New Releases by Wendy Dale

If writing a memoir sounds daunting, there is a very simple reason why: You haven''t yet learned how. In this groundbreaking book, author Wendy Dale throws out the advice, "Just write" and "Write a crappy first draft," and instead teaches you a seven-step process for constructing your memoir from the ground up. She compares writing a book to mastering an instrument, learning to knit, or even building a motor - all of these tasks rely on principles that create a desired result. Learn the principles and they work every time. Instead of writing by trial and error, follow a step-by-step plan to engineer your memoir. You''ll have fun completing a great book and you''ll do it in a fraction of the time it takes everyone else.

From salsa dancing in a rum-induced haze and struggling to exercise in Colombia (“the guerillas were using the track again today”), to crossing international borders unconventionally and dodging bombs in Lebanon (“the good news was that they were ‘small bombs’”), Wendy somehow manages to find herself in the midst of hysterical, adventurous, and often illegal situations. Case in point—every time she heads to Costa Rica, she is forced to visit another prison. Although a jail may not be everyone’s idea of a place to ?nd a date, Wendy soon falls in love with a man, a country, and its people and risks everything she has to clear his name. Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals is a bumpy and hilarious ride in which Wendy discovers that a successful vacation—much like that elusive thing, happiness—can be found in some of the most unlikely places imaginable. From the Trade Paperback edition.