In my professional life, I have had to do plenty of writing. Earlier in my career, I worked for a large grant-making foundation, and every quarter I had to write carefully-crafted grant recommendations for the board of trustees. I also worked on a variety of research projects and often had to analyze data and write…

In previous posts I have alluded to the fact that I had always wanted to write a novel but could never seem to get started. What exactly was my mental block?Of course, part of it was the sheer immensity of the task. When you’ve never written anything longer than a 25-page term paper, writing seventy…

Old Friends went live on Amazon today! In case any other first-time authors would like to follow in my footsteps and self-publish a novel, here are the steps to follow. Congratulations! You did it. Amazing. Incredible. What a feeling. Your self-published book is finally live on Amazon. Total time (not including Step 1): 29 months.…

In my previous post I said that it (my becoming a writer) began during the pandemic. But we have to dig a little deeper and ask, “How did I get interested in writing in the first place?” In reflecting on this question, I suddenly remembered that I actually wrote my first book in 1974 when…

Writing a novel has been on my bucket list for almost as long as I can remember. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I lost my job as an ESL teacher and was slipping into a dark place. It turns out my identity was pretty tightly tied to being a productive member of the workforce.…