{"id":7694,"date":"2016-12-09T13:15:39","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T19:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lovingonme.com\/?p=7694"},"modified":"2019-10-23T07:25:12","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T12:25:12","slug":"so-you-want-to-write-a-book-now-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/2016\/12\/09\/so-you-want-to-write-a-book-now-what\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Want to Write a Book. Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Write“So can you give me any tips on how to write a book? I really want to share my story.”<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s been five years since I released my first book “Loving on Me! Lessons Learned on the Journey from Mess to Message.<\/a>” It’s a love note from my heart to the hearts of women around the world, affirming our worth and inspiring us to pursue life abundantly. I confess,\u00a0it’s\u00a0not a best-seller yet. I still have work to do on my book marketing skills, and that’s okay. I’m committed to enjoying\u00a0every moment of this\u00a0extraordinary\u00a0journey.<\/p>\n

My absolute favorite part has been connecting with\u00a0women from around the world who resonate with my journey.\u00a0Hearing how reading my story has helped them\u00a0reach a deeper understanding of their own experiences fills me with joy.<\/p>\n

In the two decades I’ve worked in women’s health and empowerment\u00a0I’ve seen first hand the power personal stories have to change lives. Stories inspire us to believe, filling us with hope for a brighter tomorrow.\u00a0That’s why when someone asks me how to write a book I get excited. I’ve yet to meet a person whose story\u00a0shouldn’t be told.<\/p>\n

The question is how to get started. Many of us\u00a0haven’t written anything since high school English. Is it even possible for us to write a book? Absolutely we\u00a0can! Here’s my suggestions on how to get started.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Decide your why.<\/strong> When I first started writing my book I thought I wanted to share\u00a0my side of the story for a very painful, public event in my life. But after I began writing, I realized I didn’t want to focus on the bitter ending as much as I wanted to share the lessons from my\u00a0better beginning. Deciding to keep it positive changed the whole tone and tenor of my writing, as well as how I laid out the content. That’s why I urge you to\u00a0decide your why before you begin writing. Is it to share knowledge? Perhaps you want to provide your perspective, or challenge commonly held myths. Whatever your purpose – let this be your guide throughout the writing process.<\/li>\n
  2. Identify your what.<\/strong> Once you have an idea of why you want to write a book, lay out what you want to put in it. I attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival<\/a> to\u00a0get help with putting together an outline that made sense and accomplished my goal. I highly recommend looking into a class that will help you do the same. You can do this on your own, but if you’re anything like me – as in more likely to get it done with someone standing over you – this is a great way to knock it out in a short period of time. This outline was critical for me because it helped me create a journey for my readers, rather than a chaotic experience with me jumping from topic to topic when writing.<\/li>\n
  3. Designate your when.<\/strong>\u00a0Okay so you know why<\/em> you’re writing and have a general idea of what<\/em> your story will\u00a0include. Now we’re at the hard part – the actual writing. More specifically, setting aside time in our busy schedules to bring all of our brain cells together so we can put actual words on paper. Man, did that take a long time for me! I had 2 1\/2 years of fits and starts before I finally figured it out. Two things were key. First, I made finishing my book my only<\/strong> goal. I let go of everything else I was putting pressure on myself to finish, and just focused on the book. Second, I scheduled time each day to write.\u00a0I actually added it to my calendar<\/strong>\u00a0and then honored that commitment by not scheduling over it. Here’s the thing – you’re likely going to get sick of your book and want to chunk the whole project before you finish writing. It’s okay. I’ve discovered that is a normal part of the process and in no way means we’re failures. The trick is to keep going back to the page. No matter how many times you stop, when it comes back to your mind go back to writing. Eventually you’ll fall in love with your book again.<\/li>\n
  4. Recruit your who.<\/strong> There are a host of people you’ll need to bring your book\u00a0to market,\u00a0and honestly focusing on that too soon can quickly overwhelm you. In fact many people get stuck at start because they get too deep in the weeds, letting the publishing and marketing side overwhelm them. For now let’s just focus on completing the manuscript, and for that I highly recommend an accountability partner, or two. I told\u00a0all my friends that I wanted to write a book. Then I told them when I started, shared when I was excited, and cried when I was frustrated. I probably got on their nerves, and more than a few wondered if I’d ever finish. But there were also many\u00a0that encouraged me every step of the way. On\u00a0those days when the book had gotten on my last nerve and I didn’t even want to finish, it was my accountability partners that got behind me and pushed me to the finish line.\u00a0Positive people are a priceless part of our tribe!<\/li>\n
  5. Explore\u00a0your how.\u00a0<\/strong>I journal quite a bit so it was natural for me to write a portion of my book longhand. However, after transcribing about 10,000 words I was over it. Eventually I started typing directly into my document, being sure to save it each time in the cloud. This is SUPER important because if you’re several thousand words in and your computer crashes the last thing you want to have to do is start from scratch. Always, always back up your work. However if staring at a black screen is intimidating,\u00a0I suggest\u00a0exploring\u00a0dictation software<\/a>. That way you can share your story as if talking to a friend, and then later get an editor to help you put it into more of a book format. This is also a great way to use unexpected down time to finish your book. Given the myriad of apps available, you can write a book from just about anywhere!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Regardless of your writing ability, you can become an author. Don’t let excuses and obstacles become barriers to achieving your dreams. As the old folks used to say, where there’s a will there’s a way.<\/p>\n

    If you’ve got a story you want to share, this is your season. Write your book. Live your dreams. Boldly pursue the more God has in store for you!<\/p>\n

    Hugs and Love\u00a0♥<\/p>\n

    PS – If you’re an author, leave your writing tips below. We’d love to hear from you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    “So can you give me any tips on how to write a book? I really want to share my story.” It’s been five years since I released my first book “Loving on Me! Lessons Learned on the Journey from Mess to Message.” It’s a love note from my heart to the hearts of women around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sharing_disabled":false,"switch_like_status":false,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[204998051,114917237],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Write-a-Book.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eAxC-206","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14606,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694\/revisions\/14606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}