Recently I read a story about a young realtor who wrote a book about “What every ‘for sale by owner’ homeowner needs to know to sell their house”.  He self-published that book. He gave instructions on step by step instructions of everything that an owner needs to know to complete the sales process on their own. He then would go around town looking for “for sale by owner” properties and knock at the door, introduce himself and give them one of the books. Although he eventually sold a number of books, his goal wasn’t to sell books but to promote his expertise as someone who knew how to sell a house. Many of the homeowners, who he gave his books to, did actually use the book to sell their own homes. When their friends wanted to sell their own homes, but didn’t want to sell it themselves, the homeowners who had the book knew that of a realtor who knew his stuff and recommended the one who came to their door and gave them the book. Click here to read more

Now here it is already the second week in October. This week I start a new part-time job. In addition to substitute teaching, I am part of an after school tutoring program for elementary children. I could put my writing goals aside to spend all my time into teaching, but I am not going to do that. Instead I am going to see how much I actually can get done in the time I have left.

Gearing up

In November NaNoWriMo starts again. If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it is National Novel Writing Month. It is a month long event that occurs every year where storytellers write down the first fifty-thousand word first draft of their first or next novel in just thirty days. This year will be my ninth year and I intend to win again. (Everyone is a winner who writes the 50K)  If you too have ever thought of writing a novel, participating in NaNoWriMo is a fantastic way to make amazing progress in a single month by finishing the first draft.

Start the Pre-writing Process Now

Though there are a lot of people who start their novel from scratch on the first day of November, I personally like to do some prewriting in October in preparation for getting the actual event in November. The two most important aspects of the novel writing include developing characters and the plot. Although I think that it is important to develop realistic characters, I like to start with a basic plot with which to give those characters something to do.

The Seven Universal Story Lines

Do you know that all plots fall under seven universal story lines? Click here to learn more