Thursday, September 26, 2013

Learn, Young Padawon....

Currently Reading:  Loved, loved, LOVED Jean Joachim's Love's Last Chance!!!  Definite Recommended Read!  I think this one is officially my favorite of the the series, though I have a sneaking suspicion that book #6 will be a close call.  I was hoping Dorrie would end up with the 'right' man, though I wasn't sure at first who that 'right one' would be:)  I'm soooooo looking forward to the release of #6; I want to be one of the first to get it:)  Now I'm on the 1st chapter of Vicky Burkhold's Danger on XY-One.  I loved her Prime Time, so I should enjoy this one as well!

Hold onto your hats!  I found book #3 in That Series, and while I won't be going into detail about every little wrong thing, I'll be doing a post on it soon.  Trying to stomach reading it, and have already reached Ch. 3.  


Today's Question:
Do you feel you need an education to write?  Why or why not?

It depends on what you mean by 'education'.  Yes, you need to have a good grasp of language and grammar, plus you need to have a variety of life experiences in order to make your story interesting.  So yes, someone who didn't finish HS can still write, provided they got the basic grammar principles.  But a college graduate who's been locked up in the library all the time and barely socialized might not fare so well, unless they only publish their dissertation.  Fiction they might have a harder go at, unless their imagination makes up for their social awkwardness.

Education of the craft and publishing guidelines are essential.  Yes, a good editor can clean up your grammar issues, but publishers want authors with a good grasp of the basics, no matter how 'awesome' the potential.  I once tried to edit another potential author's work, but after getting a headache due to my brain trying to input punctuation, I gave up.  I mean seriously; who doesn't know how to use a period and basic capitals these days?  Yes, I still use too many commas, but hey, so do the majority of writers.  And I'm a fairly good speller, though I do occasionally run into a word which trips me up.  I'm wading through the whole homonym thing with my youngest right now; one of his spelling words is Four, the number.  He's still spelling it 'f-o-r'.  And I jokingly said 'Wait till you find out there's also f-o-r-e!'

'Mom, you're confusing me!'  (places hands over his face and moans)

Okay, I admit that could have waited, lol!

But my point is, never stop learning.  My daughter wrote her first 'book' in kindergarten; one of my BFF's also wrote as young as age 6.  I started at age 11, but wasn't published until my 30's.  Once I hit my 40's, more was published.  But only after an editor pointed out what I was doing wrong.  I kept learning, and eventually made it:)

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