It feels a great privilege to receive requests for support each week from budding non-fiction authors, as they embark on their dream of becoming a published writer. I therefore thought it would be useful over a series of months to drop in some blog-tips on writing. I wanted to begin the series of posts with a summary of some of the concerns and questions that people write to me about, and call me about in relation to writing their first book. It’s amazing how many of you know you have a book inside you. I began my own writing career at the age of 9, when I penned poems. I can still remember the very first short poem that gained credit from my teacher: Wicked Witch Gwen flew around Big Ben and round and round The Tower, she gave a shout as her broomstick gave out, and fell in the Thames with a shower. I went on to write many poems on all manner of topics, but it was not until 8 years ago at the age of 33, that I became serious about writing books. In 2002, I put together my first ever non-fiction book. This book has never been published, but subsequently 10 further books have been, and these have been a combination of solo and co-authoring ventures.
So what is it that gets someone started? How do you go from dream to reality? What are the pitfalls and how can you avoid them?
Like all great outcomes they begin with a feint aspiration. Just imagine yourself sitting in your lounge with your very own published book on the shelf next to you. Or imagine talking at a public event where you are the guest speaker, and there is a picture of your book on the screen behind you, and when you break for coffee, you are sat there in the foyer, with a queue of people waiting, your volume in hand for a signature from the author! So what is your aspiration? What’s your goal? Maybe it’s simply about getting published, or about leaving a positive legacy behind when you die, or perhaps you want to really make a difference in a chosen sphere, or just be the recognised expert in a given area of human endeavour. Maybe you have a brand new idea that needs airing, or you have a novel twist on an old way of seeing things. Whatever it is, it’s time to write.
Here are my top 5 tips for a great start to writing
1. Stop procrastinating and start writing: begin writing today and build a regular writing habit of a few minutes or hours per day, whatever you can manage, it really doesn’t matter, just write!
2. Forget Perfection! One of the biggest blocks to writers is believing you have to write perfectly. Forget about writing for perfection and concentrate on getting it down on the screen or page, you’ll have plenty of time to edit and perfect later.
3. Write like Martini: Get used to writing in all kinds of different places, anytime, anyplace, anywhere! Blow out those writer’s block excuses like “I can only write on Thursday’s if there’s a P in the month and then only with my mother’s favourite fountain pen”. Writing is writing.
4. Plan and timeline: Once you’ve got a regular habit started, plan your writing. If you do steps one and two above for a few weeks, you’ll already have a book in the making. The next stage is to plan the structure of your book and the timeline for completion. This will start to inform you of the kind of regime for writing you’ll need eg if you are giving yourself a year to write it and you are going to give it 5 days a week over say 40 weeks of that year that means you’ll need to write a page a day for a 200 page book. Now you might do more or less on some days but it sets it into a framework for you. I wrote my first book in one week, pulling out all of the stops with long hours over seven days. Subsequent books have taken several months or years to complete depending upon the research required and other projects.
5. Write without referencing first. Referencing your work is important in non-fiction writing, but do it later. If you try to reference as you go it will slow you up and interrupt your flow. Referencing can be done effectively in chunks, eg at the end of a chapter.
So if you have a book bursting to get out of you then when is NOW a good time to start it! Why not follow this blog and post your experiences in response to your work.
For further information on getting started as an Author and How to get Published click here
