I've read many books about the writing life many of them interviews with authors. Those were very interesting books. Every writer had his/her own unique way of approaching writing. It certainly showed that, as writers, we had to figure out for ourselves our own unique way of how we write and how we organize our writing life.

I got a lot of these books from the library, so don't have them on hand. You can check the library yourself and see if anything calls to you.

Many years ago when I was just thinking about writing fiction, absolutely no one seems to address the issue of fear of writing and blocks to writing in general. There were lots of books on how to do it, but no books, that I could find, on all the inner problems that many creative people face.

Then at some point, Eric Maisel came on the scene. He started out as a philosophy person, then got his degree in clinical psychology, then somehow he got involved with the creative set and started addressing the problems creative people have about creating.

Since then, he's written many, many books about the creative person's life, problems they faced and solutions. He's offered workshops.  He's trained writing coaches and still does. And he offers private sessions.

His book, Coaching the Artist Within is the first book I ever read that made me feel understood as a creative person. I highly recommend reading it.

Many of his books are in the library, so you can get them there if you don't want to buy them.

He has many books addressing every aspect of the creative life. And each one of them is extremely well written and hugely engaging. Look on his website and see if any of his books or services are what you need, ericmaisel.com.

I taught myself to write fiction by reading about a million books. I also took three workshops.

The workshops were really fun and I enjoyed them very much. The books . . . I'd have a question in my mind about how to do something and I'd go to the bookstore and find a book; there was always a book that talked about what I wanted to know.

I'd read that book then I'd have another question and back to the bookstore I went, found a book that answered that question. Then I'd have another question . . . and so it went until I was pretty sure about how to write a novel.

Once I started writing, I discovered certain things just didn't read write and neither had the idea what the problem was and obviously no idea how to solve it. Sometimes it took a long time to figure that out, so back in the bookstore I was looking for that solution.

It was that way through the entire process. And then came the revising. In the bookstore, again, trying to figure out how to revise. And more books.

Here is a list of the books I found really helpful.

You Can Write a Novel, James V. Smith, Jr. -- This was the book that broke the sound barrier, so to speak. Things clicked. The only thing he recommends that I would never ever do again is wait to correct anything. He says, just keep on writing, don't go back and correct. Really, really bad idea! If you do that, as I did, you end up with a big mess. So, if your character changes color hair, or something happens that changes what's happened before, I suggest making that change immediately. With a big book you forget what needed to be changed and why. But worse, it messes things up in your mind and becomes difficult to keep writing.

The Craft of Novel-Writing, Dianne Doubtfire -- This book is only about 90 pages, but it's the only book I read that gives you a simple method to discover your plot. You may have an idea for your novel and some pictures in your mind as to what happens in it, but what about the rest of the novel? Doubtfire says, get a notepad. On the first line, write down a one-sentence description about that scene, basically what happens. Then ask yourself, "what happens next?" And you keep going that way until you come to the end. This is a fantastic method to uncover your plot. I used it for my novel. What I also found is things change as you write, but as long as you have a basic framework, everything comes together.

Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy - David Gerrold. I can't remember what I learned from this book, but do remember it was excellent and I learned a lot from it and wrote to thank the author.

Writing Romance, Vanessa Grant -- I had no plans to write romance, but it's the only book I could find that addressed how to plan passage of time in a novel.

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, Syd Field -- This is one of the first books I read. It was extremely useful to get the idea of scenes and writing in scenes. If you think about a movie, there are scenes. A novel is the same way, except it's not visual; you have to write in the visuals. Also, when I watched movies on a DVD, I'd watch the special features. They always had deleted scenes. That was a big learning to see what scenes they kept and what scenes they deleted. Same goes for scenes in a novel.

The Weekend Novelist, Robert J. Ray -- This was another really, really important book. It talks about giving your characters a wardrobe. Who knew that might be important, but it is. Also, it's the ONLY book where a certain method is talked about. Let's say a character is looking at the menu (this is an example he used). Well, the character is looking at the menu and then what? Then you have to tell the reader what is on the menu. It's a two-part thing, the character looks or see or comments on, and then you tell the reader what the character sees. Critical in writing fiction.

All books by Jack M. Bickham: Writing and Selling Your Novel; Scene & Structure; The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes. Bickham was a writing professor. He really knows the proces sof writing a novel and knows how to teach it. Outstanding books, all of them.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Renni Browne & Dave King -- An excellent book that is specific to editing fiction writing, which is very different from writing non-fiction. I learned a lot about the conventions of writing fiction by reading about how to edit fiction.

I read other books that weren't very helpful that I still have, but the ones I've listed are the ones that taught me how to write.

I also read popular and highly recommended books like On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner and found them completely useless. They offered nothing and they just confused the whole idea of how to write fiction. I got nothing out of them except frustration.

I think each one of us who wants to write fiction finds the best way for them. I tend to learn alone and from books, so that's mostly how I did it. I was also fortunate that the three workshops I attended were taught by a great professor and had some great people in it.

Given all these books and all the degrees, classes and workshops about writing fiction, one wonders how Austin and Dickens did it. That's always a humbling thought.

Eric Maisel said something that always stuck with me: "When a writer is staring out the window, they are working."

Very few non-writers seem to understand that when it looks like a writer is doing nothing, they are actually working. The work is all inside. Allowing space and time for new ideas to emerge, solutions to a writing project to resolve.

Many years ago Eric Maisel wrote a book called Coaching the Artist Within. If you're a writer just starting out or somewhere in the middle, this is a good book to read. It explains the writer's nature and how creative people, in general, operate in the world. When I read that book, long time ago, I finally felt understood.

Eric explains so many aspects of the creative personality and creative process that were never addressed by anyone that I ever encountered. Possibly the most important part is the way others looked as the artist not doing anything, loafing around . . . why don't they get a job . . . they're lazy . . .

If you've not read Coaching the Artist Within, I highly recommend you do.

Eric Maisel has also written many other books that address all aspects of a creative person's life. The books are insightful, helpful, incredibly well written, and very engaging.

You can see all of Maisel's work on his website, ericmaisel.com

If you're self-publishing eventually you'll have to format your books so you can upload it to someplace like Ingram or Lulu.

You can pay someone to format the book for you, or you can do it yourself.

And you'll need a print file(PDF), as well as an ePub file.

Most writers are not graphic designers and do not use programs like InDesign, Quark or Affinity Publisher to format books and create covers.

I've learned to format my own books and create covers because I was creating guided meditations and just could not get the results I wanted from freelancers. I had discovered Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo. These programs are really easy to use compared to programs like Quark, which I have also used long time ago when it was a lot simpler.

And now I'm about to release my first science fiction novel and though I've formatted my Manifesting book in Affinity Publisher, I dreaded the idea of having to format my novel -- even though it's way easier to format a novel than a non-fiction book.

So, feeling guilty, because I already had a program I could use to format, I searched for an easier way to do it. I could not believe such a thing actually existed but it does. It's called Atticus.

Atticus is designed for writers! It's relatively new. You can use it to write your book -- which I will not do, Scrivener works really well for me -- and format it for print and eBook, outputting the ePub format which is what Ingram, and other publishers, require.

I cannot believe how easy it is to use Atticus! Basically, you just input your book requirements: size, margins, font, etc., and it produces a PDF for print and an ePub document for eBooks. Shocking!

It's easy and fast!

After getting over my luck and shock and delight, I realized it would be easy to also use for non-fiction where there is a lot more complexity in formatting. It allows you to create headers and footers and import images!

Atticus is evolving and growing. They are presently working on creating a section for plotting and will continue to develop it. Their goal is to make Atticus the only program you'll require to develop, write and format your books.

If you're a writer and prefer to do your own formatting, Atticus is the solution, atticus.io.