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We’re wild about words!

Only one way to write a book: Write!

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laptopI’ve been getting a lot of solicitations about online courses and webinars to teach people how to write a book.

These courses offer lots of tips and ideas such as software packages that will make it easier for you to write and organize your material, and tips about staying hydrated and eating the right foods for energy.

All of that is well and good, but really, the only way to write a book is to sit down and write it.

Here are some of my tips to get you into the mindset to write the book.

Schedule your writing time and stick to it unless there’s a true emergency.

If you’re writing at home, make sure you’re in a secluded place with the door shut and tell your family to leave you alone.

Shut off your email and your phone.

When you find yourself reaching for the phone, stop and get back to work.

Unclutter your desk or the area where you sit to write.

The first newspaper publisher for whom I worked was named Stu Awbrey. Stu was small in stature but a fabulous writer. He would walk around the newsroom of The Hawk Eye in Burlington, Iowa, and “tsk, tsk” at the state of some of our desks. He used to say, “A cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind.” To which I once heard a classified ad rep reply: “An empty desk is the sign of an empty mind.” I agree with Stu; all that stuff can be a distraction.

Don’t use “writer’s block” as an excuse not to write a book.

That comes from my years spent in journalism with constant deadlines where you had no choice but to crank out the story. Write something, anything, and then go back and revise later.

Keep a notepad handy.

Jot down any thoughts that interfere, like “remember to call the babysitter” or whatever.

Prepare for solitude.

Prior to sitting down to write, use the facilities and get a glass of water so you won’t be jumping up after 10 minutes.

Set a deadline and a reward.

Example: “I’m going to sit here for 90 minutes and only write. When that’s up, then I can take five minutes to do whatever I want. Then I have to start writing again.” Resist the temptation to check email in that five minutes because you will end up spending time on it. This of course only applies to days when you can set aside a large chunk of time to write.

Here’s the bottomline:

The world won’t end while you’re glued to your chair and writing. After a few successful writing sessions, I bet you’ll look forward to the solitude and escapism of writing your book.

What tactics work for you when you are writing?

Must-read for writers on how to self-publish

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typewriter_bookWriting and self-publishing a book has never been easier. I often get asked for advice from people writing a book or who aspire to do so.

Here’s a book on how to self-publish that I recommend: What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes? And How Can I Be One, Too? by Pamela Fagan Hutchins.

After I left my job as an editor at The Democrat and Chronicle to “rewire” (read about it here), I knew I wanted to write and publish a memoir about my family owning pharmacies for 90 years in Iowa. But although I’d written many articles, columns and editorials over my 33-year career, I didn’t know much about writing a book and self-publishing. So I read a slew of articles, blogs and books. This book by Hutchins was the most helpful. Here are five reasons why:

  1. Hutchins writes with humor and pathos. She takes you along her personal journey, having written and self published nine books at the time she wrote this one. As she says in the introduction: “I’m not a hybrid author who moves back and forth between the indi- and traditional-publishing worlds. I’m ground zero to 50,000 feet. If I can do this, and share what I’ve learned, maybe you really can do it, too. Don’t you think.”
  2. There’s no b.s. in this book. Her first chapter is titled: “Earn (no) money all by yourself (on the financial implications of traditional versus indie publishing.” This chapter is a great overview of what’s going on in the worlds of traditional publishing world and self publishing, with questions to ask yourself in deciding which route to go.  The bottom line is that it’s hard to make significant amounts of  money as an author so you better have other reasons for wanting to write a book.
  3.  Hutchins shares the aggravations she’s encountered, so you can anticipate and learn. In the section on “How to put yourself on the market,” she goes into great detail about the pros and cons of various e-book publishers. For example, she’s blunt about the challenges of working with Apple. It’s a lot easier to read her summaries before you go to each site to check out their terms.
  4. Throughout the book, she offers web links for everything she writes about. So if you read her book digitally, you can just click on the link and voila! you go to the site. The first time I read her book, I got a copy from the library. I liked it so well, I downloaded the Kindle version so I’d always have it as a reference.
  5. How you market your book will be just as important as producing a quality book. Hutchins’ advice about a marketing plan, giveaways, social media and more really helped me have a book signing event that was over-the-top in success. (Read about it here.) She provides a sample marketing plan, press release, etc. in the appendix.

If you’ve written a book, what advice do you have to share?

 

What’s truly essential? 3 steps to Essentialism

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I'm highlighting key take-aways from this book.
I’m highlighting key take-aways from this book.

I’m always trying to cram more into my day. Who isn’t? But I’m reading a fascinating book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and trying to discern what’s really essential to me and where can I make the greatest contribution.

Greg McKeown is the author of Essentialism, and I heard him discuss this form of “systematic discipline” on this podcast with Michael Hyatt.

McKeown makes the point that we live in a world where “the preponderance of choice has overwhelmed our ability to manage it. We have lost our ability to filter what is important and what isn’t.”

He uses the analogy of our clothing closet — just like it gets cluttered, so do our lives as we make commitments and the list of things we are doing keeps growing.  So the Essentialist way of approaching life, like his or her closet, is three-fold:

1. Explore and evaluate. Take a look at everything you’re doing and determine what you really love or what pertains to your goals.

2. Eliminate. Get rid of the nonessential activities.

3. Execute. Develop a process so you have a method, a systematic discipline, for making these decisions on an ongoing basis. As McKeown states, “It’s about learning how to do less but better so you can achieve the highest possible return on every precious moment in your life.”

I actually read a library copy of this book while on vacation about two months ago, and I liked it so much, I purchased my own copy. Now I’m re-reading it, highlighting key points. From there, I plan to do some discernment as I look at all the activities I have in my life. Now is a good time for me to do this, as it’s been two years since I left daily journalism to “rewire.”

As part of this exercise, I’m going to look back at my journal from 2013-14 where I wrote about what I imagined my life would be like when I left 33 years of full-time journalism. I know I’ve accomplished a lot, but am I achieving what I dreamed? Have those dreams and goals changed?

How about you? What changes have you made in your life to be an Essentialist? Or are you, like me, in need of some soul-searching discernment?