Introduction - An Author

The best way to success is to emulate those that have gotten to where I want to be. 

That begs the question.  Where is it that I want to be as an author?

That is multifaceted.  I want to present stories that people will find interesting enough to pay me something for them.  Then interested enough to want to read something else I write in the future.

What is the likelihood that is going to happen?  I have read about and listened to plenty of interviews with a great many authors.  The overall gist of it is nearly all of them started young.  They wrote in grade school, high school and college.  They worked to receive degrees in literature and English.  Many of them taught English and writing before breaking out as renown authors. 

Then a few, prodigies, if you will can find success in their twilight years.  I am not a prodigy.  I have to struggle with honing writing skills I learned sixty years ago.  I don't have a string of writing accomplishments that I can tout to agents and publishers.  What can I do?

I can do as I said in the first sentence.  There is a formula.  There is a way to reach out and present my work.  This blog site is part of that.  Of course, it is predicated on my writing something worth reading.

First off, let me introduce myself.  I am Emmett J Hall.  I have retired from the U.S. Navy after 24 years.  Then I retired from Government Service as an Information Specialist Engineer working at a Naval Hospital.  

That is simple and sets my age at around 70.  Few authors succeed in the last third of their life.  Yet, some have and if I can turn a good yarn, I might as well be one of them.  At the very least, I won't be spitting out books at one a month or even several a year. If I can get a few on the shelves and one on Audible.com I'll be extremely pleased.

Now, to the art of writing.  Wow, are there so many how-to books.  Many by famous authors.  I've read plenty of them.  They are helpful.  Even in my writers group, I've been voted as the most improved. 

One of the things I haven't done much with so far is marketing.  Making myself know, getting a greater presence in the social media world.  At this point, where I am passing through the halfway point of my first novel I am beginning to turn my thoughts to the marketing side of the business of being an author.

Ha, I even opened a Twitter account.  EJHall10.  Not really sure how that is going to work for me, but we'll see.

The purpose of this blog is to be a chronical of my writing journey.  I think it might be of interest to others in their writing journey.  And it will be a more interest to more people if I someday succeed and my name is better known by the readership. 

Let us begin. I will post occasional short stories.  They are a nice diversion to writing on a novel day after day.  I will post thoughts and ideas about my first novel. 

I am not terribly good at grammar.  I know it.  I am getting better, but I intend to have an editor fix all the structural and grammar errors when I finish.  If you purist want to beat me up on grammar, that's fine.  I am not so concerned about it unless it makes the story flow better.

Thanks for joining my on this trek.

EJ Hall