Well, Scott, it's August. If you are reading this you have survived in a pandemic world for another month. Congratulations! You've done something right, apparently, and if you're anything like me you realize that just waking up can be an act of heroism. So you are all my heroes. Thank you for choosing not to die.

I firmly hold to the belief that everyone has a story to tell. In fact, there is a wooden sign hanging above my office door, meant to encourage myself, which I will share now hoping that it might do the same for any writers who subscribe to my newsletter (and I'd like to thank you for doing so if I haven't already.)

I have both. I buy myself nice journals now and I write my books on nifty word processing program published by an up and coming company out of Redmond, Washington. But this wasn't always the case.

My point is any piece of paper, and anything that will make a mark on that paper is all you need. That and the decision to sit down and mess up that blank page.

I recommend starting by just writing down the idea as you heard it in your head. Almost everyone can talk. Try saying the idea out loud, like you would if you were telling someone about it. "I had this idea for a story and it goes like this..."

That's your starting point.

Obviously turning the idea, even as magnificently as you heard it in your head, into a story is another thing altogether. That's where the writing comes in, and that's what separates "writers" from "people who have a story idea." 

BUT just getting the idea down on paper is a good place to start, and often times people find that once they see the idea on paper they just start writing the story and suddenly they realize that they're able to do something they never thought they could.

There has never been a book, one that you've heard of, or the one that's currently #1,119,017 on the Amazon best-sellers (in case you're wondering that's the current rank of The Terror of Tijuana, by S.J. Varengo), that wasn't an idea first. 

You started your story just like Tolstoy started War and Peace (currently #5,835 on the Amazon best-sellers list).

If you want to be a writer... you can be... by writing. It is really that simple. 

It doesn't mean you'll be a good writer. 

But we can work on that too.

Also in the next issue of News and Musings, some NEWS about my next release.

... and you think you've created something pretty special, there are lots of places you can submit your work to find out if the judges are as smart as you are. However, because I'm not a big fan reinventing the wheel, I will refer you (once again) to the newsletter of my friend Angelique L'Amour, which features a list of major literature prizes every month. Follow the link to her website, find "For Writers" in her top menu, signup for her newsletter, and start reaping the rewards.