Lynda Kaye Frazier, USA Today Best Selling Author

I never would have guessed that writing the book was going to be the easy part. Like I said before, this is a learning process, and I'm still learning. I have been taking workshops on how to improve my writing skills to only realize that my book, I just submitted to publishers, was not ready to go. I have received two great rejection letters. Yes I said great, because they were informative. The one letter was 4 pages long and it went into detail on my weaknesses and what I should do to rectify them. They even gave me links to workshops and articles they felt would help me. Now that was a big surprise, I expected a feeling of dread, and head hanging shame from a rejection letter. These gave me high hopes for my novel. I am in the process of finishing some much needed workshops (the reason for my absence),on POV issues, punctuation and grammar, and showing not telling. These are some series issues that are plaguing my first book and I am determined to master these complex issues...

When I decided to write a book, I thought that's what you did. Write the book. It will be perfect and everyone will love it. Ok, I wasn't that delusional but I did find out, the hard way, that I skipped a few basic, very important steps. What I learned during my journey through my first book is that you should: 1. Research. Learn the basics to writing, from knowing your genre to grammar and punctuation. 2. Have an outline of your story and make notes on your characters. (I spent many wasted hours going back to see details on a character that I should have written down. Duh! That was a no brainer!) 3. Know your way around a computer. (Another no brainer.) I depended on my daughter to fix my mistakes more than I care to admit. The most important thing she taught me was...save, save, save. I had to re-type so many chapters because I did not have auto save on. I would hit a wrong key and have it all disappeared! 4. Have a critique group. I did not have one until I finis...