I have to admit that I am a night time novelist and that is one reason why the title of this book caught my attention when offered a review copy. Finding time to squeeze in some writing after work, after dinner, or even after the kids go to bed can be a challenge. Author Joseph Bates offers great advice about the how to of writing and encouragement to find the time to get the book in your head on to paper/computer screen.

Whether you are a seasoned novelist or just beginning, I believe everyone can find something useful in this handy guide. I found the advice for overcoming commonly encountered obstacles to writing productively, It Out' assignments and more than twenty-five interactive worksheets (which you can download from his website!) to be extremely thought provoking for myself. I appreciated the spiral binding of this book as it helped keep the page open where I wanted it while I worked on a separate piece of paper or in a word processing program on my PC.

Many how-to-write-a-novel books push the same ideas over and over again to the reader but Bates’ approach is refreshing. He doesn’t repeat the same things other books have. He explores how to connect with your characters and focuses on the end of you story by thinking like the reader who may be holding you novel in their hands in a year. Bates also suggests not telling anyone about your work in progress. This is will be a huge challenge for me as I love bouncing ideas off of people and getting feedback!
This book is definitely a great guide to have on hand while working!

About the Author
Joseph Bates’ fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The South Carolina Review, Identity Theory, Lunch Hour Stories, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, and Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature and fiction writing from the University of Cincinnati and teaches in the creative writing program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.