Next step: the Outline

A book proposal is all about content and organization. Some people like mind maps; others prefer outlines. What matters is that either one can be a skeleton to build upon. This book is about my career as a writer, which evolved step by step. It began in 1968 and followed an unpredictable but charmed path through the years. There have been no gaps in my writing, so the outline pretty much wrote itself.

1. 1968-1972 You’ve Got Talent

a. The sentence that changed my life

b. Four-and-a-half-year apprenticeship

2. 1972-1973 Instant Editor

a. Concrete box in the basement

b. Learning the ropes

c. Launching writers

d. Falling apart

3. 1973-1978 The Making of a Writer

a. Cinderella job with one hour for lunch

b. The everything writer

c. No one can live on this

4. 1978-1980 Corporate Culture Shock

a. Open mouth, insert foot

b. Travel to exotic locales

c. The hen house

d. Fired (nothing personal)

5. 1980 Fear & Freelancing

a. Living the good life, temporarily

b. Let’s get real; I need benefits

6. 1980-1982 Disappointed & Dejected

a. Not exactly what I expected

b. Downtown, dismal, depressing

7. 1982-1989 The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

a. Dysfunction with a capital D

b. Peyton place

c. Proving myself

d. Fired, again

8. 1987 - AMA, the Biggest Break

a. Training courses

b. Books

9. 1990 Going Solo

a. Starting out with a bang

b. $1.00 a word

c. You name it, I do it

d. The longest running newsletter

e. Insider, part of the team

10. 2001 The Bottom Drops Out

a. Living on nothing

b. Starting over, again

11. 2005 Reinventing Myself

a. Accidental ghostwriter

b. How to write a nonfiction book

c. Marketing: what a concept

12. 2008 Helping Writers Write

a. Full circle: teaching

b. The friends-of-Bobbi shelf

c. Triumphs & disappointments