You don’t just sit down to write a book
For new aspiring writers like myself, it is not an easy journey to start writing a book from scratch. I can tell you without delay that the difficult part of a writer’s job is sitting down to do the work. Books don’t just write themselves, after all. You have to dedicate some precious long moments to creating an important piece of work. I believe that every one of us has important ideas or creative work they wanted to share with the world.
Some of my friends may wonder how this personal goal came into place. Growing up in care, I have always wished to put all my experience in and out of care for people (readers) to know the challenges that come with staying in and leaving care.
Throughout my 12 months journey of writing, as I look back on what it really takes to become an author, I realize how different the process was from reality. To begin with, you don’t just sit down to write a book. That’s not how writing works. You pen a sentence, then a paragraph, then maybe if you’re lucky, an entire chapter or two. Writing happens in bits and pieces. My Journey and Experience in Writing My First Book has been amazing. It’s a process so here are some lessons learned;
- Just start
- Do not edit while writing. At least finish the entire draft and then you are free to edit
- Get people to review the manuscript. These can be friends, editors, family
- Have a social media page where you update progress made on manuscript
- Embrace failure. Do not get discouraged with feedback’s from your reviewers
- Look out for a publisher. This process can be overwhelming. Self publish if you do not have the quotation publishers may give to you.
- It is good to publish an e-book if you do not have any intentions of having an official launch. It is advisable to have paper back when you intend to have a launch event
- Look out for bookstores to sell your books
- Be sure to send a personal thank you note to all your reviewers
- Plan a getaway to de-stress and start working on your next manuscript
Kindly leave a message here for further enquiries tamakloe.deborah@yahoo.com. Grab a copy of my books in the shop section on this site
