Writing Archives | Simply Living

How to Write a Book Review

August 29, 2017 by Debbi Leave a Comment

I was looking around at books on Amazon the other day and was alarmed to see that someone was actually selling a book about how to write book reviews! For $0.99!

Well, I really had to wonder about that one. Seriously, people who read books are usually pretty good with words. So, the idea of selling a book that tells you how to write a book review seemed … odd to say the least. Not to mention charging nearly $1.00 for the advice.

So, here’s what I propose. I’ll write you a book on how to write book reviews. In fact, I just started it today!

So You Want to be an Indie Fiction Writer …

April 18, 2017 by Debbi Leave a Comment

When I first ventured into fiction writing, convention wisdom was to never self-publish one’s work. This amounted to nothing less than professional suicide. Writers who self-published were looked down upon as poor, pathetic desperate souls who didn’t have the talent or persistence to impress agents and/or publishers (especially the ones in New York, aka, “real ones”).

Typewriters that Keep You Focused

March 21, 2017 by Debbi Leave a Comment

When I began writing as more than a hobby, I was in college as a journalism student. Everything I wrote I composed on a typewriter. It was a cheap piece of shit an inexpensive model, but it got the job done.

Then, somewhere in the mid- to late-80s, I bought a word processing computer. It was a Wang. (Yes, really!) It was like magic. No more need for Wite-Out or re-typing documents.

Somewhere along the line, in the early 90s (I guess), the Internet came along, with all its attendant resources and distractions. But I only used email until the late 90s, when I hopped online and began using social media.