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Homeschooling: Take a Deep Breath--You Can Do This! by Terrie Lynn Bittner
Terrie Lynn Bittner
I am the author of Homeschooling: Take a Deep Breath--You Can Do This! Sometime in the next year, my second book, Home a Little Longer--Preschool and Kindergarten at Home, will be released.
My writing career began many years ago when my children were small. I had been tucking my work away in desk drawers and filing cabinets for years, but my daughter's creative writing mentor decided I needed a mentor of my own and gave me a one-month deadline in which to submit a manuscript to a magazine. I dropped it in the mailbox on the last day! Naturally, it was rejected, since it's almost a law that your first submission must be rejected, but eventually, I did begin making sales. About the time big magazines started leaving notes on my rejections saying, "Near miss" or "Try again," I realized I needed to give up freelancing for a while to focus on family. Although many do, I was unable to juggle family, homeschooling, and a writing career, and family came first.
To keep up my skills, I wrote a stress-free online column, maintained a homeschooling website with articles, and fooled around with just-for-fun writing. Eight years later, my children no longer needed a homeschooling teacher and I started contemplating returning to my writing career. At that very time, a publisher contacted me about writing a homeschooling book and I was back in business.
The goal of this site is to help writers prepare for publication. There are many sites on the Internet about how to earn money or get published. My goal is to be the site you use before you're ready for those. Writing, as with any other career, requires training and practice. Few people sit down to their computer for the first time already publishable.
I have set up ways for you to become part of a supportive community of writers who take their writing and their training seriously. Check the Interact section of the table of contents to see where to join in the discussion.
