Author Archives: Staff

Writing a book can feel like a big project. You’ll be carving out time in your day to write. You’ll likely be using skills that may feel new to you. And you’ll be pushing your boundaries. It’s an exciting time, one in which you may need to feel the support of others.

Family and Friends

If you feel like your friends and family are going to be supportive, share your goals with them. Most often, people will be quite excited to hear that you’re writing a book. They’ll pepper you with questions and you’ll feel motivated to continue. If you’re going to be writing at home, you’ll also need the support of those you live with. They need to know to leave you in peace during your writing time.

Critique Groups

Consider connecting with other writers to get feedback on your material. You can find online critique partners or groups. There are probably other fiction critique groups in your community. Keep in mind that what your critique partners say is only an opinion.

Listen to their feedback and only take away what feels useful. Let go of the rest. Remember, as a member of a critique group you’ll also be required to contribute your feedback. Smaller groups can be good because there are fewer members and less to read.

Writing Organizations and Associations

There are both community organizations and national organizations to explore. These writing associations can provide you with the information, support, and feedback that you need. There’s something quite inspiring and motivating about attending an event for writers. It makes you feel like you belong and that you are capable of achieving your writing goals. It’s also great to talk to others and hear their success stories.

Support for your writing goals is essential. Create that support system for yourself. Join a local writing group or association, find critique partners, and share your writing aspirations with positive friends and family.

Next week, we’re going to deviate from the process of writing for a bit to talk about promoting your book because the promotion process begins long before the book is finished. Ideally, you’ll have an audience of people waiting to buy your book.

Finding Support For Your Writing Goals

Did you know that if you write 500 words a day you’d have written a book in about five months? The average book length is between 70,000 and 100,000 words. 500 words is about two double spaced pages. You can write two pages a day, right? You can probably write more than that. Is 1000 doable? Then you’ll have a book in about 70 days.

Planning your writing requires a few key elements. The first is to set a daily writing goal. There are two ways to approach your daily writing goal.

Word count goal – For example, write 1000 words a day

Time goal – For example, write for an hour.

Here’s another situation where you may want to try both to see which best suits your needs and writing style. For example, you may be able to write 1000 words in twenty minutes. If you have more time in the day to write, then an hour a day may be a better goal because you’ll get more accomplished.

When you self-publish, there are no rules about how long your book should be. However, remember that you’re writing for your audience and they have preferences. You can look at a dozen books in your chosen genre and average the word count.

You might notice, for example, that fantasy books tend to be longer than mysteries and that young adult books tend to be around 60,000 to 70,000 words. This information can help you set your writing goals too, especially if you have a publication date in mind.

By the way, if you have a publication date in mind, make sure that your first draft is completed at least a month beforehand. You’ll still need to edit and format it before it can be published.

Another element that will help you is to create a supportive writing environment. Some people need to write in complete silence. Others write more effectively when they’re surrounded by strangers and noise. Some write better in the morning and others prefer the dark of night.

When striving to find your best writing time and environment think about….

• When your imagination is most active.
• What home distractions may prevent you from writing
• Where you might write
• What you might enjoy having around you as you write. For example, would you prefer to have an endless supply of coffee and free Wi-Fi or do you want to be surrounded by pictures of family and friends?

A famous horror writer says that he wrote his first book sitting in his car parked in front of a graveyard each night. Creepy, but productive!

Read the other blog posts in the series here.

Once you have a story idea you’ll want to decide what approach to take. There are two basic approaches to writing a story. The first approach is good old-fashioned plotting. You sit down and create an outline of your story. You know what happens in the beginning, the middle, and the end. You know what the climax of the story is and you plan exactly when it’s going to happen. Some plotters outline every scene before they actually begin writing.

The other approach is the opposite of plotting. It’s called writing by the seat of your pants. It means that you sit down at your computer and you just start writing. The plot unfolds as you write and each scene may even surprise you.

Plotter, Pantser, Or Somewhere In Between?

There is a third option and it’s where many people find themselves most comfortable. You may have a loose idea about the plot and story arch. However, you don’t have a formal outline or a scene-by-scene plan.

There really is no right or wrong way to approach your book or fiction material. Write in a way that feels most productive to you. For example, you may find that writing with a structured outline feels too rigid and slow. Others find that without a plan, they tend to stare at blank screens because they have no idea what to do with the next scene.

Best advice…try both options. Try outlining your plot and try writing by the seat of your pants. What’s more important than your plotting approach is your day-to-day writing approach. Let’s look at how to plan your writing.

Do you think you will be a plotter, a pansters or something in between?

Read the other blog posts in the series here.

Self-publishing has never been so dynamic. It’s a continually evolving industry. People are reading more now than ever before and it’s never been easier to publish a successful book.

Digital publishing paved the way. However, now you can print your books and sell them at major retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Here are a few examples of the success that’s possible with self-publishing:

• Amanda Hocking wrote 17 novels while working full time. She self-published all of them as e-books and sold more than a million copies.
• Erika Leonard (E.L. James) sold more than 70 million copies of her “Fifty Shades” trilogy worldwide. She also sold the movie rights to her book, increasing her sales and profits.
• Romance author, Barbara Freethy has sold more than 2,000,000 books, writing about the Callaway family.
• And another romance author, Bella Andre has sold more than a million copies of her novels about the Sullivan family.

What about you? Are you the next big self-publishing success story?

According to the New York Times 81 percent of people say that they have at least one book in them. It’s quite likely that you have a story idea that you’ve been considering for a while, maybe years. Well now is the time to write that story and publish it. With a little planning and preparation, you can profit from your imagination.

Who knows? You may be the next self-published author to make it big, see your novel purchased by mainstream publishers, and turned into a movie! Sounds pretty fun, right?

In the coming weeks we will discuss:

• How Do You Get Started With Your Story Idea?
• How to Plan Your Writing
• Finding Support For Your Writing Goals
• Your Author Platform: Finding Your Audience
• Your First Draft Is Cruddy and What You Can Do To Fix It
• How To Polish Your Book – And Why it Matters
• Your Book is Ready to Launch!

Finding Your Fiction Idea

Most aspiring writers have a genre in mind before they begin writing. You know what you enjoy reading and where your imagination takes you. If you don’t have a genre in mind just yet, here are some to consider:

• Crime/Detective
• Children’s
• Young Adult
• Literary Fiction
• Fantasy and Urban Fantasy
• Horror
• Romance
• Mystery
• Poetry
• Science fiction
• Suspense/Thriller
• Western

Each of these genres can have a subgenre. For example, there are young adult Fantasy books and romance stories that are set in the Wild West. There are literary fiction novels that are suspenseful, set in the past, or contemporary.

Why is choosing a genre important?

Your genre is important because readers tend to stick to their genre. For example, romance readers read romance and horror fans read horror. This loyalty gives you an opportunity to learn about your readers and write specifically for them. Also, by choosing a genre you can study similar books and look for patterns and rules.

For example, did you know that in a mystery you are supposed to introduce the villain in the first thirty pages? In a romance, the hero and heroine have to meet in the first three chapters or thirty pages.

If you have a story idea, that’s fantastic. What genre is it in? Where does it fit? Not sure? Head to the bookstore and start reading the back of books in a few genres that you are considering. Look for concepts that match your own. That’s your genre.

What if you don’t have a story idea?

For a writer, there’s nothing more common or frustrating than sitting down to a computer only to stare at a blank page. Welcome to the world of writing! If you don’t have a story idea, don’t worry about it. An idea will come to you. Here are a few fun ways to find inspiration:

• Read Fiction – Some of the best ideas have been inspired by reading fiction or something from a favorite genre.
• Leverage writing prompts – the internet is packed with writing prompts and books about these helpful little starter ideas.
• Play “what if” – Start with a tiny idea. For example, a woman is driving down the street. Now ask yourself what if. What if she gets into an accident? What if there’s a man in the back of her car? What if she sees something she’s not supposed to? This “game” can help create exciting plots.
• Start writing longhand – Sometimes the computer screen can feel daunting. Grab a pencil and a notebook and start writing whatever comes to mind. You might end up journaling a bit, as you write, that’s okay. You might also find creative inspiration.

Next week we will discuss how to get started with your story idea.

Do you have a book within you?