Writing to me is … Guest Post by Karen Pokras Toz

Writing To Me Is…

by Karen Pokras Toz

…A new endeavor.  Had you asked me to finish this sentence five years ago, I might have said that writing to me was a chore. It was something that didn’t interest me one bit.  I was a reader – not a writer. But a story in my head kept nagging at me, asking to be put to paper. So, two years ago, I decided to give it a try. An amazing thing happened. I found out I enjoyed writing. In fact, I quickly became infatuated with this new activity I had discovered. Here I was, a 40 something year old woman giddy over this new passion. I wrote every day – the words flowed fast and furious, and before I knew it, I had an 85,000-word novel written. It was awful! But it didn’t matter, as I had discovered something so fulfilling, I was not about to let it escape me. So instead, I worked at improving my art. I found a writing coach, joined critique groups, and asked everyone and anyone for advice. The advice was consistent: “You have a young voice – you would make a great children’s author.”

I took this advice to heart, put aside my first manuscript, and began developing my popular character, “Nate Rocks” – 4^th grader extraordinaire and star of Nate Rocks the World, and newly released, Nate Rocks the Boat.

So now when you ask me, “Writing to me is…” I answer: “proof you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.” A lesson I try to convey in the Nate Rocks Series and beyond.

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Charlotte’s Mini Autobiography

Author Charlotte E English

The questions writers and self-publishing authors are always being asked are: why do you do it? Why devote so many hours of your finite existence to spinning stories? How did you ever end up doing this crazy job? And why in the world would you self-publish?

Everyone’s got a different answer to those questions, but they’re usually variations on the same theme. Something along the lines of… “Well, I don’t precisely know, but here’s my theory”.

Ever tried to read your own brain? To figure out precisely what makes you who you are? It’s no easy task, and I know I can’t do it. Not really. It is hard to determine exactly why I do what I do, but I can make an attempt. So here’s my story: a mixture of facts and theories and guesses. It’s the best I can do.