I laughed, I cried, I groaned, I was on the edge of my seat till the very end!
A romance novel? An thriller? Murder mystery? Action-packed drama?
Well, no. The most recent blog post from The Occasional CEO, entitled, "25 Rules for Writing a Book." This actually showed up in my feed reader at the same time as the announcement of a new book by another friend, who writes as Blair Bancroft.
Eric Schultz writes completely different books from Blair Bancroft, though I wouldn't be surprised if Blair recognizes herself in some of Eric's points. I'm pretty sure that in this post he's writing about a book I've been waiting years for, ever since he dropped a hint in another post. If you read his 25 rules, you'll understand why I say I hope it's still the book I've been looking forward to.
To Eric:
- Don't throw anything away! No experience is ever really wasted, but becomes fodder for something in the future. You never know when you might find it useful. (That attitude is why I have trouble decluttering my house, my photos, and especially my computer.)
- When I accidentally deleted and had to rewrite a very long blog post, you assured me that the re-written post was guaranteed to be better. Based on this, I predict that when the new book is finally published, it will be your best ever.
- I'm an Oxford comma person. But I also like semicolons.
- #9!
- Finish the hat???
- Love the snowy owl!
- I'm still looking forward to reading it, even if it is now more of a business book than a history book.
To everyone else: read it. Even if you don't consider yourself a writer. It's not just about writing; it's about life. Mothers especially can relate.
He doesn't allow commenting? I guess reading comments could be a distraction to his book.
I think this infinite loop, dog chasing his tail, kind of problem is exactly why I don't think I could write a book (though in February I am going to a workshop on writing Children's books).
At least now you have a prospective date for his book.
Apparently he got too many spam/troll comments and turned commenting off altogether. My recourse is to make my comments into a blog post here. :) You can say something in these comments and he'll probably see it.
Let us know about the workshop! You and Stephan will have something to talk about.
Thank you, Linda! You're very kind. As for comments--yes, I was getting all kinds of ads and inappropriate solicitations and thought it best to turn things off. Maybe I should try again, but the policing work is constant. To dstb: I remember a comment Malcolm Gladwell made about preferring to write articles rather than books. He said, by the time a book is done and you have to start marketing it, you're so drained by the process you want nothing to do with it. And then, you go to a reading at a bookstore and someone in the crowd finds a single word on page 276 that they don't like and call you an idiot. . .Better to write magazine articles! Maybe good advice, after all.
Anyway, I just turned the comments back on. I'll give it another try!
