The Winner is...

Last week, I posted information about a giveaway to thank the blogging world for their support in my quest to improve my writing. Whether you knew it or not, if you commented here on Middle Passages during the first three weeks of January,  I entered your name into a drawing to receive a copy of Nicola Morgan’s Write to Be Published.  Read more about the book and giveaway here.  

Last night, I entered the “contestants” names into a hat and the winner is…

The Empress  at:  Good Day Regular People.

Your Royal Highness, I extend my humble congratulations.  I’ll send you an email, but if you see this first, please send me your address.  It will be my pleasure to order and forward you copy of Write to be Published by Nicola Morgan. I hope you find the book as fun and helpful as I did.

Note to the author:  If, as a result of this post, Google Alerts sends you my away again, thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom via your outstanding book, and for your comment here last week too.  Both provide further evidence that the writing community consists of many caring and thoughtful people, a truth that continues to amaze and delight me.

Giving Back, or Paying it Forward

A few more months ago than I care to admit, Claire at Points of Clair-ification held a book give away.  I was fortunate to win Write to be Published by Nicola Morgan.  Notwithstanding my delight at winning, (Thank you Claire!!!) upon receiving the news, I stood on an anthill of niggling self-doubt.  Due to irreconcilable differences, I had shelved a miserable, one-time edited draft of a first ever WIP and had slogged out about 20K into a new project (the first draft of which is now complete).  That was the sum and total of my book writing experience.  Reading a book with this title seemed presumptuous. Who did I think I was?  But then the book arrived in my Post Office box. 

The back cover of Write to be Published says: “You want to make a publisher say yes?  First understand why they say no; then apply that knowledge to your book.”  Whether I’m published tomorrow (yeah, right), in the next five years (in my dreams) or never (nightmares abound), this book is a treasure of lessons about writing, and information relating to how to conduct the business of writing in a manner most likely to result in positive feedback. 

Whether you're a novice like me or a ready to be published pro, reading this book is well worth the time.  Turning the pages is like sitting in class while an engaging and enthusiastic professor calls all your bluffs and then directs you how to do things the right way. Published over 90 times herself, and the creator of the blog Help! I need a Publisher, it took Morgan something like 20 years achieve publication, so she knows the downsides as well as the up.  She's a British author so US readers, make allowances for cultural variances.  But no matter where you are from, the entire section called “Written in the Right Way” will resonates with the wisdom she imparts pertaining to what it means, and what it takes, to write “right.”

I could go on and on.  But I won’t.  Instead, I’m going to go back over the book and highlight everything that resounded in me.  Then, to say thank you to everyone who’s been so supportive and encouraging in my quest to improve my writing, I will put names in a hat for anyone who has commented here at Middle Passages in first three weeks of January. That means if you've already commented, or you do so in the next six days, you get one chance.  Next week, I'll pull out a winner and send them a copy of Write to be Published, by Nicola Morgan.  Hopefully it will be as helpful to someone else as it has been to me.