There has never been a better time to be a writer.

Yet the challenges are greater than ever.

The computer age has given us a multitude of tools to simplify, streamline and facilitate our task as writers. Routes to publication have multiplied into a dizzying, confusing array. Yet benevolent sponsors and hand-holding publishers have all but disappeared. Nowadays, we must “go it alone.”

This blog arose from the personal experience of a life-long writer who late in life discovered that he was, in fact, a WRITER – and the subsequent year-long quest to learn just what is the writer’s world today. Many of you will recognize the journey.

Eyesight & Hindsight — Typing & Writing

As a child, many years ago, I had extremely bad eyesight. I mean extremely bad. My eyeglasses stressed the abilities of opticians. “Goggle-eyes,” my playmates called me.

My parents had an idea, one that improbably set the direction of my life. At age 11, I was to learn how to type. As the only eleven-year-old typist in my school, a cozy, private one to protect me from the rough-and-tumble, I naturally became the editor of the brand-new school newspaper. Essentially, that meant I was the one who cut the mimeograph stencils.

As a high school junior, I took touch typing as my elective course. That was unheard of in 1955-1956: the only boy ever to have joined the army of girls in pre-secretarial training.

In any case, I can truly say that I’ve been typing all of my life. However, I’ve never thought of myself as a “typist.”

Without thinking about it, I also started writing while very young. I learned that as editor of the school newspaper, even though a lowly fifth grader, I carried a certain prestige. I liked it. Before long, I was the darling of my English teachers in high school — a public one now, as my parents thought it essential to draw myself out of my private shell. Aging Mrs. Stevenson declared I was the best she’d ever seen at diagramming sentences, which in those days was the pinnacle of English skills.

In college, I became the “journalist with a cause,” the most out-spoken writer on The Davidsonian. The Editor-in-Chief was traditionally elected by the entire student body each Spring from the rising class of seniors-to-be. My “politics” were too radical: I came in second and served as Assistant Editor. It was a position that opened the door for a summer job at my home-town newspaper, the Winston-Salem Journal, as a trainee, someone who was fast-tracked to become a full-time staff member after graduation.

I discovered that journalism was too impersonal, intrusive and imprecise for me. I turned instead to teaching — English, of course, and history too. Within years, with my journalistic background, I was suddenly and unexpectedly elevated to the Director of Communications at The Choate School, a New England boarding school. I found myself responsible for publishing the school’s quarterly alumni journal, catalog, fund-raising materials and whatever else required a “writer.” While I later moved from institution to institution, the course of my professional career was set.

So again, I have spent my entire life writing. But I never considered myself a “writer.” Never, that is, until 2005, at age 67.

The change in attitude was unanticipated, yet unsurprising. At long last, I now found myself truly writing a BOOK. Not this one, but a major historical treatise. A BOOK!

My god, I thought. I’m actually writing something important. Not some feature article dashed off in a day. Not a fund-raising pitch to coax money from pinched pockets. Not even a passionate editorial about some subject of personal concern. This time, I’m writing a BOOK.

My perspective changed almost overnight.

Discovering the world of “The Writer”

The book project presented me with a problem: it seemed just too large and complicated for Microsoft Word, and the bibliographical and footnoting requirements appeared almost impossible to handle, especially since I’ve forgotten how to use hand-written index cards. Moreover, I began to fret – how do I sell this project to a publisher?

The book arrived on top of a rather productive “retirement” career as a writer of feature articles, almost all snapped up hungrily by low-paying publications in Manila and Puerto Vallarta, where I split my time between residences. As a “WRITER,” I realized I should be earning more money from these efforts.

These questions and concerns set me on an obsessive – at age 67, there wasn’t any time to waste — quest to learn all I could about the world of writing. To be honest, I’m astonished at what I learned.

To keep track of my discoveries, I tossed them as they occurred into a capable outlining program on my laptop. The outline grew and grew, way beyond my imagination. Fortunately, the program facilitated the effort, allowing easy reorganization of the information and allowing me to “collapse” the details into a simple overview. After a year, I discovered that yet a second book had grown, unawares, right there on my laptop. The information I’ve gathered just seems too important to keep to myself.

At the top of my list of discoveries are the multitude of software tools designed to make the writer’s life easier. Everything from alternative word prcocessors, to scheduling tools, to bibliographic databases, to submission tracking programs. I also gained insight into the broad-reaching scale of the writer’s world and into ways to join the community.

Out of curiosity, I’ve visited bookstores and university libraries and fingered my way through shelf after shelf of books for writers. No one yet, it seems, has pulled my own discoveries together into a presentation designed to save aspiring writers months of time treading the same paths of discovery. There was no choice for me: this book simply had to be written. Especially since all the legwork had been done and the material organized into outline form.

Getting The Most From This Book [or Blog]

There are two levels of content here. The first is QUICK START information, aimed at helping a writer get up and running as quickly as possible. I’ve identified tools and resources with which a writer “can’t go wrong.” In a second level of information, I present many of the other, often similar resources available to the writer who simply must, as I did, try out all of them.

Most of the resources covered in the book are available online. Many are free programs; just download, install and use. Others are shareware demos, allowing the writer anywhere from 15-to-30 days free use, after which one is encouraged to buy. In addition, there are countless links to online sites of interest to writers – just click and go.

Many of the resources here will change over time. New software programs and upgrades to old ones will doubtless appear in a steady stream. Websites for writers will come and go. Moreover, other writers will certainly chime in with their own experiences and discoveries.

Therefore, this “book,” if you can call it that, will take shape and be delivered in a variety of ways. In fact, the book becomes its own “case study” in new routes to publication.

First, chapters in the book will come out in serial fashion on the internet, where it can be read for FREE. As it emerges, readers will have opportunities to feed back their own observations, strategies and suggestions. Chapters, over time, will certainly evolve, incorporating new information and broadening perspectives.

Second, for the impatient and those who work best from hard copies, the entire book will be available for purchase via a print-on-demand publisher, along with eBook versions for the seriously impatient. Readers will save money with the purchase, compared to printing out posts as the appear online. However, the book one buys today will probably be different from the copy one buys three months from now, as the latest changes will be introduced as they occur – instant “second-editions,” so to speak.

The objective is to get this material out to as many writers as possible, and in the freshest form possible. The hub of this effort is the book’s website: www.becoming-a-writer-seriously.com

Some advice for readers: study the screenshots in this book very closely. They are there not as decoration. You will discover that by studying the screenshots, looking at the various program tabs, drop-down menus, even the information in the program’s main screen, you will learn almost first-hand just how the program “thinks” and organizes things. All screenshots show an actual writer at work on an actual project.

A final word: please pass on to me whatever feedback you have to the material in the book, any discoveries you yourself have made. Many of these will be shared at the website for the benefit of all.

Thanks for entering into this book. And good luck on your own adventure as a writer.

Thomas B. Colvin

BLOG SITE: www.becoming-a-writer-seriously.com

PERSONAL WEBSITE: www.words-sounds-images.com