Little Willie Takes Top Spot

Perhaps it was only a coincidence but we made "How to Write Your Novel in Nine Weeks" available on Amazon.com on Sept. 27 and the next day Jeff Bezos announced a new lineup of Kindle devices.

You can find the book here.

Notice that Mr. Bezos put Willie's name first. Pushy little sock puppet.

And I'm continuing to upload the podcast to my YouTube channel.
Here's a sample:

First the writing, then the packaging

Years ago I volunteered at a Goodwill center to tutor someone who was interested in writing fiction. In his mid-twenties, this young man had thought a lot about the novel he wanted to write without thinking much about the writing.

"It's a horror story," he said.

"Uh huh."

"And it will have black pages with white ink."

"Uh huh."

And that was it.

Packaging matters but that comes later. Without the writing, there's nothing to package.

I think of him now and then when I see a website or blog featuring a black screen and a white font. Or one loaded with so much . . . stuff . . . it's hard to find the writer's words.

If you want to write your book (and here I mean complete your book) , forget the packaging and the widgets and focus on the writing. You can fiddle with all that other stuff after the manuscript is done.

Willie, Bill, Hamlet, and Mrs. Stein

I now have a channel on YouTube: BillDoddsBooks. Willie is a wee jealous. I'm uploading the podcast edition of "How to Write Your Novel in Nine Weeks." (All 60 episodes.)

Here's a sample. Willie yaps through this one. (Well, through all of them but . . . )

The sock puppet mentions "Mrs. Stein."A teacher has posted it here. It's become a big hit on the grade-school-speech-tournament-circuit. Here's one young fellow giving a perfomance:

Take that, Hamlet-Author!

A Sample of the Podcast

Here's a sample, Week 0 Day 2, from the podcast for "How to Write Your Novel in Nine Weeks."

(Yes, one needs to click the play button but you know that. I don't want to insult you.)

You can find all 60 episodes here. Ready to play, download, or both.

My Amazon author page

Having completed some writing for the day, it was time to fiddle.

I've posted an author page on Amazon.com.

It was interesting to see what books come up as "mine." I had to add a few the computer missed and delete one by a different "Bill Dodds."

Or perhaps I am the different one.

Odds are.

Write . . . first

New to blogging I'm finding myself spending a lot of time fiddling with how to make the page look better or place photographs on one side or steer visitors to my author page on Amazon.com.

All worthy goals but that's not writing, is it?

If you want to be a writer, if you want to remain a writer, right first.

Almost There

If all goes well, the book and podcast should be up by October 1. You can find a sample of the podcast here.