Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel has proven to be a found treasure for me. I’ve been writing fictional stories since I could hold a pencil—though I’m sure the spelling was treacherous at the time. During my school years, English class was the only one to which I paid any attention. I lived for creative writing! Although I continued writing for fun after graduating, I greatly missed learning about the craft. I found a few podcasts on writing, but they didn’t provide the depth of knowledge I was seeking, nor fed the passion I was craving to more deeply reignite. Jim’s is perfect! It’s given me more confidence in my now-growing novel.

Every episode of this outstanding podcast moves me closer to my goal of becoming a published author. The advice is practical and the host comes across as authentic and personable, the kind of guy you’d love to hang out with as he shares stories from his years in the business. Every time he says “Isn’t that wonderful?” (about a character’s name or an author’s eloquent turn of phrase), I nod in agreement. Thanks for the advice and encouragement, Jim.

I enjoy listening to Jim‘s podcast (I just omitted the word really from the previous sentence tehee). He gets down to Business tells us what we need to know and I learn a lot. Other podcasts get into personal chitchat, to much giggling. Those are not podcasts I want to spend my time on. Thank you, Jim, Elaine.

I love the “wise folksiness” of Jim’s delivery. It makes the whole thing better. In this world of highly scripted and large staff-edited podcasts, his style is a refreshing way to revel in his deep knowledge of the world of writing. He speaks naturally as if in conversation with you and has a great sense of humor, throwing in little vignettes about his travels or his cat Jack jumping up on the desk during recording. I’m jotting down great ideas more than I have with other podcasts and it’s actually useful as a combination of a tool and entertainment. Jim is just a pleasure to listen to!