How do you spell naive?

Please welcome today's guest blogger David Jones.

How do you spell naive?

I am a story teller. It shouldn’t be too hard to write a book—right? I have made sales presentations to groups from two to fifty, and kept them in the palm of my hand for an hour. I can spin a tale about my desire to go back to sea so convincingly you’d feel the beat of the engines rising from the steel plates of the deck, through your shoes. You’d feel the rise and fall of the swells in a gentle sea, and thrill at the glorious colors in the sunset. I’ve addressed an assembly of two thousand people and had them on the edge of their seats for a half hour. It’d be easy to write a book—right? How do you spell naïve?

There had been a story in my head for twenty years that I thought would make a good book. Finally I sat down and started writing. It’s a good story and will keep your attention. Half way through the book I was found by a lady who is an editor. All was good, she’d slap her ok on the writing and off to the publisher I go, carrying a bucket to hold all the money they’d give me. How do you spell naïve?

She started with sentence and paragraph structure, went to the punctuation, and then got to the technical things. “You’ve got misplaced modifiers here, passive voice there, and you use too many participial phrases. “Huh! I was last in a high school English class over sixty years ago. If they taught me about participial phrases, I was either looking at a girl or thinking about baseball.” I didn’t know a participial phrase from a dangling modifier.

My work was filled with mark outs, cross outs, cut outs and lines. I started over.  My editor is a former teacher and she went back to teaching, turning me slowly from a story teller into a writer. “Every word you write is important,” she repeated often. The young boy in the story didn’t want to take off his shoes after a day of hiking—he yearned to take them off.

My book is now published. Sales are moving along rather nicely. I am now an author, and in the eyes of the uninitiated, an authority. Recently a young lady approached me to discuss the writer’s craft. She was thinking of writing a book. “Do you have an editor?” I asked. “Oh”, she replied, “I just graduated from the University with a degree in English. I don’t need an editor. How do you spell naïve?”

About David:

D. Lincoln Jones

After a thirty-year career working for two Fortune 500 companies, D. Lincoln Jones ventured into the world of private business. As an entrepreneur, he has founded and served as the president of two corporations.

Always seeking new horizons, he has toured the West by motorcycle on his Honda Goldwing. When he settled, he became a student of art, excelling in working with pastels and colored pencil. His work is displayed in homes and small collections across the country. He is most proud of a sketch of Raggedy Ann and Andy, a gift to his granddaughter that she treasures.

Jones has been an avid reader since childhood, so his desire to write has come naturally. Among his favorite books are Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, Shogun by James Clavell, and The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.

High Grade is his first novel. A second is in progress.

David’s website: www.dlincolnjonesauthor.com