This should have been the first post about writing. Somehow it got moved from there to here. I wanted to give you a little background about my writing life.

I been writing since the early 1990s. I got published within a year or so by winning a short story contest put on by the Fort Worth Star Telegram newspaper. My prize was having the story published in the newspaper and a luncheon with panel discussion about writing at a posh Fort Worth restaurant. This was sponsored yearly by the public library and the newspaper. I don’t remember how much the tickets cost, but I received two, so dragged my husband along. The story had to be no more than one thousand words, and I took one I’d already written and squeezed the excess words out of it and got it just under that mark. Even now, I know I could improve it by adding a few words. Thus I gave myself a writing hat.

But that’s not how it usually goes. Usually a story improves by deleting about 10% from your first draft. (But if I remember right, I had to squeeze out even more than 10% from that story.) This lesson, and many others I’ve learned along the way, I hope to share with you here. Since that first short story acceptance, I’ve had more than fifty others accepted and published. I’ve also had a novel published by a now-defunct small, independent publisher, and  I’m getting several more self-published in the next year or two.

I don’t think this makes me a fabulous expert, but I do know some things that are definitely true and helpful about getting published. So, if that’s your goal, stick around and join in the discussions by commenting. Argue with me—I won’t mind. Agree with me, tell me how you do things—I’ll love that.

If you have any questions you’d like to ask me about my writing life, ask away. I’ll be checking in every so often to comment on all the comments. I hope you’ll enjoy reading here as much as I know I will writing here.