Expert or not, credentials or without, everybody has life experiences so allowed their one voice to speak out or write about and share it with the world. The Internet gives all those with access the ability to take advantage of their one voice. Anybody should be entitled to an opinion. It is up to the individual reader to decide if the opinion/advice benefits them or ignore it and move on.

When I first started, I was afraid to self-publish and pay-to-print for a thousand paperback books (back then 1998 – $500 roughly), it was because of grammar. Like during high school arguing with the English teacher about a comma, “I really wanted to pause there”; I was afraid my self-published masterpiece was not perfect. I really did not care if nobody wanted to buy my novel and I did not care if nobody wanted to read my novel. I wanted it, perfect.

With the Internet and I can edit anytime on a Blog; the fear is gone. But so is the steady income to pay for printing.

You obviously have the English Grammar background not to worry about commas and introductory elements belonging at the end.

Go Write It!

I am sure you can find another job, but I was told by someone who had written and paid for more than 30 novels to “keep my day job”. She meant it. It was not a rude remark that I was a terrible writer. She meant to have the income from the job to live on and write at night and on weekends, until you can replace the regular salary with the income from writing.

The craft of writing is much the same. I’ve been in many college workshops and written a good number of short stories and creative nonfiction pieces, but all that practice did not make me an expert. The practice only prepared me for the path of becoming an expert. And now I have over 200 blog posts. I’m 1.5 years into writing my first book, and I still feel like a newbie writer. Maybe it’s because I know how far I have to go, that I am willing to concede that yes, it will take time to get there.

Good to know…