Art & Craft of Writing Series

Wow, is it fun to work in fiction!

In 2009 I launched my editing business and began work with my first fiction clients, my brain literally exploding with everything I wanted to say about fiction.

At that time, my husband had already sat through 11 years of animated dinner-table conversation on the subject. He’s the one who suggested that I start a business.

I wonder why?

I was still burbling with fiction—constantly, all day and night—so I sat down to write my first book on writing:

Art & Craft of Writing Fiction: First Writer’s Manual

I thought I would cover everything. It would be the ultimate book on writing and being a writer. . .but with jokes! We created La Favorita Press, with a logo based upon an old 1899 bullfighting advertisement that my parents found in an hacienda in Ecuador in 1972.

And in 2010 we published Fiction: First Writer’s Manual.

However, I hadn’t gotten very far into writing Fiction before I’d realized that I would not have room to cover everything. So I went right back to work writing a follow-up:

Art & Craft of Writing Stories: Second Writer’s Manual

There was still so much to say about storytelling! So much to say about character design and plot structure! There was still so much to say about how plot grows out of character through very specific organic steps, like a plant growing leaves or an animal growing organs. So much to say about language.

There was also—which will be news to none of you—so much to say about those twin occupational hazards: revision and despair. Revision. And despair. So I wrote about those, too. But again. . .I added jokes.

And in 2011 we published Stories: Second Writer’s Manual.

Then in 2015 I began studying the latest thing in self-publishing serial books, with involves offering a book permafree.

Unfortunately, both Fiction and Stories ring in at close to 400 pages apiece, so I wasn’t going to give away either of those permafree.

Fortunately, however, I have years’ worth of material about fiction on this blog. Even more fortunately, the posts that have gone (in their own modest way) viral are buried and therefore invisible to loyal readers.