It’s Never Too Late to Start Writing That Book!

Publishing my first book in my 40s was no easy task, but it was doable. The number one piece of advice I give when asked how to write a book is to start! Don’t be intimidated by the prospect of writing an entire book. A book starts with a word, then a sentence, then a paragraph, and so on. Writing over 50,000 words seems like a daunting task, but you’ve got it in you. It’s simply one word at a time.

How Do I Even Get Started?

So, you want to write a book but you are asking yourself, “How do I ever get started?” Find a time that works for you to block off your schedule to write. I don’t have young children, so I can’t tell moms (my audience is mostly women, so I address women, but this applies to dads too) when to fit writing into an already hectic schedule. As a professional woman with a demanding career, I can say you have to make the time. Look at your daily schedule and figure it out. I’m an early morning person. I do my best work in the morning time. As I looked at my morning routine, I realized I was spending at least 20 minutes scrolling through social media to get caught up from the day before. I realized that 20 minutes could be used writing.

God didn’t put me on the earth to spend 20 minutes every morning scrolling through social media. He had me on assignment to write a book to encourage and empower His daughters and I was wasting that time on reading memes. I’m not going to reach my goals spending time looking at other people’s lives – I have to work for my own goals. Plus, there was someone out there waiting for my book. Someone who needed my words, the way I told the story, to reach them and empower them. For the sake of that person, I needed to get busy writing, not checking Facebook.

Give Yourself Grace

Whether you get up 30 minutes early, use your lunch hour, take 30 minutes in the evening after dinner and/or before bed, you must carve out the time. When I was beginning my writing process, I researched the habits of successful authors so I could try to figure out how to do this whole writing a book thing. Several blogs I read said that you have to write every day. Well, I didn’t write every day. I couldn’t. I have a demanding full-time job, plus family. There were days I simply could not write. And, that was ok. I gave myself permission to not write every single day. I had to give myself that grace because I couldn’t do it all. 

Give yourself some grace in this too. If you’re like me, writing is not your full-time job, so you can’t devote several hours every day to writing and all that’s required for publishing and marketing. I still had to work my full-time job as a divorce/custody lawyer – which often required long and stressful days, take care of things around the house – the grocery shopping, cooking, chores, etc, spend time with my husband and dogs, and get some sleep. It’s a lot, so I had to create some time by deciding what to sacrifice and what I could put aside, or delay, in my push to finish my manuscript.

Block Time & Making Sacrifices

The biggest helper was to block my time. For me, my time writing was and is early morning. I would (and still do) wake up at 3:30 or 4:00 am each weekday (6:00 am weekends) and write. That time was blocked out for me to write, edit, and edit some more. It was a sacrifice, but worth it to achieve my goal of getting published. 

There will be sacrifices to achieve your goal. I love a glass of Cabernet at night. However, I realized that I was much more sluggish in the mornings after I drank wine the night before. Those were the mornings I wanted to hit snooze several times and I didn’t feel as clear headed as I needed to be to write. So, I stopped drinking wine at night so I could wake up more alert and ready to write. You may have to cut out a television show or take a 30-day break from all social media. Decide what is more important to you, your goals, and your future. For me, a glass of wine was not as important as getting words on a page that I believed God was leading me to write. The wine could wait – I could enjoy it after I finished my manuscript.

Just Do It - WRITE!

The thought of writing, publishing, and marketing your book can be overwhelming and intimidating. But, it doesn’t have to be. There are great resources available. I attended Book Bound in January 2019 and again in January 2021 to learn some of the ins and outs of writing and publishing. I learned such an incredible amount of information, including how to simply get started organizing my thoughts, mind mapping, and so forth. I eventually signed on with Performance Publishing Group as a partner publisher to take some of the stress and leg work from me. They handled finding an editor, graphic designer, getting the ISBN number, and getting it to THE book distributor for bookstores across the country. Partnering with Performance Publishing Group meant they did all the work to take my finished manuscript to print – which was a huge load off my shoulders – for a flat fee, not royalties, and I could focus on the writing, editing, and marketing. I can’t recommend them enough!

Writing Friday

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Photo courtesy of #KathySmithImages