My pen name is R Shannon and I started writing in late 2019. I self-published my first novel on KDP on 10/01/2020. The name of it is Groomed for Marriage.
I am set to retire from many careers in February 2023 at which time I hope to devote myself more to giving back to the DIY Writing Community. I learned everything I know today from the generous people who have shared their ideas, skills, and knowhow with the #writingcommunity on YouTube, their books, and their personal websites.
I have published 7 novels and am about to release my 8th book around August of 2022. The purpose of this blog is to help other people who are just beginning too. I have done HOURS AND HOURS of research and my hope is to save you some hours of research.
Most of what I'm sharing comes from other authors. My contribution is to try in some way to organize the information in some curriculum so that a newbie can learn what they need for the process of writing to publication to self-marketing.
I started writing in Word, but the tool that launched me as a writer was Scrivener. This is a reasonably-priced software that allows you to always have a bird's eye view of all that is happening. It can also be used to do initial plotting, outlining, writing the book, and even marketing. When I purchased it, it was $99 and it made all the difference in the world.
WRITING TIP:
This is a screen shot from Scrivener during the initial of writing. As you can see, I can keep track of new days, and chapters on the left-hand side, the writing itself is in the middle, and on the right hand side are various other tools, but this shot is showing the keywords. #writingtip
HOW I USE SCRIVENER KEYWORDS:
For this novel series, I use the keywords to allow me to name every relationship in the chapter. Then at the end, I can select only one keyword and track the character arc and/or the action in that plot or subplot. I didn't use keywords as a brand new writer, but I wish I knew this was a tool I could use. It is so very helpful. #writingstrategies