{"id":2179,"date":"2023-05-30T15:05:27","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T19:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2023-05-30T15:06:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T19:06:38","slug":"guest-post-connie-cockrell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=2179","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Connie Cockrell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Today, we’ve got a guest post from my friend Connie Cockrell<\/a>, who is sharing how she got started writing. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started writing in November, 2011. In mid-October, 2011, my daughter, Elizabeth, had just come home from her friends house and was all excited about an on-line event called National Novel Writing Month. This young woman was encouraging my daughter to join in the fun. Elizabeth explained that starting on November 1st<\/sup>, you started writing a novel. It had to be finished by November 30th<\/sup>. That meant writing at least 1667 words a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said, \u201cHow hard can that be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said, \u201cWell, if you think it\u2019s that easy, you try it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I\u2019d tried writing on and off for years. All of it went into the bit bucket. But I was willing to try again. I said,  \u201cI don\u2019t know how to write a novel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWait,\u201d she said. Then she hurried into her room and a few seconds later, (it\u2019s a small house), she came out and handed me a book. It was Larry Brooks book, Story Engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took it and looked it over. It wasn\u2019t a thick book and the chapters were laid out in a step one, two, three fashion, so I said, \u201cOK. But you have to write too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She nodded and I started reading the book. I had two weeks to read the book and plan out what I was going to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, I loved Story Engineering. It described writing as done by a film writer (which is what Larry Brooks did), it four acts instead of the usual three acts of a stage production but that was okay by me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I sped read the book and bought a pack of sticky notes and started. On the back of the computer room (also craft room, dumping spot for things we didn\u2019t know what to do with, and office), door, I started four columns, one for each act. I figured to write 50,000 words by the end of November I needed 40 \u2013 50 sticky notes with a chapter idea on each one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think by the end of October I only had 30 notes and at least two of the columns were barely populated but on November 1st<\/sup> I started and figured by the time I got to those spots, an idea would present itself. Well, it did. By November 30th<\/sup>, I\u2019d passed 50,000 words and the novel was complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My daughter, you ask? She got stuck where most writers do, in the middle, with nearly 26,000 words, she dropped her project. I now have 20 published books and at least 7 books in draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be done, with a little diligence and perseverance and a willingness to let your sub-conscience or muse or creative mind, whatever you call it, have free rein while you\u2019re writing. You\u2019ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Air Force career, computer operations company manager, wife, mother, sister and volunteer, provides a rich background for Connie Cockrell\u2019s stories. After 20 books, inclusion in 5 anthologies and published on EveryDayStories.com and FrontierTales.com, Connie’s still on the lookout for a good story idea. Beware, you may be next.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

www.everydaystories.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, we’ve got a guest post from my friend Connie Cockrell, who is sharing how she got started writing. Enjoy! I started writing in November, 2011. In mid-October, 2011, my daughter, Elizabeth, had just come home from her friends house and was all excited about an on-line event called National Novel Writing Month. This young …<\/p>\n

>>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,22],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-2179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-post","category-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2182,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}