Thompson on...One Writer's Journey to become a successful novelist!

       Sometimes when I enter my writing area, in a corner of my office, it seems that words will not come and the critic inside me attacks my creativity with a constant bombardment of negative thoughts. "

       Enough!

       Finally, I sit down, strike the letters on the keyboard and let the words energize each other as they create vivid word pictures that become vibrant mental images for my readers. I'm on my writing schedule and I believe in myself.

        I wasn't always ! this confident in my writing ability. I listened to the "rules police" or "peer critics" and didn't believe enough to even look inside myself to write. I was scared at one time in my life, many years ago, in the turbulent sixties.

      What developed confidence in my writing ability occurred on a faithful fall day when I was a junior at Bushwick High School in Brooklyn, New York.

     I was scared to express any thoughts, any opinions, and had trouble looking people in the eye. Self-Esteem and self-confidence was lacking in my personality.

     I knew I had this ability to write, but the motivation and confidence was zero. I was in my second year, at Bushwick, after moving from Statham, Georgia, population 300 and segregated, to Brooklyn, population 3,000,000 and integrated.

      I got up enough nerve to ask my English teacher and student council/general organization sponsor, Miss Egan, the question. If the answer was negative, all my hopes and dreams of becoming the next great writer would be dashed.

      I knocked hard on the door to her office, entered, and asked her, "Can I be a writer?"

     She stared at me for a few seconds and then said, "Do it."

      I haven't looked back.

        I wrote articles for The New York Times, The Philadelphia Bulletin (National Award Winning Sports Writer), The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Associated Press, Sports Scene, Parade Magazines, Georgia Author of the Year Nominee and now with three published novels and a fourth ready for publication 2012.

        Miss Egan would be proud to know that my fourth novel, Ghost of  Atlanta, won a 2011 National Gold Medal for fiction!

       Not bad for a scared little kid from a small town in Georgia.

       I'm telling you like my high school English teacher, Miss Egan told me, "Do it!"