Okay, there, I allowed my ego to convince me (Freud’s ego; the actual one that exists inside each of us, not a bloated head). I’ve been writing for twenty-something years and I am still my own biggest critic. I’ve been blogging about writing, what works in writing, what doesn’t work, and I have received almost nothing but tremendous feedback (in fact, a lot of it suggested I put all my blogs into a book). Yet still I am my biggest critic. I once wrote:

“Perseverance: outlasting the most rash, pessimistic, cowardly naysayers; those first in line to deny us the dreams never tried. Ourselves.”

We really can be our biggest critics. But if we persevere, wait out the cold, barren winter, we learn how to become better and our books show it. I finally decided it was time to put together the most important things I’ve learned over the past few decades of workshops, classes, criticisms, critiques, comments, suggestions, and, well, just my own gut instincts, and I’ve nearly finished my first (and perhaps only) book on writing. That’s right, FOR the writer.

My ego tells me it’s pretty good. My beta readers and proofers tell me they’ve already learned from it and don’t want to wait for me to send them chunks of the manuscript; they want it as soon as it’s off the press. My ego loves this. My pessimistic realist does scoff sometimes, but I did my first full reading the other night, not looking for typos, but rather as a writer who had picked up this book to help make mine better.

I have to be honest and say the reading silenced my pessimist, at least for now. It’s pretty good. It’s pretty damn good.

I didn’t set out to write a tome. I also did not agree with the idea of simply combining a bunch of my blogs and selling them as a book.

1. You can read my blogs, here, any time. Free.

2. Who wants to sift through a hundred blogs to find the information they need or, better said, who would rather have that wok done for them and summarized in a nice, handy little book they could reference any time they wanted a refresher on a particular writing subject.

3. It really would have been a tome—HUGE—and that’s not what I was looking for. I was looking for Strunk & White’s Elements of Style (though God, please don’t think I am comparing myself to those masters—simply book size, efficiency, smaller).

So I took the plunge. Put myself out there. Shared my “secrets”. I tell you this:

I asked writer and teacher (both extraordinaire), Scott Morgan, to write a Foreword. The price of the book is worth his Foreword alone, I swear it. The man is a genius with words. Or a savant. Not sure which and it doesn’t matter—he “Writes for the Jugular” and that’s all that matters.

The book is eight “rules”—if it helps, think of them as “suggestions”. But don’t take them lightly. I will defend these methods. They work, not because they are some kind of snake oil but because they are tried and true. You use them and see if your book doesn’t read better.

And if you don’t like it, I would find that hard to believe. Parts of it? Some “rules”? Sure. But there is a lot of blood, sweat, tears, failures, flounders, and flubs that taught me the lessons in this book (not to mention many, many priceless comments and criticisms from some amazing writers along my own life’s path). And I’ve decided to share them with you,

The book itself is in the final stages. It’s my goal to have paperback and digital release more or less coincide (I think having a hold-it-in-you-hand, tangible copy of a short reference book is a must. Electronics aren’t always allowed, their charges die (OH how their charges die, and always when you figure you need them the most), and, well, we all love books. I am going to really promote this one in paperback, as diligently as in digital format. I’m also NOT enrolling this one in KDP Select, so I am going to distribute it wherever I am able. (SUGGESTIONS WELCOME.)

Dropping the egomaniacal snake oil salesman pitch for a moment, I honestly believe this book will have some important information and insights in it to make your book better, and trust me, you’ll know when it releases (oh but you’ll know). Here’s the Foreword from Scott Morgan. It’s amazing, you’d be able to read it in the sample anyway, and he humbled me to my knees, so what better way to (hopefully) whet your writers’ appetites?

Foreword to INK

By

Scott Morgan

Writing about writing has become evangelism. And usually not the good kind. The tents are full of charlatans who promise insight, inspiration, and direction, but instead deliver dependence on their tired clichés and mantras aged like gourmet cheese. And they smell about as good.

Here among this endless parade of snake charmers are the hopefuls and the true believers. Those imbued with boundless faith who want so badly to be swathed in knowledge, to be led just one more step toward the mountaintop; those so steeped in hope that they are blinded by the dazzle and the sheen of shiny teeth and glittering gold watches.

Because evangelism, to quote Peter May, is about the heart and not the head.

How many carats did your hope and money put into that shiny watch, only to leave you not knowing what time it is? How often have you left the tent with the understanding of how to do it on your own?

Because that’s what you really want to know, isn’t it? How. Not the when or why, the how. You want to know what you need to do in order to write great things.

It’s no surprise why self-proclaimed writing gurus are so hesitant to tell you the how. To cue you into the ways of their top-secret cabal would reveal their trump card. If, after all, you know the magician’s tricks, would you pay to see the magician perform?

Telling you the how also reveals a charlatan’s flaws; would reveal the fact that sometimes they themselves don’t know how to tell you what they know. Or it will unravel their biggest secret ‒‒ that you already know the secrets. You just don’t know it.

To be a guru requires only a mountain that people want to summit. In the Internet Age, these mountains are made from blogs and self-published tomes, compiled by aspiring gurus until it makes a tall enough perch from which to preach the gospel of writing. Scale this mountain and you live your passion. There are signposts along the route, strategically planted to string you along on motivational prose.

Because that’s what you want, isn’t it? Motivation? Emotional exercise? The ability to tell yourself that everything will be okay, as long as you believe and someone holds your hand and whispers sweet platitudes in your ear?

Maybe that is what you want. But it isn’t what you need. What you need is a mentor. Not a charlatan, not a self-proclaimed guru, and not a preacher bearing shiny teeth. There is a difference, you see, between a teacher who will show you how to fish and a snake charmer who will tell you how wonderful the fishing is, but only he knows where to cast the lines.

What you now hold in your hands, my dear reader, is the work of a teacher. If writing about writing is the good kind of evangelism, you may consider this work the Eight Commandments. And you may consider yourself blessed.

I have had the great fortune to become friends with the author of this book, and if my word ever means anything to anyone, please take to the bank that I said this: Rob Guthrie will never steer you wrong.

Enter his tent with open palms and genuine faith, true believers. There are no snakes to poison you and no jewelry to blind you. There is simply the truth, and the how toward better writing.

And that is what you want, isn’t it?

*************

In case you don’t know Scott:

Scott Morgan is the bestselling author of Character Development from the Inside Out, a guide for fiction writers, and How To Be A Whiny Beeyotch: 71 Writing Excuses Meet the Back of My Hand. He also is the author of Stories My Evil Twin Made Up, a collection of short fiction. A speaker, teacher, and award-winning journalist, he also is the president of WriteHook (Write for the Jugular), an editing and writing services company for fiction and creative nonfiction.