But the one style of poetry that I write most is the free verse. Free verse does not require your words to be written in any special way. It can rhyme or not rhyme. Either way it is still artistic writing that comes from the writer’s heart. This type of writing has been around for hundreds of years. I love for my mind and my fingers to freely let the words flow.

Free verse is a spoken or written form of communication that can be musical effects of rhythm and sound. There were a few poems that I had written that I decided to make into music. And it sounded good. I love the fact that this style of poetry writing gives you the option to go in any direction that you want to go with your poetry.

But surprisingly, most writers do not consider free verse poetry to be “free”. T.S. Eliot wrote, “No verse is free for anyone who wants to do a good job.” But, to me, it all depends on your love for writing. It can be as free as you want it to be, and still be the best job you have ever done.

Even though free verse has no rhythm, when a reader reads the free verse poem, they can hear the rhythm of the words that has been used in the writer’s poem. A poet can create whatever rhythm they want to when they free verse.

In conclusion, free verse poetry does not follow any rules. It is free to go in whatever direction the writer wants it to go in. Free verse is based on a writer’s own rules and personal opinions or thoughts. The poet has the right to create the structure to express certain sounds and words. So, of the fifty different poems that is out there, free verse is just what it says. It is freedom of expression in whatever fashion that you wish for it to have. So, follow your heart and free verse away!

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Research: Verifying the Publisher

The first thing you must do during the publishing process of your book is to do your research. Find out which companies you wish to publish your book with or that is accepting your kind of book. After you have your list of companies that you wish to investigate, check each company with the Better Business Bureau. I also called the copyright lawyer and asked them a few questions about the publishing companies that I was interested in publishing my book with. After you get the okay then the next step is to pick which company you wish to publish your book with.

Selling Through a Publisher

After you get the approval from doing your necessary research, then your next step is to send off a sample of your writing to the company of your choice. Make sure your manuscript is exactly as they want you to have it before you send it off. When you find a publisher that accepts your manuscript then you will move on to your final stage of becoming a published author. That final stage is promoting yourself. Never leave all the work to the publisher. Keep up with your own sales and never ever fully depend on the publisher to do everything for you. I made that mistake and did not get what I should have gotten from all the sales that I made from my very first book.

Promoting Your Book

As a first-time author I did not know how to go about promoting my book. I did the worst thing I could have done and let the publisher do all the work for me. Doing this did not get me any profit let alone sales. A year passed before I finally had the common sense to post my book on social media and that’s when I started getting all kinds of sales on my book. I made over thirty sales on my first promotion which was on Facebook. I sold so many copies of my book and still did not receive a royalty check. The publishing company claimed that if I purchase my books from them then I do not get a royalty check. I did not do everything I needed to do to make sure that I was going about this sale of my book the right way.

Even though I was so excited to get my very first book published, I was not happy with the results of how it all went. And even though I did my research at the beginning I shouldn’t have stopped there. I should have done my research all the down to the sales and the payment of my royalty check. With all the sales that I made of my book I should have gotten something. But I learned from my mistakes and I will be very prepared for the publishing of my second book.

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Knowing I had decided to return to school, I was doing more planning than I had ever done. But, I realized that planning ahead helped me to stay ahead.

After struggling so much through high school, I had my mind set on not going back to college. Fear of failure kept me from going to college. But because of my love for writing, I decided to go back to college.

When I finished high school I decided to skip college and just focus on writing. I ended up getting one book published, The Perfect Gentleman, but my knowledge of the publishing world needed working on. I attended schools through the mail but they just didn’t work out. After really giving it some thought I decided that maybe I should reconsider going to college. But I had help with my decision. My son also played a role in my going back to school. I couldn’t make up my mind on whether I should go back to school or not. When he first started going to school, Corban asked me what I was going to be doing while he was at school. I said I didn’t know so he told me to go to school. It only confirmed what I couldn’t make my mind up on.

When I realized I was going to get a BA in English, I was really worried. In high school, English was one of my weakest subjects. But as I got in school, I felt that I was about to be strengthened in one of the main courses I wanted to strengthen. I felt I could definitely benefit from going to college by increasing my understanding on writing, promoting, and publishing my book. It was the main three areas of my writing that needed working on. And since being in college, I felt I had made some progress. I learned to take notes, study, and give reasonable time to learning new things which helped me to generate ideas.

I had to have changes made in my lifestyle in order for me to pursue my degree. So much of my life was given to helping and doing for other people. I had to let go of a lot of things that was unnecessarily taking so much of my time. Now that I was in school, I had to finally give myself some me time.

There was a lot of obstacles in my life that was trying to prevent me from doing my best in college. My health, my family, so many doctor’s appointments. Trying to keep up with everything was hard along with keeping up with school work. But like I’ve learned in Ashford’s classes it was good to write out a schedule to follow. I did that and it made things a whole lot easier to handle.

I don’t regret the decision I made of going back to school. It helped me in so many ways. And I finally felt I was doing something that was worth my time.

Life as a published author can sometimes be a challenge. Every writer should know as much as possible about the publishing world., it lets people know where you stand as a writer, it prevents someone from claiming your work, and it lets publishers, agents, and other writers know that you’re not walking in with your eyes closed. Putting more time into studying, planning, learning new things, generating ideas, and being willing to accept feedback or advice can also help in the long run. It will add to what you already know.

People respect you more when you know what you’re doing. I learned from experience that you should never just rush into anything. It will not help you if you do not know anything about what you are trying to make a goal or career at.

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