#WritersLife: Book Marketing and NaNo 2015 Prep

#WritersLife, where I talk writing in real life. 

I have some awesome news to discuss and also some terror as we approach the dreaded First of November!

NaNoWriMo 2015 Countdown!

 

It's hard to believe that in 26 days, I will be sitting down to eagerly write the beginning of an extraordinary and exhilarating story.

And in about 28 days, I'll probably be freaking out about my word count. It happens.

NaNoWriMo has been crucial for my writing because I am forced to start and end something. Most of us would be confident in starting a story because we get this gorgeous image or understandable character or hilarious dialogue and we just need to write it down right this second! And then we realize one conversation can't hold a novel and we abandon it.

I completed the 50K words in 2012 and 2014, and I reached 17K in 2013 (let's just not talk about that year, shall we?). This year, I'm doing something I've never done: I'm outlining and planning.

#WritersLife: Ways to Improve Creative Writing Programs

#WritersLife, where I talk writing in real life.

After much scheming with some of my dear writer friends this past week (Eric the Great and Donna the Magnificent), I realized that there is so much I still don't know about the publishing world. Not just the marketing and agent aspects, but also the author's life. I want to know more about revision, beta readers, critique partners, querying, and the writing community, and I wish all this information had been available during my college years.

It wouldn't take any of you long to stalk this website to see where I studied, but I'll save you the trouble and tell you. I attended UT El Paso, and below are the lists of things I wish I could have learned and would change today about its Undergraduate Creative Writing Program.