Here's something from my mailbag. "Dear Michael, do you need to do good in school if you want to be a writer? I stink at school and all my friends laugh at me when I tell them I want to write, but I'm serious." Followed by a sentence or two of "I need your words to encourage me" or some such nonsense. Fortunately, a writing sample is rarely attached. If it is, either it's excellent or it stinks like rancid yak butter. Do you have to be good in school? Given what's passing for English in some places, I'd certainly like to see more effort given to school. If you're a student reading this, please try to learn something while you can. If you aspire to be an author and you did poorly in school, or if you're just plain uneducated, don't let it stop you. What we do as authors isn't taught in school. They teach grammar, and bless them. I can't teach that subject. If you're very fortunate, you'll stumble across some te...

As a student of Spanish, my goal was to think in Spanish. Skip the word-by-word translation so I'd have the necessary speed to speak and listen. I know words in Spanish that I'd be hard pressed to translate. Usually profanity, I confess. Chingow! Back when I taught English in China, my students studied grammar for years, and knew it better than you or I. They read. They wrote. But speaking involves moving faster than that. In conversation, we don't have time to write it first and make sure it's all grammatically flawless, then read it aloud, perhaps after a bit of rehearsal. So, I tried to give them a chance to practice putting words together on the fly, rules be damned. The rules they'd internalized would kick in and keep them comprehensible, which would build their confidence in their ability to keep creating conversation that way. This is not unlike what we go through as authors. First we study rulebooks, perhaps take some classes, and conclude just about...

I read voraciously, a habit I recommend to any author who doesn't already have it. You'll subconsciously pick up on what does and doesn't work. Characterization, dialogue, pacing, plot, story, setting, description, etc. But more importantly, someone who doesn't enjoy reading will never write something that someone else will enjoy reading. I don't write 'for the market.' I know I can't, so I just write for me and then try to find readers who like what I like. I'm not trying to whip up the next bestseller and get rich. Not that I'd complain. Nope, I have to write what's in my heart, then go find a market later. It makes marketing a challenge at times, but I wouldn't have it any other way. When you write, be a dreamer. Go nuts. Know that you're writing pure gold. That fire is why we write. An author who I truly admire, Kurt Vonnegut, sweated out each individual sentence. He wrote it, rewrote it, and didn't leave it alone unti...

(Author's Note: I wrote this in 2005. I live in North Carolina now. One day I'll write about turn signals.) Photo by Jimmy Chan , via Pexels Let's pretend that you live in China. Let's also pretend that, unlike me, you own a car. A Volkswagen Santana, of course. Who do you honk the horn at? Well, you honk at everyone who's in your way, and who you think is in your way, and who you are passing, and who you think is trying to pass you. Every bicycle needs a honk in case the driver can't see you. Every pedestrian, most definitely, because they're not looking at anything except their feet as they float out in front of you, or the text messages they're sending on their cell phones. Every car does this, and the roads become a constant cacophony of car horns. The noise is such that everybody tunes it out in order to function, so the horns are pointless. Nobody is listening to the horns. Some of us wear MP3 players cranked up to full volume specificall...

1) After you finish writing it, put your document away for a while. Hours, days, weeks or even months. You want to look at it with "fresh eyes." Instead of seeing what you meant to write, you want to see what you actually did write. 2) Use the spelling and grammar features in your word processor. They aren't perfect - ask anybody - but if you know the rules, you can decide which suggestions to accept and which to ignore. 3) Know your weaknesses. Keep a list of errors you tend to make often, and use your word processor's search feature to help you find them. 4) Print your manuscript and edit it on paper. Away from the computer. You'll see more. I mark the printout with a pen, then go back to the computer to tinker, then print and repeat as needed. Different fonts, too, for the change of perspective. 5) Use a straightedge. If you're reading on paper, it can be a ruler. If you're reading on the computer screen, situate the document so the line you...

Image by Peggy and Marco Lachmann-Anke, via Pixabay Back in the mid to late 1980s I was a security guard. The pay was lousy, but it gave me many hours in seclusion to write short stories and novels. However, I usually worked over 80 hours a week. No one can write that much. Well, at least not me. Thus I discovered the joys of my local libraries. Recently, I decided to look up an author who gave me great pleasure in those days. Most of his books are now out of print, I've learned, even the one that became a movie. I found that two of his were books available, so I ordered them. One I'd enjoyed before. The other was a straight thriller from the days before he created the "Appleton Porter" spy spoofs, re-released in 2001 in POD. I didn't know this before it arrived at my home in China. Since I'm giving away THE plot spoiler, I won't identify the author or title. A man who deeply loves his wife buys her a hotel outside London. She is very happy th...