Starting the writing journey - Love.Writing.Life

So you want to write a book? I'm going to be honest here. It's not as easy, or as hard, as you may think.

So long as you have the drive and passion, you CAN do it.

But in the spirit of being truthful, before I began my exciting journey to publish my first book, the thought of writing a novel totally freaked me out. At first I put my fear down to my conviction that I wasn't a creative person. As someone who worked a corporate job, I was all about process, methodology, data and plans. I tried using that argument to some author friends - people who were successful and whose writing I adored - only to be shot down in flames.

Thank goodness they challenged me to look beyond my own self-imposed limitations!

That didn't mean I went into the venture with much confidence, but I put pen to paper (or more accurately finger to keyboard) knowing I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by stepping outside of my comfort zone. Writing a book became an adventure. Finishing that first book became my goal. And I was determined to enjoy myself along the way. And guess what? I learned so much and fell in love with writing.

Those early days of writing were equally exciting and nerve wracking.

I had no idea what I was doing and just went for it. I wrote two stories - one as part of a free reader event where authors wrote a story to match a reader's photo prompt - and one for... You know what? I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do with the second one. I knew nothing about approaching a publisher and nothing about self-publishing. In the end, I logged onto the website of a publisher whose work I respected, and followed their submission guidelines. The end result was a contract and I was ecstatic, but I cringe now when I think back of submitting a manuscript that I'd been too scared to even let anyone read. Thank goodness I now know more about self-editing, revising and using critique partners and beta readers. Since then I've had more books published with that publisher, including my first novels in paperback, a couple of novellas with another publisher, and I've taken the leap to self-publish another four books.

Learning new knowledge, skills, techniques and tools, has helped me become more successful.

Along the way I've asked questions, joined Facebook author support groups, completed online courses, read countless articles, and learned to apply my own skills to the process of writing, so I hope my writing has improved. But there's no doubt, everything I've learned has made me more efficient and less stressed about the whole endeavour. That is reflected both in terms of the quality of my stories, but also in my confidence of the process that surrounds publishing and marketing a book. It's amazing how much having a roadmap can help!

If you are new to your writing journey, my advice to you is: