The Word for Writers
Like me and my efforts at making money on the Internet and failing thus far, many of my readers think they can’t write and they won’t even try. (At least I’m still working at making money on the Internet). I decided I would tell you my story and experiences about writing. Maybe when you realize I can write with no education beyond high school, you’ll have one of those ah-ha moments and decide “by golly, if she can do it, so can I”.
First of all, by the time I was four, I could read. I firmly believe before you can write, you have to like to read, Not everybody who likes to read makes a good writer, but just think of all the adventures you miss out on if you don’t read.
I got my first taste of writing when I was in the eighth grade. (We didn’t have junior highs back then.) My classmates and I decided we would put out a class newspaper for the first grade school newspaper in the history of our small school. We named it “The Talespinner” and somehow I was elected as editor. The only thing I can really remember about the whole experience was how dirty I got (do any of my readers remember a ditto machine?) and it created a love of writing that has had a grip on me for better than six decades.
I didn’t do any further writing until I was on the yearbook staff in high school when a classmate (Louise Grieff) and I did the history, the future and such things for the year book which was named “The Spirit of ‘51”. (Now you know how old I am.)
My first job outside the home where I worked for my dad was for The Emlenton News. Another classmate (Gweny Middleton) and I worked in the print department part time when it was time to print The BULLetin, a periodical put out by the artificial insemination farm over in Clarion. I can still remember how fascinated I was with the title. Also, I remember how shocked my mother was when I came home with printer’s ink all over my clothes.
Then life took over. I moved to Oil City (PA) when I was 19 when I was hired as a private secretary. I met and married my first husband (Rollie Phillips) in 1958 and took over as manager of his pizza shop (Rollie’s Pizza Shop). He did not enjoy good health and I sold the pizza shops (we had two) in 1976 to take care of him. He met his Maker in 1981.
A couple years later I met John, we were married in 1983, and then life began for me. I no longer had to work, but I wanted to because I was only 50 and I had worked all my life since I was 13, but now it wasn’t a necessity.
We lived in a retirement village in Florida and I started writing a village newsletter and gradually was asked to do the same thing for our county weekly newspaper, on a paying basis. One day the lady who accepted my column for the paper was out sick when I turned my column in. I went into Jim (owner and editor) and offered my services for as long as Betty (Empric) was off
Jim accepted my offer. Subsequently Betty died and I became a part time employee of The News Herald as a ‘gofer’. Fortunately Nita (Terrell) was an excellent teacher and I became proficient in most departments, handling advertising and soon had my own column “Fredas Foibles” which I continued to write after a stroke forced me to retire at age 61.
Following my stroke I continued writing my column, and wrote it for a total of 17 plus years. That really wasn’t enough to keep me busy, so I wrote other things. One day I read an offer to write a story for an anthology. I knew the lady who was to be the editor for the anthology and wrote to her for details. She was a big help to me. I wrote the story, emailed it to her, she made corrections and suggestions and emailed the story back to me. I made the necessary corrections and incorporated her suggestions and emailed the story back to her and that went on for about six mailings, until she finally accepted it for publication, but it was another year before the book “Heartwarmers” and my story ‘It was a beautiful day until…' came out. That experience alone taught me a lot about patience.
About that time John and I bought a business that we operated out of our home between the telephone and the post office which didn’t leave time for writing, although I kept current with “Fredas Foibles.
Then John was diagnosed with cancer and died two months later. I tried to keep our business going, but was emotionally unable to do so, ran a half price sale, sold my stock and closed the business.
Then I was in a pickle. I suffered with clinical depression. The doctor took the newspaper from me because of the gross reporting and wouldn’t allow me to watch the television news for the same reason. I thought and thought some
more about writing a book, and interspersed that with reading, and of course writing my column.
Then I decided one day to write the book. Now I’m going to relate how I wrote the book, but please don’t do as I do because I’m the most untutored type of writer you can ever imagine.
According to what I’ve read, all readers do research, make outlines, write as fast as they can, then edit, most hire agents, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth.I do some research, but it is not on the computer. Search engines and keywords and I are complete strangers. I have yet to make an outline. Shucks, when I went to the grocery store I never even made a list. I edit each paragraph as I write it. Gone are the days when I could type fast anyway. I have never had an agent. I never felt I needed one bad enough to pay their going rate. Hey, if you’ve got the money, have at it.
As far as getting it published, I mimicked a writer friend who used a print on demand publisher. I called them, they asked for three chapters to decide, and a couple weeks later accepted it for publication. I’ve read of authors who went through h… and never got published. But as I’ve said many times God always looks after me, always.
One thing I failed to mention earlier and don’t take this as correct. It is just me. I NEVER make notes. How do I remember what I want to say? I’ve always, since I’ve been writing, whatever it was I was writing, wrote it in my head. Then when I sat down at the typewriter, or later at my computer. the words just dripped out of the ends of my fingers. Another thing God does for me.
(If you think you’re going to get rich writing don’t be alarmed if you don’t. Just thank God if you do. (I didn’t do twiddley squat with my book, but writing it was an experience that I’ll never forget.)
Now I’ll tell you about writing my second book, due to be released Fall, 2007. It is a work of fiction based loosely on my life, compared to my first book “Cherish the Past” which is still available on Amazon.com, an autobiography interspersed with historical facts about the three areas in which I lived.
The current book, “Winds of Change” already has a checkered past. I started it in 2002 intermittently, and got three chapters written. Then I became enamored with a lady writer on the Internet, and I decided to send her the first two chapters for constructive criticism. Man, did she ever give me constructive criticism. You would have thought she was a school teacher and I was a very inept student. The pages were all marked up, and she literally told me it was a lousy book.
Well, I’ve always prided myself on being able to take criticism, but I didn’t take kindly to that. I never thanked her and my mother raised me better than that. I thought ‘what does she know’ and worse than that, she destroyed my self-confidence and it was many months, close to a year, before I returned to that book.
It was probably the middle of 2003 when I picked the book up and started it from scratch and incorporated and left out what my author friend suggested months earlier. I changed the name of the lead, changed her hair color, and just rewrote the work I had already written.
Then in March of 2004 I was invited to join Xango, a networking company, and I accepted the invitation. The book once again went into hiatus and stayed there, but I didn’t forget it. I just couldn’t. It was a part of me, but I was busy with other things. I figured it was perfectly safe. I had saved it to my computer.
Then the unthinkable happened. My computer crashed! Earl (Tyson) tried to fix it, as he had done before, but this time even Earl couldn’t pull the fat out of the fire, metamorphically speaking. What did I feel badly about losing? Was it my Xango information? Was it my checking account? None of those things because they could be replaced. It was my book. I had lost my book. It was like I had lost a member of the family.
I tried to find somebody who might bring the old hard drive, which I had resurrected from the trash, back to life. I did, but the cheapest estimate I could get, with no guarantee, was $700. I almost cried. I never wanted anything as badly as I wanted to finish that book. I couldn’t recreate it. I had medical terminology in it given to me by Gary (Gossman) and I didn’t have the gumption to ask him to repeat the process.
Remember I told you God has always taken care of me?
In the meantime my new computer came, with no instruction books, and one day I needed to know something about the computer, so I called Jeff (Ussery). He took his lunch hour to fix my problem in about 30 seconds. While he was there I told him about my hard drive. He took it with him, with no guarantees he could do anything with it. The next morning he rang the doorbell and handed me a CD disc with my book on it, and would take nothing for his trouble. Is it any wonder that he is one of the people listed on the dedication page of “Winds of Change”?
Then I really went to work. First of all, I started to read it from the first, making changes as I went. Not big changes but changes I thought made the book easier to read. Finally, I was able to start writing the conclusion.
But I was interrupted again. Linda (Arthur) my best friend, had invited me to move with her and Jason (Hay), her son, and Jennifer, her daughter-in-law, to Alabama, but weather and building materials had slowed the process down. Then Linda called and moving day was set.
When we got to Alabama there was a delay getting hooked to the Internet, but since my book was saved to my word processor, which does not require Internet connection, I really got to it. It wasn’t too long I had it finished.
Then came publication. I had decided to hire Booklocker.com if they would accept it. I emailed Angela (Hoy), who owns Booklocker with her husband Richard, to ask her how many chapters she required to make a decision and
how should I transmit them. She wrote back almost immediately, saying she required the whole book, and I should send it as an attachment.
Then I settled down to wait.
Suddenly, the next day I received an email from Angela. I opened it, anxious to see what it said. I knew she hadn’t read the whole thing (about 350 pages) in that short span of time. BUT she had and she ACCEPTED it! Hallelujah. God came through for me – again.
As I write this story I’m waiting for the artist who is going to create the cover for me and Linda to edit it for me, and then its off to Booklocker for the “Winds of Change”. It will be available, among other places, on my website http://thewrite-queen-fredabd.info sometime prior to the holidays.
If you want encouragement or writing tips, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. In the meantime thanks for reading my story.
I would be remiss if I didn’t pause to give thanks to God who gave me the ability to write and Who has always guided and protected me, through my writing and every phase of my life.
I would like to thank my best friend, Linda, for all her support, care and encouragement in my writing. She has introduced me to an atmosphere
definitely conducive to writing.
And last, but certainly not least, thanks go out to my loyal readers. Where would I be without my readers?
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