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The check from Amazon from the sale of my books brought a smile to my face. After all, I have two major goals in writing: make money and entertain my readers. I am slowly on the way to achieving both goals.  Seeing my bank account grow was very gratifying, but it doesn't compare to listening to someone tell me how much they enjoyed reading my books. My first thought is I touched someone. I made them feel good. Writing and publishing your own books is time-consuming, tiring, and the marketing of your books is never ending. I made mistakes  along the way(I published the wrong draft of Tanglewood Road and didn't discover the mistake until three weeks had passed!), but I don't give up because this is my passion. This past weekend, a friend was telling me how much she was enjoying Tanglewood Road. She wanted to know if it was okay to pass the book on to her friends to read. I had no problem with that, but I did ask her to do one thing for me. Tell her friends about the book if she liked it. Tell her friends on Facebook, Google Plus, email, and any other social media. Word of mouth, social media, and the internet are becoming even more important to new and established authors with the popularity of eBooks growing and starting to surpass print books. I have a web site: http://www.davidmhooper.com and an author's page on Amazon.com.  So, if you feel inclined, tell your friends

Put on your thick skin

Author and publisher, Arlene Chase, once told me that to be a writer you had to have a thick skin. How true!  I talk to aspiring writers and the one thing that holds many of them back from writing is the critique from others.  I recently saw a post on Facebook where the person had asked her friends if they wanted to read her new novel. All of her friends replied that they would love to read her novel. That may be great for the ego, but not for the quality of the writing.  Friends never want to hurt your feelings. What you want is honesty, frankness, and truthfulness above all. I have three readers that are allowed complete freedom when they read my manuscripts.  Sometimes the red marks are discouraging, but their remarks and corrections are what will make me a better writer—hopefully. If a friend or acquaintance tells me they found a grammatical error, I don't wring my hands and implore them to tell me the exact location on the page in the book. I don't try to explain the difficulties of writing and publishing my books. I just make a mental note to be work harder on my next book to eliminate errors.  The writer needs to continue to improve and not become stuck correcting past endeavors. 

Write what you know

There were three of us sitting around the table talking about writing and, as our conversation progressed, I was asked why I wrote about a small town in southern Missouri. Most people had never heard of Bolivar in my novel The Possessor; their point being why not a location near Kansas City where the novel begins. That was easy. I was familiar with the area I wrote about. I had walked those same cow paths, waded in Mile Branch, and looked out the East windows of the one-room schoolhouse.  Many happy moments in my life have taken place on my Cousin John's farm just north of Bolivar, Missouri.

I took a correspondence writing course and my instructor was Arlene Chase. Once she scribbled a little note on a piece of paper when she returned a lesson to me. She wrote that she could tell the difference in my writing when I had a personal knowledge about my subject.  That is a no-brainer, but many people who attempt to write do not have a personal knowledge of their subject.  My new novel, the Peruvian Urn, is about an antique cremation urn. Believe me when I tell you that I have a limited knowledge of Peruvian cremation urns. I went to the internet and started reading all I could about cremation urns and especially those from Peru.  I am gaining a personal knowledge of my subject. Will I use all the material? Probably not, but it still will enhance my writing.

Often, what we think is mundane is just the opposite for our readers. We attempt to write a novel such as To Kill A Mockingbird and forget the main reason we are writing: to entertain the reader.  Harper Lee wasn't attempting to write a great American masterpiece. She wrote what she knew and looked what happened! My great niece is a wonderful writer who at the age of seventeen left the United States for school in London for three years. What she sees as ordinary is unique to the rest of us. When a writer attempts to write about those things that they have little or no knowledge of, chances are they will fail. Write what you know and entertain us.

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