Advice

By Bonnie Harris

In conjunction with my last post, Ways To Help Out Your Favorite Authors, I'm participating in a blog tour for Julie N Ford's book, COUNT DOWN TO LOVE. (I'll be posting my review on my personal blog soon. It was a cute book. You should check it out.) I agreed to have Julie do a guest post on my blog, and she offers some wonderful advice for aspiring authors that I thought you all might enjoy as well. Enjoy!

My Best Advice--Julie N Ford

When asked by my publisher to write some sample book club questions for Count Down to Love, I decided to look for inspiration in the back of one of my favorite novels. I didn’t find much that helped me settle on what questions to include in my book, but I did stumble upon yet another author offering advice to fledgling writers. 

Basically, it was the same old thing: keep reading, keep writing, keep submitting, and don’t give up. In other words, another lame, generic attempt by someone who has—by the grace of God—made their mark in the publishing world at not dashing the hopes of all the would-be writers with dreams of becoming famous published authors themselves. (Whew! Did I mention that I’m a master at the run-on sentence?)

Now I’m not famous, or arguably even a “good” author, but I still have some advice:

1^st Keep reading even though now that you are writing you will rip every book to shreds, wondering how in the world this person got published after breaking all the “rules” you kill yourself trying to follow. 

2^nd Keep writing but only because your characters wake you up in the morning screaming in your head to be released and brought to life on the page. Because a story that started as an intriguing idea, or a dream has continued to grow, mushrooming like the cloud of an atomic bomb until it consumed your every thought. Because inspiration comes to you at the most inconvenient times and you wish there was a way to safely type and drive, type and cook, type and shower, type and just about everything . . .

3^rd Keep submitting not because you daydream about seeing your novel featured on the end cap at B&N (btw, seeing your book on an end cap is pretty cool), and definitely not because you have aspirations of becoming the next Stephenie Meyer. But because you have enjoyed bringing your story and characters to life and you want others to enjoy them as well. Because completing a manuscript is a huge accomplishment. Because you are proud of what you’ve written.

4^th Don’t give up if you really love to write. If your greatest joy comes after crafting a well-written sentence, or when a scene comes together in a way you hadn’t intended, becoming more perfect than you’d ever anticipated. If you feel a rush of excitement unlike any other when the words flow from your head to your fingers tips as if they have a life of their own. If baring your very soul on the pages of your manuscript brings a freedom you’d never imagined.

Keep writing because to stop is not an option.

Because you still have stories to tell.

Because even if you never make a dime off your work the journey was well worth the effort.

I want to thank Bonnie for hosting this interview, giveaway and guest post. I hope all of you who decide to read Count Down to Love will enjoy the story as much as I loved writing it. And to all those inspiring authors out there, truly, if I write a book, you can too 