Get Your Vision Board Iphone/Ipod App and start moving toward your dreams today! Books by this Author 301+ Ways to Get Ahead: Business Success from Home If you want to kiss your boss good-bye, this book could be your ticket to a home-based business. Lots and lots of examples of possible home-based activities are included along with stories of real people from across the county who have their own businesses, from accountants to zen instructors.   How Branson Got Started How Branson Got Started is the captivating story of how a small Missouri town -- less that 5,000 people -- has become the world's live entertainment capital.   Internet Success with Fred This is a very good introduction to the Internet. If you're smart enough to get this book, you won't need another because you'll learn by doing.   The Emmett Till Book What happened to cause a young African American student's lynching in the Mississippi Delta? When Emmett "BoBo" Till threatened Mississippi's rigid Jim Crow laws this fourteen-year-old paid with his life. Till's murderers were set free yet his death spurred Rosa Parks to take her important stand in Montgomery. In this 50th anniversary, the case has finally been reopened with new and intriguing information.   Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited Discover unresolved Mississippi murders - untold stories of the civil rights era. Susan Klopfer's "Where Rebels Roost" reveals new information about unique, persevering and brave people -- many who were murdered and forgotten.   Unlimited Autoresponders! Unlimited AdTracking! Free 30 Day Trial! http://www.trafficwave.net Feature Articles: Contest Advice for Screenplay Writers... Novel to Screenplay: The Challenges of Adapta... A Writer's Secret Place... Click here for more >>

She took me by the hand down to the local newspaper office (where they loved her) and explained that I needed work. At first, I was given the old-fashioned task of "paste up" but that didn't last very long because my hands shook and got sweaty. The editor was sympathetic, though, and decided to show me some methods of approaching news writing. It worked. I liked my new job and stayed for six whole months!

After returning to college, I took several journalism classes, got married, and started finding jobs on small town newspapers as we moved from Texas to Oregon, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada and Mississippi.

Writing is not an impossible task. Some people, like my mom, are natural writers. And they write beautiful fiction and nonfiction articles and books with seemingly little effort. The rest of us have to work harder.

Over the years, I've found that writing simply requires that you are interested in SOMETHING and then take the time to learn more about your interest and stay focused. (At times, it has helped me to be desperate!)

The writing part takes practice. Think about your favorite books. What kept you interested? Did you notice anything about the author's style that you could relate to? What's happening in your life that would make a good story? If you can tell a good story, then nothing should stop you from writing it down (in a notebook or typing it on a computer screen). The key is to start writing.

One trick to get started involves the use of note cards. If you have a topic and have completed your research, start writing one idea at a time on individual note cards. After you've completed several dozen cards, sort your cards into related piles. Then stack the piles into a logical order and you have an outline!

Ideas can come from your surroundings.

Once I met a unique couple who had performed as Russian circus stars and then defected to the United States. We wrote a Russian cookbook together -- the husband sketched images of their life in Russia and his wife came up with the recipes she learned to cook while traveling as a performer.

IN OUR MID 50s, my husband Fred and I moved from Nevada to the Mississippi Delta. We had no real idea where we were going geographically and no sense of the region's history when we first arrived. But this shift away from our familiar West Coast turned into a fascinating adventure that even birthed two books.

Despite the difficulty in finding the region's formal history, I found people with stories to tell. In small cafes, in parks, at the antique stores, and in the colleges and at newspaper offices.

It seemed as if they had been saving their stories just for me! I found old newspaper articles to read, some wonderful books, as well.

Soon I was speaking to historians, authors, teachers, bankers, sociologists, ministers, old civil rights volunteers and after 23 months, the book, Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited --literally, the biggest book I've ever written -- was completed.

WRR features:

--A nine-page Selected Bibliography/Citations: 73 books; 3 dissertations; 47 articles; 32 collections, interviews, oral histories.

--Twenty-pages/Lists of Dead/References 900+ names and information of African Americans lynched and murdered in Mississippi from 1870 to 1970 (references Southern Law & Poverty Center, NAACP, Tuskegee Institute, individual family and friends, personal research).

--Sixteen-pages/160+ names of Emmett Till principles/names and biographies of people close to this case, from lawyers, witnesses, judges and jurors to police, politicians, friends and families.

--New details on the murders of two teachers, Birdia Keglar and Adlena Hamlett, who were killed after meeting with U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy; covered-up facts surrounding the murder of Rev. Cleve McDowell, a Delta civil rights attorney who was murdered in 1997; new information on dozens of other Delta cold cases.

--Hundreds of specific Sovereignty Commission documents cited with references given, including references to secret CoIntelPro operations against blacks and anti-segregationists, with over 1100 footnotes!

Where Rebels Roost represents the most interesting project I've ever taken on. It is a project that I keep coming back to, and I hope that you can someday find such a book in you that is worth giving your heart and soul into its telling.

There are many good journalism books that can help you through the learning curve. Two that I recommend are The AP Style Book (great resource and "rule" book) and Telling True Stories (good meat and potatoes for how to write nonfiction in an interesting way).