How I Wrote My First Book

@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

Many of us would like to write a book. Having been an English major in college I knew that I had an affinity for writing, however taking on a project like penning an entire book seems quite daunting no matter how good a writer you may be. It took me longer to think about deciding to do it, than it did to actually write it and I think that statement kind of sums it up: just get started!

We are have an idea of something we would like to put into book form; a cookbook, how to book, a work of fiction. In my case it was my knowledge of poker specifically No Limit Texas Hold’em that I wanted to put into book form.

As I have said, starting was the toughest part. What I did was simply got out my laptop and opened up ‘WORD’ and started writing. I didn’t worry about formatting, punctuation, spelling (although I love spell check!) or anything else to do with the technical aspects of writing. I just worried about getting my thoughts on the computer. If you try and organize and get everything right from the beginning, it seems way to hard to start. Just start writing and let the other things take care of themselves later.

After getting started, I also found that I could not force my writing. There were times when I felt like writing and things would pour out, sometimes pages and pages at a time. Sometimes a paragraph or two. But, the bottom line is, it was no use trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. If I wasn’t ‘in the mood’ and feeling the creative juices flowing, there was no point in trying. I would just come back to it at a later time.

Speaking of timing, I found that I wrote better and more creatively at certain times of the day. I suspect we are all different in this aspect. Some of us are at our best in the morning, some at night,etc. If you are a single mother, trying to write a novel starting at 9pm after working a job or taking care of the kids all day is probably not optimal. Or maybe it is! The point is, you have to find the right time of the day for you, it doesn’t matter how anyone else does it and it doesn’t matter if it is 7am or 11pm, if it works for you, your work will be better for it.

I found that along with certain times working better for me, taking breaks during these times helped to clear my head. Sitting and typing for 4 hours straight was not necessarily a good thing. Getting up and walking around the house or stopping to do the dishes or a load of laundry helped refresh my mind and made me more productive when I sat back down and started writing again. Don’t be afraid of listening to what your body and mind are telling you.

Once I had the basis for my book written in WORD format the next thing I did was find a good person to read through it and start editing. I did not try to do this myself, as I found I was much to critical of my work if I did. I was constantly re-writing when I should have been editing grammar and sentence structure. In my case, it was my wife who is a college graduate and much smarter than I am, who did my editing. She had a better working knowledge of WORD and little things like formatting or chapters that would have held me up and frustrated me were done in a snap.

Learn to focus on what you are good at and let someone else to the rest. In my case it was writing the content. Editing was not my forte. I am not saying that you have to pay someone to edit your book. Just someone you trust you is willing to look at it subjectively with another set of eyes. Writing the book itself is hard enough, trying to take on every little last aspect of getting it done is even tougher.

Once I had an edit done, I sent the book in e-form to a couple of friends to see what they thought. Again, this was just about getting another set of unbiased eyes on the work. It is always good to have more than one opinion, especially from someone you trust. I doubt they read the whole thing. It is 224 pages about poker, after all, but I was able to get input from a couple different people which in the end was quite helpful.

At this point, I gave it back to my wife to re-edit. Do not be afraid to re-edit. We did my book four times before we thought it was good enough to publish. Just giving your writing a ‘once over’ is seldom enough. Going back over it and over it will pick up mistakes that were missed the times before, I guarantee it.

Overall, these are some of the things that I did to make the process of writing my first book more simple and easy to handle. While there is no cut and dried perfect method for writing anything, the main thing is to just get started and let it go from there. If you don’t start, I can promise you will never finish.

My next article will follow up how I published this book once I got it written, the process of which may surprise you.