What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Writing A Book

I failed to build a career as a news journalist. I failed to hold down a well-paying contract with a magazine. I failed to turn a well-paying freelance job into a profitable permanent job. Worst of all, I failed to write and publish a book before I was 30 a life-long goal.

On good days, I felt restless; on bad days I was devastated by my lack of progress.

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• 7 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Writing | Literary Hub.

Writing is a personal thing, and not something you can fake or dial in. For several years in my early 20s, after I had failed as a journalist but before I made a living from writing, I worked in a career that had nothing to do with words. I struggled to find some time outside of work to write every day.

I told myself it would keep till tomorrow and that I could write at the weekend. When I finally had the guts to sit down in front of the blank page and do my work, I could barely remember where I left off or what I wanted to say. It took me so long to find the right words that I felt like a beginner. In my early twenties, I was just an amateur trying to figure out my way around the blank page. Sometimes, I make embarrassing mistakes. I still fall, but I read as much as I can about writing, creativity and productivity.

I use what I discover to fall forwards, instead of falling down. Sign in Get started. I had moved to New York a couple of years earlier, and still ached for Beirut like a lover. I missed my family, my favorite pubs, my old campus. But I fell in love with that dim, candlelit basement, found myself returning to that room of storytelling and applause with worshipper-like devotion. It took me a long time to understand this, because writing is also a magical, fickle, infuriating creature that rarely seems to belong to me.

And, yes, it is perhaps, for many of us, the most pure, simple alchemy we will ever come across. But it is also work. It needs to be treated with respect. The distance between the two can be a long, solitary tundra that is only crossed by actual writing. Everyone has their routine. If I miss a day, I forgive myself, but I make it up the next day.

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It needs consistency and, for many of us, ritual. Like—there will be weeks and months where all you hear is no. The first time I got a letter like this, I was gutted. They rejected my work. And my ego got some much-needed bruising that day. And then even more bruising, and then a little more, until I started to understand: I recognize that I say that from a place of luck and privilege, having been published.

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Others thrive on community and public readings. Some writers want their work in a book, others itch for time on stages. What they all share is honoring that part of yourself that is driven to create, finding that small, quiet hunger within you and giving it a voice. Every sentence about courage begins with fear. This is an interesting time for fear. Lamb says she is very much against pen names, for example but she has some good points to make.

One of which is that your name should be easy to find—it should be part of your website, your Twitter name, etc. Having a cute Twitter handle might be fun, but what if no one remembers that AwesomeWombat is really Sarah Madison? Your website is your home base.

It is going to be the main way readers find you. Make it easy for them! You have roughly two seconds to make a good first impression when people land on your page. Whether you have a static home page or not is up to you. But the most important thing is that your site is crisp, clear, and easy to navigate. Your social media links should all be in one place. Your backlist and buy links should be easy to find.

You should update your blog on a regular basis. If you have a newsletter or a way for readers to follow your blog, it should be easy to find and sign up. Otherwise, your viewer will click away. Everyone gets bad reviews. Look up your all-time favorite book. I guarantee that you will find someone who utterly loathed it and flamed it royally in their review. Because if someone can hate the book you adore , then it puts things in perspective for you.

I know many authors who interact with their fans quite happily on Goodreads, but I confess, it feels like an abandoned mine field to me. One false step and BOOM. Margarita Gakis advises the same, but urges even more to simply write. And then there is the classic post regarding reviews from the imitable Amy Lane: The Five Stages of a Bad Review.

Beta readers versus Editors and what they bring to the table: Every error they catch, every change they suggest, is not an insult to your talents or story, or a sign of failure, but one more thing that will be better when a ctual readers buy your book. At the same time, remember it is YOUR story. You can tell an editor they are wrong, if you truly believe that. They are human and fallible and sometimes your vision has to be the one that carries the day.

I think this is very important on many levels. As authors, particularly new authors, we have to be willing to accept the input of others, especially if we keep getting similar feedback from multiple sources: At the same time, it can be difficult not to let a strong-minded person take on more credit for the shaping of your story than they really deserve—or should have. Beta readers are not editors, either. Yes, they will catch typos, but their primary function is to tell you if the story is working or not.

Different people catch different things, so I think it is very important to have more than one beta reader. But my main reason for having multiple readers is two-fold: A good beta reader is worth their weight in gold. They will help you produce the cleanest copy possible for submission to a publisher. They are cheerleaders and problem-spotters.

But once the story moves on to editing, their role is usually done. Beta-readers are often friends, which can make it very painful to sever the relationship if it is no longer working for you. But if your beta-reader is acting like a gatekeeper between you and publishing, it is definitely time to end the relationship. Editors will clean up and tighten your prose, point out that you have used the same phrase thirty-seven times, correct your somewhat loose interpretation of the Chicago Manual of Style, and identify where things need to be explained in greater detail or a weak plot point that needs fixing.