A Beautiful Author-Related Quote to Share, from Jane Austen to You

Quotes are my friends, my collaborators, my teachers, representing snippets of life in usually fifty words or less.  Be they funny outlooks or sage advice or relationship insight, they exist for all of us.
  

Here's one for us authors: 

It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

I admire Jane Austen so much.  She and Nora Roberts are my mentors, having such a wonderful understanding of human interactions.

I aspire to be like them one day.

For now, I continue to create and hone my craft.  One day at a time.

Denise Barker, author + freelance copy editor

Good Ole Boys, a novel

A Copyediting Checklist for Novelists

WORDS Rule the World:  A Collection of Quotations ~ Volume One

My Age Should Not Determine My Reading Demographic

I am an author, a freelance copy editor, an Indie publisher of my own works with a never-want-to-be-cured-from addiction to movies and books.  I am also female and a Baby Boomer.  Yet I love James Bond stories (whether on film or on paper), the TV show Burn Notice, the Twilight saga, Jane Austen books and J.D. Robb’s In Death series.  I also never miss an episode of House, M.D. or Lie to Me.

To reiterate:

I am not a man or a spy regardless of the timeframe.

I am not a teenager or a vampire or a werewolf.

I am not a woman living in the early 1800s whose highest vocation is to marry.  And marry rich.

I am not a female detective living in the future world of the 2050s and beyond.

I am not a doctor, male or otherwise, with a crass bedside manner—if you can get him by your bedside.

I am not a human lie detector disguised as an adult male with an adorable teenaged daughter who is truly the parent.

What do all these things share? 

ESCAPISM.

I like to escape when I read or watch movies.  I also like to learn something, whether from fiction, nonfiction or film.  I hope all my soon-to-published novels accomplish both for my readers.

Maybe that erroneous “reader demographic” model is why J.K. Rowland received her initial rejection letters for her Harry Potter books, supposedly written for boys aged nine to twelve (or that’s what I remember from a bio on her).

Therefore, all you authors out there, don’t worry that your “target audience” is small, say for boys aged nine to twelve.  If the story is universal, it will appeal to all age groups.