How to become an author- A mother and son start the journey of learning how to become authors through trial and error
(S. Korea)
One of my all time favorites, is a timeless classic; "Alice in Wonderland" which was written in 1865 by the author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. I was so envious of Alice and the many adventures she navigated after her descent through a rabbit hole into unknown worlds. I revisited the story a million times throughout my childhood and adolescent years. Little did I know then, what I know now. The Authors purpose was to portray a child's unconscious battle to comprehend adults seemingly illogical logic. The novel is very profound and is one that is worth reading repeatedly.
"Alice's in Wonderland" gave me courage to question the adults in my life. Of course, this didn't work so well for me in my reality. The characters Alice encounters, have an array of personality traits I could never have known and the open minded thought processes opened my world up.
Books shaped my ability to survive amongst my peers while moving through grade school. I was super shy and in my day dreams I would 'try on' what 'being brave' felt like. One summer I was bunking in the attic space at my grandmother's house when I rummaged through an old navy trunk to find "The Hidden Staircase" Nancy Drew Mystery Series, written by Carolyn Keene. My grandmother informed me that it had been my mother's when she was in high school The series began in the 1930's and lived on till 1979! Nancy Drew was so courageous to look for clues and she was fearless! Sadly, there were only two books and a blew through those in a day! My grandfather
took pity on me and bought me several of her books. He knew I could not possibly wake up the next morning without a fix of reading about Nancy Drew's adventures. This book prepared me to speak up for myself, which was okay, as long as it wasn't speaking up tp my mother! I would tell her, "I read it in Nancy Drew's book!" And somehow, that got me off the hook of a potential grounding. Nancy Drew saved the day again!!
And so my story goes these were just a couple of the novels that revved up my imagination and it ran wild; I day dreamed about everything! I was 'becoming an author' in my own little world. Safe to audition the story and the characters inside my own imagination. Likewise, I feel we all have a story to write and there are stories everywhere waiting to be written.
My son, Mike, has invited me on a journey to write with him and I am excited to imagine all the wondrous adventures we will have writing together....I am sure there will be epiphanies along the way. Most importantly is the journey, the shared time together, and the legacy it will bring, for my family and my future grandchildren when I graduate from this amazing journey called 'life.'
And so it is, let the writing begin and let the journey start together with my son towards, "becoming authors!"
Becoming Authors!
Get to know us and discover our inspiration
Elizabeth will take the lead
I feel that 'becoming an author' has always been whispered by the voice in my head. I started reading books avidly when I was 5 years old. Books were my solace even at such an early age. When I was able to climb trees, my grandfather nailed wooden steps into my favorite plain tree. There was nothing 'plain' about this tree! It had the most amazing branches that seemed to have grown intentionally to support a 10 year old girl for hours of reading, napping, and for having solitary picnics among its branches. It was there that I escaped into the pages of magical lands with fairies, unicorns, clouds, and with rainbows. I wouldn't stop reading until the characters in my book were left in a safe place. I felt if I closed the book, all the people in my book would drift off into space and not be able to survive without me....so I read on.
One of my all time favorites, is a timeless classic; "Alice in Wonderland" which was written in 1865 by the author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. I was so envious of Alice and the many adventures she navigated after her descent through a rabbit hole into unknown worlds. I revisited the story a million times throughout my childhood and adolescent years. Little did I know then, what I know now. The Authors purpose was to portray a child's unconscious battle to comprehend adults seemingly illogical logic. The novel is very profound and is one that is worth reading repeatedly. 
Books shaped my ability to survive amongst my peers while moving through grade school. I was super shy and in my day dreams I would 'try on' what 'being brave' felt like. One summer I was bunking in the attic space at my grandmother's house when I rummaged through an old navy trunk to find "The Hidden Staircase" Nancy Drew Mystery Series, written by Carolyn Keene. My grandmother informed me that it had been my mother's when she was in high school The series began in the 1930's and lived on till 1979! Nancy Drew was so courageous to look for clues and she was fearless! Sadly, there were only two books and a blew through those in a day! My grandfather
took pity on me and bought me several of her books. He knew I could not possibly wake up the next morning without a fix of reading about Nancy Drew's adventures. This book prepared me to speak up for myself, which was okay, as long as it wasn't speaking up tp my mother! I would tell her, "I read it in Nancy Drew's book!" And somehow, that got me off the hook of a potential grounding. Nancy Drew saved the day again!!
And so my story goes these were just a couple of the novels that revved up my imagination and it ran wild; I day dreamed about everything! I was 'becoming an author' in my own little world. Safe to audition the story and the characters inside my own imagination. Likewise, I feel we all have a story to write and there are stories everywhere waiting to be written.
My son, Mike, has invited me on a journey to write with him and I am excited to imagine all the wondrous adventures we will have writing together....I am sure there will be epiphanies along the way. Most importantly is the journey, the shared time together, and the legacy it will bring, for my family and my future grandchildren when I graduate from this amazing journey called 'life.'
And so it is, let the writing begin and let the journey start together with my son towards, "becoming authors!"
Now to learn a bit about Mike
First of all, I would like to thank everyone that has given their time and effort to understand our passion and to follow us as we start this life long dream. We hope that this blog and all of our content will help inspire and guide future authors, the world needs more authors!
When I was little I remember going to the local book store, at the time it was called Sierra Bookshop. I knew that books were special when I was young because the moment I would open that shop door I felt like a kid on Nickelodeon's Super Toy Run game show! Books to me were the best toy or form of entertainment. I could spend hours in that book store. But honestly I would actually read the books. I would just hold them and stare at them in amazement and curiosity like getting an unopened booster pack of classic pokemon cards! I would want to open them and see what is inside, yet I didn't want to be let down at the same time. I had high expectations and I was easily disappointed when I was young. Thus, I loved books, yet I didn't actually read a lot when I was a kid. I know strange. However, things have drastically changed in my older age.
In my current age I have become an English teacher in South Korea, for the past 9 years. During this time I have become obsessed with all aspects of education. I started reading everything that I could get my hands on, first it was self improvement books like Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins, or one of my favorites "The Subtle Art of not Giving a F**k by Mark Manson." These book took me out of a deep hole of self loathing and nonproductive days. They created motivation.
The moment that I got the motivation to get up off of the couch and stop watching Netflix, which was amazing by the way and I was able to get some ideas of what I wanted to do with my life. Simply relocating myself from the couch to a computer chair changed everything. I dove into more and more ebooks and audiobooks.
Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott H. Young and The 4-hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss got the mental juices flowing! Sounds a bit wrong I know, but the point is I focused all of my skills and passions into one goal...to become an author As an owner of a debate academy, I believe that I need to push myself, for the betterment of my students. If I am able to achieve success in any manner, this will serve as unrelenting evidence to my students that the principles taught in Tony and Mark's books are actually pragmatic. This will support a lot of what I teach in the classroom. I teach my students to prioritize failure, the opposite of Korea's societal norms, and to focus on feedback to improve through trial and error. I push my students to compete in national debate competitions where they rank among the top 5 teams in Korea. As such, they need to see their teacher go through similar circumstances to improve the credibility of what I advocate for. Becoming an award winning author will satisfy my little critical misfits.
Now that I have brought you all up to speed, I would like to show you the logic behind all of this. I want to see the pragmatic value of these different books. When put into practice the principles that are taught in ultralearning, does it actually work? Is the path to becoming 'new rich' as stated in the 4-hour work week actually obtainable? I will constantly be analyzing these different books and more throughout this journey.
When I was little I remember going to the local book store, at the time it was called Sierra Bookshop. I knew that books were special when I was young because the moment I would open that shop door I felt like a kid on Nickelodeon's Super Toy Run game show! Books to me were the best toy or form of entertainment. I could spend hours in that book store. But honestly I would actually read the books. I would just hold them and stare at them in amazement and curiosity like getting an unopened booster pack of classic pokemon cards! I would want to open them and see what is inside, yet I didn't want to be let down at the same time. I had high expectations and I was easily disappointed when I was young. Thus, I loved books, yet I didn't actually read a lot when I was a kid. I know strange. However, things have drastically changed in my older age.
In my current age I have become an English teacher in South Korea, for the past 9 years. During this time I have become obsessed with all aspects of education. I started reading everything that I could get my hands on, first it was self improvement books like Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins, or one of my favorites "The Subtle Art of not Giving a F**k by Mark Manson." These book took me out of a deep hole of self loathing and nonproductive days. They created motivation.
The moment that I got the motivation to get up off of the couch and stop watching Netflix, which was amazing by the way and I was able to get some ideas of what I wanted to do with my life. Simply relocating myself from the couch to a computer chair changed everything. I dove into more and more ebooks and audiobooks. Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott H. Young and The 4-hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss got the mental juices flowing! Sounds a bit wrong I know, but the point is I focused all of my skills and passions into one goal...to become an author As an owner of a debate academy, I believe that I need to push myself, for the betterment of my students. If I am able to achieve success in any manner, this will serve as unrelenting evidence to my students that the principles taught in Tony and Mark's books are actually pragmatic. This will support a lot of what I teach in the classroom. I teach my students to prioritize failure, the opposite of Korea's societal norms, and to focus on feedback to improve through trial and error. I push my students to compete in national debate competitions where they rank among the top 5 teams in Korea. As such, they need to see their teacher go through similar circumstances to improve the credibility of what I advocate for. Becoming an award winning author will satisfy my little critical misfits.
Now that I have brought you all up to speed, I would like to show you the logic behind all of this. I want to see the pragmatic value of these different books. When put into practice the principles that are taught in ultralearning, does it actually work? Is the path to becoming 'new rich' as stated in the 4-hour work week actually obtainable? I will constantly be analyzing these different books and more throughout this journey.
Make sure to subscribe to follow us with our daily posts! We will also be starting up a Youtube channel as well where you can find book reviews, book club discussions, and much more! We will become authors!!
Criticism is highly encouraged!
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