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In the Creative Writing class I'm taking at the moment We've just started reading Three Tides: Writing at the Edge of Being by Cecile Pineda . I decided I'd review it, serially, as we read it. This week, we read the Introduction and Forward only. So far, Pineda has described her writing process as encompassing 3 basic parts: Emptying, Gathering, and Making Something. She apparently intends to expound on these concepts in the ensuing sections, mostly, or partly, through memoir, I believe. Certain phrases stood out enough for me to highlight them, mostly because I loved them.  Phrases like, "No one can teach anyone how to write. Someone can teach you how to spell ..." "Writing takes forgiveness ... At first, it just needs to be allowed to do what it's doing ..." and "The how of what artists do is never easily explained. Even artists themselves find the alchemy of their art inexplicable." stand out as some of my favorites.

In a bid to get some eyes on my new book, Freaky Shitty Things, and Men I decided to try a few of the paid promotional sites I've encountered online. I chose these three on the basis of liking the services they offered and the prices they were asking. Seeing as how I am just dipping my toe in with paying for promotional services I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg. Digital Book Today | Promote My New Free Book program - I'll be having a free weekend soon on Amazon. So, this seemed like a good thing to try to get some attention during that time frame. They have an option for promoting your book if it's a certain length and has a certain number of reviews on Amazon, but I didn't meet either requirement, so I did THIS VERSION . Cost: $15 - I will let you know how it goes after the promo is over. Books & the Bear | Social Media Promotion - It's a basic social media blast, designed and implemented by them, and sent to their audience of 210,000+ . Average ...

I downloaded You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins on Audible the other day while battling a cold. Topics covered in the book include the motivational (picking yourself and not waiting for someone's permission to call yourself a writer) to the practical (the importance of building a platform and a brand). While I admit some of this was just common sense, some of it was genuinely new and helpful information for a self-publishing newbie like myself. And even the parts which weren't particularly revelatory, were still important on the level of reinforcement. Sometimes it helps just to be given that "just do it" pep talk one more time. I can't say that I would turn evangelist over this book, but I would definitely recommend it.