So to celebrate the latest birthday of Jeff Bezos, we’re publishing the third in the Business 4 Breakfast series. And I wrote this one. It is The Beginning Professional Storyteller.

I wanted to write this one (more than a year ago. Long story) to lay out for myself an understanding of the 7-Point Plot Structure that is the basis for all good genre fiction. (Literary does weird things. YMMV) Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) suggested I turn it into a B4B book, and that sounded like a good idea.

Most of the people I know who are writers were friends of hers originally, and have been doing this for a very long time. They don’t need the review. For others, especially some of my newer writer friends, they might be making the jump from journalism (a whole other skillset that does not lend itself well to good fiction frequently), or trying to undo some of the damage done by a BFA/MFA program that looks down its nose at successful commercial writers.

We are the enemy, as far as those people are concerned. And I’m okay with that. My goal is not literary awards. Nor is it groupies, although Fabulous Publisher Babe insists that I would have to share anyway.

It is all about money. And as crass as that sounds, that is why you got out of bed this morning, to make enough money that you can go do something silly on your time off: buy a book, go to a show, walk in the woods.

For me, enough money is quitting the day job and writing full time.

To do that, I need to look and sound like a professional writer (B4B:Book 1). But I also need to tell good stories that have all the right elements of 7-Points contained therein. If you are a writer, you need to do the same.

It works for short fiction, medium stuff, and grand/epic/mega-fantasy series that get turned eventually into television shows.

And I firmly believe that everyone has at least one book in them. Each of us has a story, told in our own voice, that is compelling enough that other people will want to read it.

You should go write yours.