In a word: WRITE
In multiple words: DREAM, THINK, CREATE, WRITE, SUFFER REWRITES, TRY TO FIND PUBLISHERS OR BUYERS, MARKET WHAT’S COMPLETED, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS RELATED TASKS
Jim has written many things during his lifetime. As a teenager, he tried writing fiction – novels and short stories. None were very good, and he gave up on that to complete his education.
He taught at universities and worked as a NASA contractor. During his professional working career, his writings included many technical papers and presentations.
His first published book was a technical reference The Dictionary for Human Factors / Ergonomics, dealing with the technical field he worked in. Human factors (or ergonomics) is a scientific and engineering field which studies and attempts to optimize the human-equipment interface to make using the equipment safer and more efficient.
When that career was complete, he returned to writing fiction.
Knowing that it was difficult to break into Hollywood, especially if you’re not located there, his first major effort was writing works for the screen. He wrote three TV pilots, a feature (movie), and other short scripts. The feature made the quarter finals of one contest, but he had no success selling that or the others. (The industry uses contests where selected people review author submissions as one way to break in.)
The problem in selling seemed to be more a matter of preference than lack of quality. Others in a local screenwriters group, which included professional actors, where he was a member liked his writings and thought they were good enough to make it.
Now he can be a little slow at times, but after a few years with no sales success, he gave that up. He turned to copywriting. He didn’t enjoy that and returned to his original plan — writing novels and other forms of fictional prose.
Before Covid, he had written two novel manuscripts and had a contract for each with an independent traditional publisher for them. Unfortunately, the publisher didn’t survive the Covid situation.
He’s now trying to find publishers or agents for those and other manuscripts written since. He’s had some good reviews and comments on these, but no takers as yet. See the page where he lists sample texts from his latest, still unpublished works. (In work)
His latest publication is Sara and the Lonely Horse, a beautifully-illustrated, inspirational children’s picture book . It was released in English by the European Publisher Clavis in May of 2024. Clavis publishes quality books world-wide, and they did a great job producing Sara. An image of the front cover of that book is below.
Young Sara has cancer. She hates the treatments she gets, which don’t seem to be working very well, and she feels alone because she can’t play with her friends. On the way to the doctor one day, she sees a horse standing alone in a heavy rain. Their eyes meet. She feels a definite connection. She finally convinces her parents to let her meet this horse who has a powerful impact in her life.
He had previously thought about self-publishing, but decided it was better to have a more established publisher behind the works, even though it’s more difficult and takes longer to get the work out. He is reconsidering that decision.