ELIZABETH GILBERT: Writing is not like dancing or modelling. It’s not something where, if you missed it by age 19, you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.
TWO:
ANNE RICE: If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it, until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less.
Why have I been so quiet? It’s not that I haven’t been writing anything. Just not a recent blog post. Perhaps I didn’t think I had anything of (huge enough) interest to report?
Yet, even if I’d shared ‘I don’t feel I’ve anything of interest to report’, it would have been something. I’m supposed to be documenting my writing journey – and I haven’t been.
I asked myself why I wasn’t blogging: ‘What’s happening here, don’t you want to share your writing journey?’
‘Not always’, was the honest answer. Sometimes it feels too personal. I don’t always feel like putting my feelings, and naked vulnerability, out into internet-land. Conversely, there are also times when I want to share everything with the world!
Anyway, as you may have noticed, I’ve been going through a bit of a hermit-phase (as one friend so beautifully put it). But I haven’t stopped writing.
Where have I been writing? Mostly in my journal. Writing in my journal has been (pretty much) a daily practice since I was twelve.
Fast forward forty-eight years to the present day.
Apart from journaling, I have been busy transcribing thirteenyear old Claire’s earliest diary, with a view to it going into the book.
The question is, how much of my actual diary do I feature? All of it? Or just snippets? Do I add my current-day comments to what I find there? Or do I let the diary speak for itself? I’m still puzzling over those questions.
I know there are people out there who like reading (published!) diaries. I’m one of them. Diaries are so real and raw. So . . . human. And we are all human.
I like the kind of diaries that are free, honest and open, with a fair amount of soul-searching (and not too much complaining). Diaries that ponder the deeper meaning of life, not just record the daily trivia (although that too can be interesting, or amusing, at times). I hope my diaries are like that.
Some diaries are deathly boring. I hope my diaries are not like that.
I’m still figuring everything out and trying to answer the many book-related questions, buzzing around in my head. I’m confident I will figure it all out. In the meantime, I’m continuing to journal every day and to transcribe my oldest diaries.
I had an idea to feature my current diary alongside my earliest diary. After all, as I transcribe them, I’m also writing about the old diaries in my current journal, as things occur to me. I’m filling in some of the memories I didn’t write down – largely because, at age thirteen, I discovered my Dad had been reading my diary. Shock-horror. It took me a while to relax and write freely again.
If I publish the oldest, and the most current diary, alongside each other, it could be quite an interesting contrast. What I write in my journal now is very different to what I wrote at thirteen. I’d also like to think my writing has improved since then (wink).
Another question: Is my diary only interesting to me, or will it be interesting to others?
There is only one way to find out. Share it.
“But it isn’t ready to share yet!” I hurriedly cry. Just in case anyone rushes to volunteer as a beta reader. Rest assured, when that time comes, I will put the call out to a few friends, including (gulp) those interested folks who have signed up to this blog. (No pressure to actually be a beta reader though!)
I must say, sharing my diaries is not at all frightening to me, all the while I’m not sharing them. Once I come to share them – through my book or this blog, it may be a completely different story. (Cue opening bars of Beethoven’s 5th ).
Okay, time to end now, I think I have updated where I’m currently ‘at’. I’m sorry I was blog-absent for so many weeks. I am considering doing a blog post update, once a month. Please let me know if you’d like to hear from me more often. Thanks for sticking with me so far, I really appreciate it.
I took my breakfast out into the garden and chose a spot under the magnolia tree, in the shade. I gazed all around, munching my cornflakes, enjoying the garden.
A wood pigeon was busy, hunting for single twigs on our lawn. She’d find one then fly up, almost vertically, to the evergreen tree. A quick look around to make sure no one was watching, then she sidled along the branch and disappeared into the foliage.
This procedure was repeated over and over, as she built her nest, twig by twig. Once, she landed on a branch and realised that this branch was not the one that led to her nest. She tilted her head, shifted her gaze, and quickly identified the correct branch and flew to it. I can’t imagine she would ever be lost or confused, for long.
I want to be that pigeon. I want to know immediately if I am on the wrong branch and to speedily identify where my correct branch is. And I think I’m beginning to do that now. I’m making a point of reviewing as I go.
It’s important to track our dream’s progress and where we are on our path to it. Not in the way of impatiently asking, ‘How much longer is this going to take?’
Now, for me, it’s more about being clear on what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. I’m asking myself questions, almost daily, as a reminder to keep myself on track. Questions like:
What book am I writing?
Why am I writing it?
Why do I want to publish it?
Am I still taking the appropriate action to progress the book?
What’s the next step?
I’m doing this because I don’t want to waste any more time. It takes not just time, but sustained effort, to gather all these twigs to build a nest. I want to make sure I’m always on the right branch, building the right nest.
One twig seems like nothing, yet if you keep at it, collecting and carefully placing those twigs, the nest will eventually be built.
I watched that pigeon for a long time. She was relentless in her work and yet she was not hurrying or panicking. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t worrying about how long it was taking her. She simply did what she needed to do, slowly and methodically, certain the nest would be ready, in time for her eggs.
Like Mrs Pigeon, I am working with my diaries, editing and re-writing, one day at a time and one month at a time. Slowly but surely, I’m building my book. I hope, if I continue to focus and take it steady, my book will one day be ready. Completed, in perfect time.
In my last post I revealed how I’m trying a new process or habit, to help me write my book. Simply, I’m committing to working on my book for a teeny tiny period of time each day.
A tiny commitment
What time period did I choose to commit to? Just 10 minutes. I know, it sounds ridiculous. Ten minutes a day is nothing. Exactly! The reason I chose such a tiny amount of time is because it is so easy to do.
I set an alarm that goes off after 10 minutes of writing time – it has a lovely, uplifting chime. When I hear that chime, my writing work for the day is done.
Of course, after 10 minutes, I’m usually in the writing-flow and want to do another 10 minutes. That is what happened on the first day. I did 40 minutes of writing in total.
A week of 10-minute commitments – summary:
Tuesday: Wrote for 10 minutes. It was easy and it flowed, so I continued.
Total writing time: 40 minutes
Wednesday: Similar feeling of flow and wanting to continue.
Total writing time: 70 minutes.
Thursday: The writing flowed again.
Total writing time: 90 minutes
Friday: It was a struggle to do 10 minutes. I spent most of the time cutting out great swathes of stuff I’d written previously.
Total writing time: 10 minutes
Saturday: I wrote nothing.
Sunday: I didn’t feel like doing it. I told myself I only had to write for 10 minutes, and anyone can do 10 minutes, so I did.
Total writing time: 40 minutes.
10-minute sessions add up
So far, I make that 25 slots of 10 minutes. This equates to 250 minutes, or about four and a quarter hours of book-writing in a week – with little effort and no overwhelm.
Monday: After days of endless rain there was a dry-weather window, so I spent the afternoon at my allotment. Deeply satisfying.
Later, instead of my book, I worked for several hours on this blog post (too long, methinks, but equally satisfying). Then I left the blog post overnight to percolate.
So, zero book writing time on Monday.
Today: I cut this blog post by three quarters, leaving a quarter remaining. (I must get better at writing shorter blog posts).
So far today, I’ve spent 20 minutes working on my book and may do more writing later. The thing is, I’ve achieved double my 10-minute commitment and that is a cause to celebrate and feel good about myself.
Keep it going
I know it’s important to keep the energy going, of any project that’s dear to our hearts, to engage with it and give it our energy.
I also know that starting a writing session, whether for blog or book, is the hardest part – hence the tiny 10-minute writing time commitment. However, once started and the momentum is going, it’s easier to keep going.
Once that happens, you can see progress and everything feels easier. You feel like you’re getting somewhere and that you are in control of the process. With that, comes a feeling of increased self-esteem, satisfaction and confidence.
And don’t we all want that?
Take breaks and enjoy!
To sum up, I think this new practice is working for me. The only mistake I made, was trying to increase my time commitment too soon – and I forgot to take short breaks. This created a slump on Day 5. Lesson learned.
So, enjoy your creative projects. May you have time for all of the things that give you joy, satisfaction, and increased self-esteem. 🙂
Note: Thanks to Joseph Michael for his course, Writer’s Block Relief, and the ideas he outlined there. Taking his course shifted my first-book-writing stumbling blocks. The teeny tiny time-block commitments were just one idea in the course that I’m finding valuable – and liberating.
When your biggest and longest-held (lifelong) dream and goal has not come to fruition, but you’re still trying, how do you feel?
When you remember each morning that you still haven’t achieved your longest-held (lifelong) dream and goal, how do you feel?
I will tell you.
Yucky.
Only, that is, if you allow yourself to get carried away on a wave of despair. Some days you might feel despondent, scared, or worse, we all do. Don’t give up.
I’ve been through a little stuck-patch, but I’m not allowing myself to go down that road of doom and gloom.
We all feel scared at times and despondent. The trick is, to nip it in the bud before it runs away with itself and takes you with it.
On a Down Day, I always know an Up Day is on the horizon. The new day will dawn, I’ll wake up, get out of bed and start again. I will read what I’ve previously written (feeling pleased that it’s better than I remember) and continue writing and editing my book.
I keep my faith, my hope and my optimism going. I trust myself and bolster my belief in my ability to complete the task. The task I set myself; remembering, that no one else set it for me, this task of writing, finishing and publishing a book.
Lately, it has been a little difficult.
– I stopped working on my book.
– I stopped blogging about working on my book.
However:
– I continued to write daily in my journal, as I always love to do (and it’s always easy).
– I worked on other (easier) creative projects, to keep my spirits up.
– I bought a course on Writer’s Block.
I must tell you, I do not have writer’s block and never have. I can always write and do it every day.
What I do have is first-book-writer’s-block. I also have blog-writer’s-block. I’m hoping both of these are a thing of the past – since my Writer’s Block course, because I have new strategies.
The course I took is called Writer’s Block Relief, by Joseph Michael. It gave me some new techniques, tips and tools to try. It also gave me renewed hope.
Using what I’ve learned in the course, I’ve decided to take a different tack:
For the next week, I will work on my book and my blog, every day.
Each day, I will focus on turning up for the process and will not focus on results. (Not yet anyway).
At the end of this week, I will then review my writing progress.
I don’t think it’s fair to Joseph Michael to reveal everything I learned on his Writer’s Block Relief course. But I will say, that I’ve learned enough to feel a real shift. Wonder of Wonders, I am champing at the bit to get back to writing the book!
My main takeaway from the course means that I will approach my writing time differently. My commitment to writing both book and blog will be for a teeny, tiny period of time, each day. I will then celebrate and reward myself for that achievement, and my success in showing up. If I want to spend more time working on my book or blog, (beyond the daily time period I’ve set and committed to) that is fine.
I’m choosing to focus on what I am getting done, what I am achieving and on the progress I am making. No longer am I focussing on what isn’t yet done (as I started to do at the beginning of this post).
Okay, so the book, the project, the life’s work isn’t yet completed. So what! If progress is being made and you’re enjoying the process – hoorah! Cheer yourself on.
Previously, my book and blog-writing pattern had been a hard slog, working over long, unbroken periods, followed by the need for a complete break from writing. Working too long and hard without breaks, meant enthusiasm and inspiration faded, and the creative well ran dry.
Not any longer!
I’m starting my new (less is more) writing process today. I’ll let you know after seven days of using this new tactic, how I get on. It has to beat spending a whole day, sometimes two, trying to write one paltry blog post. I will never write for long periods, without a break, ever again. Unless I’m in effortless flow of course!
I realise that I will work better, incorporating scheduled breaks into my working week – at regular intervals throughout the day. This will keep my energy fresh and my mind clear. All I need to do then, is be open, receive the inspiration and write it down.
It feels so good to be back on track. I’ll let you know how I get on with this new way of working. Am hoping to prove, that in doing less, I will accomplish more.
Regarding my book-writing progress, I wasn’t feeling hopeful at all these last ten days. I also knew I was due to write a blog post but didn’t know what to write. I tried not to panic about not knowing, as five more days went by.
Gardening is one of the things that soothes my soul (makes the world brighter) and gets me back into balance. So I decided to stop worrying about writing today and visit my allotment plot.
(For those who don’t know, a plot is an allotted piece of land rented from the local Council. Its purpose is to grow vegetables and fruit, and some flowers, if you wish).
I spent several hours working on my plot and felt so much better. I dug in the dirt, weeded, hoed, stretched every muscle, erected bamboo cane supports and planted some runner bean seeds. The seeds were very easy to push into the fine soil. I patted them down lovingly and watered them in.
When I got home I had a long soak in a bubble bath. Then I read an old diary entry from last May, where I had written an outline plot for my book and sketched out the three acts. I was surprised by (and liked) what I’d written.
“Hey, maybe this bookof mine is okay after all?”
I had started to feel more hopeful.
Then I sat down at my desk, turned on the fairy lights and wrote this blog post.
Having felt despondent for over a week, feeling I wasn’t getting anywhere fast – either at my allotment plot, or with my book writing, I realised my despondency was just a state of mind.
Gardening had eased my troubled mind. I’m doing fine after all – and so too (I think) are both plots. 😉
I’ve started transcribing my earliest diary (1972) and I’ve also transcribed a notebook, that was really an Autograph book, from 1966 (I was six).
I remember asking all my family, and anyone else who came to the house, to write something in my autograph book. No one wanted to write more than their name:
“It’s an Autograph book, you’re only supposed to write your name.”
“I know, but can you write something else as well?”
“But it’s an autograph book. You’re not meant to write anything else .”
“I know! Write something else. Pleeeease.”
“Like what?”
“Something else. Just write something.”
After much pleading and persuading from me, most people had a stab at writing something, other than just their name.
My Mum wrote:
By hook or by crook, I’ll be first in this book.
“Is that all?” I asked, “Can’t you write something else?”
“It’s supposed to be short. It’s a rhyme. I’m saying, I’m the first in the book. That’s it.”
“Can you write something else?”
“No, that’s it.”
It was Christmas. My Dad’s friend John Kenny was visiting us. He wrote:
May you have many more happy Christmas days.
Well, I was only six years old, so I would hope so.
My sister wrote:
Laugh and the world will laugh with you, Cry and you will cry alone.
I didn’t understand it. I asked my Mum, who explained it to me, then I did understand it. Why wasn’t anyone writing happy things in my book?
Next my Aunty Sheila:
Little Willie in the best of sashes
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes
By and by the room grew chilly
But no one liked to poke Poor Willy.
“So, he fell in the fire? And was burnt?
Why?
Why didn’t they want to poke him?”
To me, poke meant prod. I didn’t know it meant stoking a fire. It was a sad story and I didn’t see the humour in it, at all. I just wished someone would write something jolly in my book.
On the next page I had drawn a tower block (I lived in a block of flats). At first, it appears that the building is on fire, with me in it – and, like a time-lapse photo, I’m in three different places. I know it’s me, as I’ve written the words ME and drawn arrows, pointing at all three people. I’m waving out of two of the windows and a chimney pot, with a camera in my hand.
Looking more closely, I realise the building is not on fire. What I thought were curling flames seems to be a winding route, or path, from ground level to chimney. Or it could possibly be a Rapunzel-like rope.
Far below, on a path leading from the block of flats, are people with guns in their hands, taking aim at something. Along the paths are other people, all with one leg raised high, at right-angles to their bodies. They are either dancing, running, or goose-stepping.
I think around this time I was watching The Man from Uncle on t.v. I also think this was my first Story Board.
The camera might be from a spy briefcase set we had. It was probably plastic, but the camera worked. However, from what I remember, I think I mostly took photos of drain covers and pigeons.
My Nanny wrote:
I slept and I dreamt that life was beauty.
I woke and I found that life was duty.
And that was the last time I ever asked anyone to write in my autograph book. I just wrote in it myself and drew pictures.
I’d love to hear how your projects are coming along. Simply hit reply to one of my emails, or use the contact form here.
Please listen to the audio below – this tells you exactly where I am at, in my Book One project.
I junked a long blog post (that had taken me days to write) and replaced it with this more open and real update.
Much Love to you!
click on the little triangle to play the audio
I’ve added the transcription to the audio below. However, if you listen, rather than read, you will get the full experience. You’ll hear my laugh, verging on hysteria, until (at the end) I calm myself down and try to look on the bright side (positive-optimistic-person that I try to be) ;-)
Transcription of Audio:
Hello there, it’s Claire Gillen, I’m not sure whether I’m going to send this out as an audio blog post or not. I’ve come up to my room. I have all my earliest diaries, spread out in front of me on the floor. I’ve been trying to put them into date order and I realise what a huge task it is, the idea that I had, to somehow document my whole life via my diaries.
My main task is obviously to get the first book out and it was going to be, what I thought was a Fast and Easy book. And (that Fast and Easy book) would be, perhaps my very earliest diary, just transcribed with my comments alongside. And I’ve done that. And I’m not happy with it! I wrote a very long blog post – and I’m not happy with that either . . . and an audio to go with it – and I’m not happy with that either. So, I’m now a little bit . . . kind of stuck. That’s exactly where I am at the moment.
(I then had to briefly pause the audio, to gather my thoughts and unstick my brain, in order to continue).
I’ve been thrashing this out with someone who knows me very well and I’ve been trying to explain myself to her. Basically, I was saying that this whole thing, of putting my diaries into written form and publishing them, has been something that I have wanted to do, all my life, virtually.
I suppose I (initially) got the idea in the early 80’s or late 70’s – Look! Where are we now?!
And there’s a reason for that, there’s a reason why this idea won’t go away. I need to get this honest stuff out there.
I do not want to write fiction. I don’t want to, necessarily this time around, make Fiction out of my diaries and add to them. I want them as they are.
But as I say, I’m looking at them here. They’re all over the floor. I’ve put little post-it notes on every single one with, dates and months and I’m . . . I’m boggled. I’m totally boggled.
So yeah, so that’s my Progress Update at the moment, and I’m sorry it isn’t more positive.
I wanted the first book to be Fast and Easy, I wanted to get something out there, just to get something published and start the ball rolling really, get the first step on the ladder.
Um . . . but I suppose I’m too much of a blasted perfectionist and I want it to be amazing and I want to be, you know, happy with what I put out.
I’m too . . . I over-complicate things. I start with a simple idea then I over-complicate it. Anyway! Look! I’m fed up with this (laughter on the verge of hysteria) – I just needed to get this out. And look, that is where I am at the moment.
So, Angst-Ridden-Claire . . .
I will figure it out. I will figure it out. I’m gonna sleep on this, and I know in the morning, it will be clearer. And I think I will see the way forward. At the moment, I’m feeling very frustrated and annoyed. But I know, I will see the way forward, after a good night’s sleep.
So, I’m leaving it there. As I say, this started to be a long written post and a long audio post and this is all it is (now), just an audio post. But anyway, lots of love. Good Luck! . . . with whatever you’re doing, and I send good luck to myself as well, and I shall pick this up in the morning. Okay, bye for now. Bye!
Press the little triangle button to play the audio
I haven’t transcribed the audio into text, and don’t know when (or if) I will.
More and more, I’m finding blogging is easier to do when I’m chatting into my little mp3 recorder, rather than writing a lengthy blog post. Mainly because I’m such a perfectionist and I read and re-read the post a hundred times, constantly tweaking (for hours or days) which means I don’t have much time for anything else!
So, I’ve made my what-to-write-the-first-book-about decision, within the fortnight deadline I set myself – just.
For my First Book, I’ve decided to go with the Fast and Easy (diary) option (see my last post for full details of all the options I was exploring).
My diaries are already written and there are lots of them. With luck, if you’re working with something you’ve already written, it should be fast and easy to create a book out of it – at least that is the hope!
The audio cuts off in the beginning – or rather I edited out the first bit. I was chatting away, as if to a friend, all free and easy. But when I listened back I thought, “Hang on, maybe I shouldn’t tell the whole world that“.
Not just yet anyway. I’m sure it will appear in one of my books further down the line 🙂
How do you decide what your first book will be? Whether it’s non-fiction or fiction and whatever the genre, I believe the first book is one of these three types:
Click on TRIANGLE above to listen to this blog post or continue reading – or both!
1. a Small Book
2. a Big Book
3. a Fast and Easy Book
Maybe you’ve already decided on what your first book will be – three cheers for you! I thought I had decided too, several times. I had chosen a topic and started to work diligently, writing every day and loving every moment.
That is until I started doubting myself and my writing. Several times – after years of work, I stopped writing my book and began another book, another story. Oh yes, that first story was a great idea, I said, but this one, now this is really it.
Another year or two, and the same thing happened. I lost heart, lost faith, lost trust in myself and the story I was writing. I thought I could improve my book, perhaps by adding another twist, another slant to it. How about if I tell the story from this person’s perspective? How about if I have these two main characters. Oh, but shouldn’t I have just one main protagonist? So if there are two main characters, is my hero Jane or John? Or maybe I should write it this way instead?
To cut a long story short, from 2014 to late 2018, I started six Big Books and eight Little Books. You may think that’s not too long a time to be working on writing books. Yet I’ve wanted to make my living writing for longer than that.
I think if I pick up any one of my diaries I will find a reference to wanting to be a writer. I chose a diary at random today. It was in 1982 and I managed to get a chance to do some copywriting for an advertising agency. I’d written letters to every ad agency I could find. One agency responded and gave me a chance.
I thought I did a good job but it wasn’t good enough. They didn’t take me on. Probably just as well, as I don’t think I was cut out to be a copywriter.
Instead, I continued to write in my journals. I dreamed of turning my journals into stories but never did.
Around 2014 I bought Scrivener. Scrivener is a super-duper tool for organising your thoughts, and preparing your manuscript for publication. I was excited. Real authors were using Scrivener and now, so was I. I loved it and I loved writing each book I began (and didn’t finish).
The big books I wrote were all going to be a series, in at least three parts. The little books were short stories or ideas for future big books. Five years later of playing with wonderful Scrivener and having fun ‘Writing my first book’, I lost heart and literally lost the plot. I was getting nowhere. Not in terms of finishing and publishing my first book anyway. I wanted to give up but somehow I couldn’t.
Now one thing I know is that you have to keep going at a project to succeed in it – and I did keep going. Because I don’t know many people who would plug away at something for five, twenty or forty years. Yes, friends, 1982 was nearly forty years ago.
Yet I know, that no matter how much effort you put into something and how much time and energy you spend, once you stop (let’s say for more than a month), then all that previous effort is worth naught. If you don’t consistently tend to and nurture your project, then it all goes to pot. Or rather, the pot goes off the boil.
My problem is I have spent years writing big books and years writing little books but I have finished none of them. How the hell, I wondered, (fretted) am I going to finish and publish that first blasted book?
I wanted to get something published and I wanted to do it fast. Oh yes, and it must be easy, or as easy as possible. After mulling this over for a while I had an idea. One way, would be to write a book that is fast and easy to write.
How? A bit more pondering and this is what I came up with:
Idea number one:
Choose for the first book something that is already written. All that would need to be done would be to edit, rewrite or expand upon it.
For me, this could be my journals. For you, it might be poems that could be gathered together – poems you’ve written over many years perhaps. Or that time you wrote poetry when you were in love. Maybe there is a great blog post, or an article or essay that could be expanded upon?
Idea number two:
Choose an activity you already love to do and document it. Something easy and enjoyable. Blog about it and then turn the blog posts into a book.
I liked the idea of blogging about my allotment garden. That way I could feed two birds with one bit of bread:
1. Feel okay about spending time getting the work done at my allotment and not feel guilty that I was gardening instead of writing, as it’s all part of the same project.
2. This idea would mean having a topic to blog about and a topic to create a book around. I am still exploring this idea. It’s not a new idea. I just need to feel really enthusiastic about how it might work. Because in some ways it feels like I’m following my habitual pattern of starting another new First Book again. Again.
Of course, this blog is about the dilemma of getting from draft manuscript to published manuscript – and that could be a book in itself – perhaps with entries taken directly from my journals, illustrating the angst of the writing and publishing journey – and hopefully the joys!
Idea number three:
Choose something short. Hopefully, a short book is easier and faster to write (but I suspect this isn’t always true).
The shortest book I’ve come across was only about twenty pages and happened to be a book of poetry. Another book I read was more like a long chapter.
If you price your book as low as you can go, letting the reader know that it is a short book, then all should be fine.
I’m not too concerned with selling lots of copies at this stage. Whilst it would be wonderful for your short (first) book to go viral, as many lengthy blog posts have done, the main aim in my mind is to break that publishing duck.
That duck is ‘finishing and publishing my first book’. Getting that first book out is the aim. Equally, I don’t want to throw any old thing out there, I want to publish a book I’m proud of. If I’m getting real with myself though, I don’t expect the first book to be a bestseller.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love it if it was!
Idea number four:
Choose to go incognito. Fear not – use a pen name.
Fear stops everything in its tracks, including books. The biggest fear for me about publishing my first book is that it will be crap: everyone who sees it will hate it, criticise it, and me, and I’ll be a total laughing stock.
If I publish under a name that isn’t mine and the book is a flop, it doesn’t matter. I can use a new pen name for the second book – which may do better. Or I could even use my own name if I feel brave or confident enough.
In this way, if the pen name books fail, the pen-name-person can disappear into the shadows with their failed book and live to fight another day. Hopefully re-emerging with another pen name (or their own) and a new brilliant and loved book.
I loved the idea of a Fast and Easy book and thought I’d come up with a workable idea, using something I had already written, my own journals. Never mind that I’m not a celebrity. Never mind that I haven’t been through a war or been imprisoned or had a life-threatening disease. Never mind that I don’t have some intricate and exciting tale to tell, because, I reasoned, isn’t an ordinary life – or the real thoughts of an ordinary person, pretty interesting, in a fly-on-the-wall kind of way?
I thought so. I think so. The problem is, I don’t yet know so. The Not-Knowing causes self-doubt, procrastination and the changing of horses in the middle of the stream and this is something Tower of Power strongly advised against) https://youtu.be/3szJhsa9e0Y
Write the book you want to read
I like reading about other people’s lives. I like real. I don’t like gossip mags but I do love some reality t.v. I love real-life documentaries. I love honest, open, no-shame sharing. Memoir is my favourite genre. Reading Ann Frank’s Diary when I was ten or eleven, moved me to begin keeping my own.
I have read some published diaries and thought, “Isn’t mine as interesting as this? Actually, isn’t mine more interesting than this?” Samuel Pepys Diary, for example. Maybe I missed the good bits? Some say the only interesting bit was his entry about the Great Fire of London. The rest of the diary? Well, no offence Samuel, but zzzzzz.
For a while, the idea of publishing my (honest and real) diaries felt like a good one. Until those old friends chimed in again, my doubts.
“Are my diaries interesting to anyone but me?”
The other question was, “Where do I start?” In nearly five decades of writing my diaries/journals, what day or year, out of all those years, do I start from? I still don’t know.
My journals are my biggest body of written work. There are so many stories within them. Which stories should I tell?
After much thought, I decided to just take a period of time, say three months’ worth of entries, and simply publish them. Just do it. Get my diaries out there and see what happened.
Decision made, I set to work, typing and slightly editing my diaries, thinking, “I’ll just cut out the really boring bits”.
Then I thought, “Hang on, how do I know whether this bit is boring? Maybe there are some golden nuggets of interest in my daily musings and ramblings?”
I wondered some more. “Perhaps I should explain this bit more clearly? Or change everyone’s name? – oh and the place names too, so no one recognises themselves. But what if they do recognise themselves? Will they be pissed off that I wrote that about them?”
“I know, make it into fiction! So, it’s not a real diary, just the fictional person’s diary. If I’m writing fiction, I could spice things up, add in some more action and excitement. Make it more interesting.”
“How about if I choose some really old diaries and have my older wiser self, commenting on them – like, I wish I knew then what I know now. Or: This is the advice I wish I could have given my younger self.”
Is that a good book idea?
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s already been done. Dilemma. Indecision. Doubts and Fears. The writing stops again.
I thought, through simply publishing my diaries, that I had a Fast and Easy First Book idea. Now it seems it isn’t a good idea after all.
Now what? Go back to one of the big books and work on that again?
Sigh.
Whether it’s a Big book, a Little book, or a Fast and Easy book, a decision must be made
I must look at the myriad of book ideas I’ve had over the last ten years and pick one. Preferably, once I’ve chosen, I will set myself a completion deadline. A deadline not too soon to get me into a panic, but not so far ahead that I can coast and procrastinate. Also, preferably, I must reveal the deadline date, publicly. (Oh God).
So now you know. This is where I am at, with the First Book, after all these years of trying.
I’ve yet to decide which book I’m now writing but I must decide. I’ll give myself a couple more weeks – no more. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve come up with the answer. As soon as I’ve made That Decision.
It’s taken me days to write this blog post. I was dragging my heels as I don’t want to decide on something and change my mind again. Whatever I decide, I need to see it through. Apart from anything else, I don’t have many decades left!
Well, fellow writer and creative person, are you any further forward than me?
Have you decided on the topic of your first book?
Are you writing it yet? I’d love to hear about it.
If none of the above, I hope, having read this post, you’re now feeling better about your own creative projects and progress.
