Stacks of Library Books for Smart Dummies

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Oh how I love the library! I took the girls there on Saturday morning and while Amelia read a story to Lil in the childrens’ section, I went and found the “writing and publishing” section and couldn’t stop myself snatching large wads of books off the shelves (because it’s all free!), including two books on writing romance and two books on writing Young Adult fiction because you never know what might suddenly become a good idea. I felt a little embarrassed staggering back to the girls with my enormous stash. I sort of slunk past the serious browsers hoping they wouldn’t notice my “Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies”.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m ashamed to be dabbling in romance writing, it’s just that the universally familiar, big black and yellow cover and well-known font loudly flashes “Look, she’s a dummy! AND she’s a dummy, wannabe romance writer! What a dummy!”. I want to carry the title around called “Writing Romance Novels for Very Serious, Intelligent People who like to try New Things and Don’t Mind a Little Escapist Fiction from Time to Time.”. Where’s that book when you need it?

everyday_mini

Day nine: Managed a 5.30 am start. Wrote happily for an hour before kids realised I was up and about. Changed major sub-plot and got rid of a very annoying love-interest and associated useless threads, and felt kind of excited at the slightly new direction.

Day ten: Mother’s day. Sat up in bed with my breakfast and wrote at least a thousand words. New sub-plot took good shape.

Day eleven: Heater broken. SO COLD. Sitting on the couch with the laptop warming my knees while Phil takes Lily for a walk.  I’ve already written 580 words and they’re still not back so I’ll keep going. Love my new sub-plot characters so much. They might (or might not) be based on a couple of my parents’ friends. But I won’t tell anyone that (except you).

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10 Responses

  1. mumseekslife says:

    I recently tried to write a YA novel and for research I got loads of YA books out of my local library and for some reason felt compelled to tell the librarian they were for ‘research’ purposes as I was so embarrased she thought my reading level was Meg Cabot!

  2. Stephni says:

    Hi If you haven’t read it I can recommend ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King. There is a lot in the book that is very useful regardless of the genre you are interested in and I felt very encouraged after reading it.

  3. TeacherA says:

    My father-in-law, back in the day, had a small publishing business and was approached by the guy who came up with the “For Dummies” series. He turned him down, as he didn’t think people buy books that called them a dummy.

  4. KT says:

    Do you read the blog: http://www.yarnagogo.com/? She is a romance writer who has just signed a deal with a big US publisher and a knitter!

  5. Kyra says:

    Isn’t the library the best?! It’s crazy all the wild stuff you can get there – I recently found this wild Kennedy lovefest documentary book called something like “Camelot” it was printed in 1969 and so wildly adoring of Jackie and John that I looked up after nearly every paragraph and proclaimed “is this writer serious?”

  6. OOH I love those Dummy books, but completely agree about the brightness and large font! The Idiot books are great too but again highly recognizable!!Congrats on writing your book!!

    Sorry to hear about your heater too!!

  7. If only I could drag my butt out of bed at 5:30 to write. MY brain just seem to work at that time of day. My best time is afternoon, with the kiddoes at school and I know I have a good 3 to 4 hours to delve into my little fantasy world.And BTW what do people find so fascinating about dummy books? Hmmmm??

    DW Golden

    Soar with fairies in Purple Butterflies, a new young adult novel now available at Amazon.

  8. Mama Thrift says:

    I can’t WAIT to read your book!

  9. Lindsay says:

    I completely agree! I have no problem taking books home from the library because the cover was pretty with, perhaps, no real intentions of reading it. If it could only be like that in all shops!

  10. ROBIN says:

    I find myself trying to get back in the writing every day routine-your blog is inspiring me. Thanks!

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