How To Write a Book - Part 1

Getting Started

         Just earlier today, one of my good friends congratulated me on the release of my new ebook that I had recently self-published. She said that she'd always wanted to self-publish, but sadly had never finished anything. I had the same problem, actually, and do you know what that problem was? Making excuses. A lot of us think it would be nice to write a book (just to be able to say that you have), a few of us have gone through with it. Most of us probably haven't. Why? Well, we keep making excuses.
         And I use the term "we" deliberately - meaning I make excuses as well.
         I'm a firm believer in the truth that it's only when we stop making excuses as to why we can't that we can get down to what I affectionately refer to as "canning" - in other words - we actually get crap done. 
          There's usually three or four excuses that I and those around me constantly make as to why we can't write:
          1: No time.
          2: I just haven't found my "muse".
          3: I need the right "setting"
          Now for the fun part - I get to tell you that each and every one of these excuses are just that: excuses.

Take Five Minutes

         The first one, my favorite to start with, is the myth that we need lots and lots of time to write something. I know that a lot of us have it in our heads that we should have hours of time set aside to be able to sit down, undisturbed, in peace and quiet, and type away in order to write a book. This is just not true. My favorite example to use is the famous author JK Rowling. When she was writing her famous Harry Potter books, she didn't have oodles and oodles of time at first. She wrote whenever she had a spare minute, often putting whole passages on napkins at a cafe. The point being - you don't need to have a huge block of time set aside, five minutes will do. 

Be Brave, Take Control

        As for the second excuse of "I just haven't found my muse" - this was one I was extremely guilty of. This also is a lie we tell ourselves. What I had to learn through the blood, sweat, and tears of trying to salvage a sagging middle that my "muse" just didn't find interesting enough to write is this: I control my muse, my muse does not control me. Sometimes you have to give your own muse a kick in the pants and just start writing. One sentence is all it takes, whether you're writing a book, an essay, a poem - anything. It doesn't even have to be a good sentence, just write something. One of my favorite quotes that I use to apply to my writing is by Bilbo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." You see, often times, all it takes is the bravery to proverbially step out the door - write that first sentence and see where it takes you. You don't need a muse to tell you when to write. Type something, anything. Whether it's complete crap or not doesn't matter - it's called a "rough draft" for a reason. I like to call my first drafts "dump drafts" - it gives me the freedom to just type and not worry about whether or not it's good enough. That can be fixed later. I've found that once I get down to typing - there's no stopping me.

Just A Pen and Paper

           Now, for the final excuse - the setting. Some people think that they need to be in a completely quiet room at a special desk, with a steaming mug of tea that overlooks a lake. Some people think they need to write in a bustling cafe, with just enough people and background music to get lost in. These are really, really nice ideas - but real life doesn't work like that. If you keep waiting for the right setting to write in, then you will never write. All you need is a laptop with Google Drive or an word processor, or an old fashioned pen and something to write on. Learn to tune out annoying sounds - buy some noise canceling headphones if need be. If you like background noise, there's a lot of good white noise tracks on Youtube. If you like music, then you just need the internet and Youtube and some headphones. It's not that hard.

          This is what beginning to write a book boils down to: don't let anyone or anything hold you back, including yourself. All you need is five minutes and one sentence and you have begun - and once you begin, there's no telling where that story may take you. Everyone has a story to tell.

        

           No excuses. Five minutes. One (possibly bad) first sentence. Start telling yours.

Find the People that Inspire You Most

Once upon a time... 
     There was an odd little girl who wanted nothing more than to be normal. She preferred the company of those thirty years her senior to that of her peers, and she never understood why. In truth, nobody did. When her friends wanted to play dolls, she wanted to take hers on adventures through Victorian slums. When her friends wanted to play dress-up, she wanted to the daughter of Robin Hood. When her friends wanted to play dollhouse - she wanted to make aliens out of legos. She built huts out of tree branches and pretended to hunt squirrels with her toy bow and arrow, then went inside for 'tea and crumpets'. She enjoyed learning new words, and reading about far-off places, and talking with adults because adults conversations were so much more interesting to her. 
              But the one thing she loved, above all else, was to tell stories.
              Hours, every day, before she could even write them down, she was telling them. Princess and Dragons, horses that could run millions of miles in a second, trips over the Swiss Alps, it didn't matter to her. Her favorite story was that of a noble princess from far away who freed the oppressed people from a tyrant king.
              These she played and told alone, because there was no one to do it with her. Her friends didn't understand the attraction. So, before long, she sank into herself, into her world of fantasy, and didn't come out until one fateful day. 

              It was the day that would change her life. A day she has never forgotten. 

              Her best friend told her other friends she was crazy. 
              The words stung. She was labeled an outcast. So, alone, she returned to her bedroom and continued to weave tales, convinced that she would never find anybody in the world who would understand. 

              "So, alone she returned to her bedroom, 

and continued to weave tales,

convinced she would never find anybody

in the world who would."

                  Then, one day, a strange thing happened. A new little girl, one she had never met before came to play. In the midst of the piles of her little plastic dolls, acting out the story of the noble princess and the tyrant king, this little girl sat with her and began to play along the same story line. 

That little girl was me... 
                 and the one who played my game with me is now my best friend in the whole, wide Universe. She is also a writer, and she inspires me to be who I am. Because of her, I found the courage to branch out and discover that there were other little girls just like me, and that we weren't insane - we simply had what was called an overactive imagination. Today, those others like me, we hang out together, drinking tea and eating crumpets. We're writers, musicians, actors, and artists... and we never would have found each other had we not been inspired by our mutual insanity. 
                  Do you have a mutual story? Or... perhaps you know someone who was like me. Perhaps you know someone who is just a little different. Please understand... that person is not insane. They're not strange. They certainly don't deserve to be alone. They're not anti-social, they're not awkward, they're not drifting. They're waiting.
                 They are waiting for that one person to come along and tell them that it's okay to be them. That they're not the only ones. There are over 6 billion people on this planet, and yes, there is only you - but that doesn't mean that you're alone. We're human, and we're special, and we were made to live extraordinary lives. Nobody should be shut out of communion with another human being and made to think that they're strange because they're different. 
                  Everybody has their own little area of life that's like that: forgotten dreams, hidden interests that you think are strange... or too different. Please know that it's okay. You are important. Don't be afraid. Fear does not inspire greatness, and it does not ever teach you to be who you were made to be. Those little quirks are what make you you, so accept them. Know that you are not alone on the planet. There's so many other human beings - and your chances are very, very good of finding someone that understands you, but you'll never know if you don't have the courage to look. Human beings are made for friendship. Friendship is what makes us stronger. It grows us. Without our friends we would be so much less... because our friends are the ones that believe in us enough to let us know that even if we are a bit odd, and a bit strange, and bit mad... they love us anyway, and they know that we can be great as us. 
There is no such thing as an unimportant human being. 
                  So, 

go out and find the person that inspires you to be you. 

"Don't be afraid to seem a bit mad. All the best people in the world are a bit mad in some way or another." - The Doctor

                

A Word on Writer's Block

            I’m having trouble writing. I used to love it, I could write for hours on end, never looking at the time, but at the moment words elude me. Sure I have ideas, just not words to put them into. Most people assume the hard part of writing is getting ideas. But that’s not true. The hardest part for many writers is figuring how to put that oh-so-awesome idea into equally awesome words. Let me tell you my little secret - I don’t have one! I’ve heard that the trick is to simply start writing, but that’s not the easiest thing in the world when you can put down anything worth any two cents that anybody would pay for it. People say you should write every day, even if it’s a sentence. Supposedly, the whole main idea of good writing is:
1. Write a good sentence
2. Write another good sentence
3. Repeat said steps 1 and 2 until you have a book, poem, or whatever.

            The trouble is step one. I try to write a nice sentence, and I slam right up against a brick wall. Just how does one write a good sentence? How does one go about choosing each word so carefully and placing it in the exact special way so that it causes the emotions flow from the heart? How do I trigger an outpouring of memories, senses that transport someone to another world?

"How do I trigger an outpouring of memories, senses that transport someone to another world?"

              I think something that has really improved my writing, the flow and continuity, has been writing songs and poetry. When you’re writing these things, you’re constantly having to decide on the perfect word to stay with the rhythm of the poem while still saying something deeply profound in every song (Unless you’re a horrible song-writer… but more on that later). I think every writer, no matter the type, should learn to write a decent poem and song. Don’t be afraid, if you have a phrase you absolutely adore, to turn it into a poem. Write your feelings about it. It doesn’t even have to rhyme, but keep in time, keep in idea, and keep in sync with all of the emotions flowing out of you.

              I believe words are directly connected to your emotions. Think about it. Words are uniquely powerful to portray all kinds of emotions and feelings and ideas. With them, you hold the power to giving life and take away life, to build something up or tear it down. Language is an incredible gift, and it should be treated as such.

"Language is an incredible 

gift, it should be treated 

as such."

            For example of this great gift, Love letters are beautiful things aren’t they? They’re written with someone in mind, and they’re often the most amazing works of literature you’ll ever find. Take any love-letter, any love-sick peice and you’ll immediately be carried away to a secret place deep within the author’s heart. Vice-versa, heartbreak is oft so well portrayed by words and music and rhythm. Music and words have a special ability to connect to someone’s heart. But this is an ability that is being sorely neglected due to today's culture.
             Today, the average attention span is shortened to half-a-page or less! That’s just sad! It's also reflected in the writing that is now produced. Take this blog, for instance. It's written in short blurbs, a journalistic style. Chapter lengths these days are shorter and we have to snag readers right a the get-go because today's reader is in a rush and doesn't have the time to actually read something through carefully. As a result, we're losing the depth to our writing that we once had, and "writers block" becomes even harder as we are less and less familiar with the good sentence. I’m guilty of this, and I think we need to settle down and just read.

"We need to settle down and just read."

See, when we’re babies we spend a great deal of time listening before we learn to speak our native tongue. It’s the same with writing. You must spend a huge amount of time reading works by excellent authors before you can even begin to put down something decent on the page. I think this is another reason as to why good writing is in such short supply but nobody seems to notice… people don’t read enough.
In conclusion, the solution isn’t simply to write. A fool has a multitude of words and still says nothing of value. But a wise man listens, and then when he has something full of transcendent truth and wisdom to say… he says it and it shakes the world.


     "If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it."
Anais Nin 

About Me

Beth Lundin 

          is a student and would-be author with a dream to change the world. At the ripe old age of since-she-can-remember, she's been telling stories and weaving tales. She was making up story-lines before she could even write, often drawing pictures and setting them to words, or acting them out with her dolls. When she discovered the magic of reading and writing and the ability the craft has to transform one to another realm, she set about learning her new trade with a vengeance. Since then, she's written poetry, songs, short essays, contemporary fiction, fan-fiction (aplenty), and romance. Her current favorite genre to write is historical fiction. As of now, she writes from her blue little room in the United States, on a dilapidated netbook and in home-made journals, surrounded by cups of tea and ood
les of highly-caffeinated beverages.