Polishing My Writing

I'm always seeking to improve my writing skills.  An essential part of learning to self-publish is writing book blurbs and synopsis.  It's actually quite different from writing a novel.  Most authors dislike writing blurbs, and it's easy to understand why.  

Writing blurbs is actually a style of writing called copywriting.  It's all about making the book sound appealing, and is a special skillset.  There are techniques to learn and general guidelines to follow, just like in novel writing.  However, when writing novels, you're interested in crafting a compelling story with a certain structure, which is different from the structure of a blurb.

Still, I'm always up for learning more and new skills.  The more I do it, the more practiced I get.

What else has kept me so busy?  I've been working on new covers for both books.  Another skill I've been learning is cover design.  Again, the more I do it, the better I will get.  It's fun to play around and experiment, even if I don't use the designs I create.  However, I've got new designs for the series and I prefer them to the originals.

Also, while I have not been doing NaNoWriMo, I have been keeping track of my progress on book 3, just to see how I'm doing.  NaNoWriMo is national novel writing month.  The goal for those participating is to write a 50 000 word novel in the month of November.  I started book 3 of the Forest Guardians series on the 27th, of October, maybe, and I'm already over 30 000 words.  I have the writing pace of an established and experienced professional author.

Most of all, I'm loving writing the story.  Aili gets to go to a new forest, meet more Scouts, practice her healing with the best healers in the country, and deal with a soggy and grumpy Leya.  They aren't called rainforests for nothing!  You can look forward to the third novel in the series being released within a few months for sure.