and a lot of pleasure as you see how your writing is resulting in an ever more substantial manuscript. Whatever your level of writing experience, there's probably something
in this series that will help you become a better, more effective, and
happier writer.
The series became such a popular success that Writer's Digest collected and reprinted the articles as the Special Section in their 1999 Writer's Yearbook
Extra.
After the writing comes the PUBLISHING
This story, and its related articles about
submitting, acquiring, editing, and marketing, were published in Writer's Digest
as Inside Simon & Schuster: A Publishing
Story, inspired by my eleven years there as a senior editor.
The narrative is about a first-time author whose agent sells her book to Simon & Schuster, how her editor works with her through the editing, production, marketing and selling, and how the book becomes a big hit. I also wrote four, short related articles about different
Aspects of the Publishing Process.
The publishing story and articles were also very popular and Writer's Digest
reprinted them in their 1998 Writer's Yearbook Extra.
What's On Line
For the same reason that Writer's Digest published and reprinted the writing series and the publishing
story--to help writers worldwide--I am publishing all nine of the articles on the
McCarthy Creative Services website for your free reading and downloading. If you enjoy the story and the series and find them helpful, please let me know. I'd really like to hear from you.
Other Sources: Writer's
Digest provides an excellent selection of hints on all types of
writing and getting published at their writersdigest.com
site. You'll especially want to check out their annual 101
Best Web Sites for Writers It lists sites in categories
such as search engines, general reference, the writing life, genre,
and many more.
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This series
was published in its original form in Writer’s
Digest Magazine in 1997 and 1998 as “The Evolution of a Book,” and later
reprinted as a long special section in the 1999 Writer’s
Yearbook Extra titled “How to Write Your Book.”
I revised the articles for online publication. You can download the entire
series (134K/34 pages) in a printer-friendly format either as a
MS
Word document or as a plain text
document. Alternatively, read the sections on-line:
This story and its related articles were published in their original form in
Writer's Digest in 1998 and later reprinted in the 1998
Writer's Yearbook Extra. I revised and significantly expanded
the story Inside Simon & Schuster: A Publishing Story
for online publication.
After reading the story, see the background articles on:
You can download the entire series (87K/14 pages)
in a printer-friendly format either as a
MS
Word document or as a
plain
text.
DOWNLOAD A PRINTER-FRIENDLY
version of either series in MS Word
or in plain text formats.
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