Lately a few people in my life have been asking me how I’m able to write a book. The short answer to their question is: not very easily, and it’s hard to explain. It’s a big project for sure, and most people never write a book in their life—some because they don’t want to, and some because they feel they can’t even if they tried. Writing is an intense process with a lot of ups and downs, so I understand how it feels like an impossible task. But this felt like a good opportunity to illustrate how writing a first draft might look for those who are curious and have never written a book before. It’s quite an adventure to write an adventure. And since I’m working on the first draft of my next book right now, it only seemed fitting to show you what my life will look like over the next couple of months.

Stage 1: Excitement

Maybe an idea has been ruminating in your mind for months or years, or maybe it came instantly to you in a vivid dream the night before, but nonetheless you’re excited for your upcoming project! Some people might choose to aggressively outline to ensure they don’t miss any important details, and others can’t wait to stick their toes in the water and jump right in. It’s exhilarating, it’s new, and you can’t wait to zip to the end and share your brilliant idea with the world. Maybe you jot ideas onto sticky notes, and maybe you make character logs to remember who’s who in your story, but what’s really important right now is you’re releasing all of that high energy onto a page. Everything is going smooth and you feel like nothing can stop you. You’re working your way through the chapters and loving every second of it.

Stage 2: Doubt

You’ve firmly placed yourself inside the world of your first draft, but suddenly this book idea that you loved seems to be falling apart. That one character seems flat and uninteresting, and that one idea that you were so passionate about doesn’t seem to resonate the way you hoped it would. You’re starting to doubt. It happens for some in the earlier stages of the draft, and for others in the later stages, but odds are you’ll experience this at some point. Sometimes it’s crippling. You just can’t stand to look at that flaming pile of garbage! You wonder how anyone else is able to do this, and question if you’re even cut out to be a writer at all. After all, you’re sure it comes so easily to everyone else (it doesn’t). If you have other interests, you’ll retreat into those for a time because you’re convinced you’re better at those things anyway.

Stage 3: Rock-Bottom

The doubt eats you alive like a lurking monster of the deep. In fact, you might even quit entirely and add the draft to the pile of dozens of other unfinished drafts you might have. What’s the point anymore? Maybe you’re better off eating a pint of ice cream in front of the TV every night instead of working on another terrible book. And what fans do you have anyway, your mom? And if you do find the energy to work on your draft at all, you hate it. You curse out yourself for writing basic sentences or straying from your original plot idea entirely. This is probably also the point where many writers experience the dreaded writer’s block. It’s hopeless, it’s pointless, and although you’re not getting any younger and need to get the book done, you’d really rather not continue.

Stage 4: Resurgence

This is where your story is really picking up speed and you’ve started to get over yourself and all your self-pitying. You’re deep into it now, and your characters are fully fleshed out and you marvel at how all the pieces are falling into place unexpectedly—or maybe very expectedly, but you never thought you’d actually get there until now. You also start to figure out by this point that it’s only a draft. It doesn’t have to be perfect! All the things you hated about it before can be fixed later. What’s important now is pushing through and reaching that final conclusion.

Stage 5: Satisfaction

You did it. You’re done. The last beautiful line of your book is written and wraps it all up with a big bow. You can’t believe after all that struggle and flurry of emotions that you actually wrote a book. Sure, it still needs to be polished, be passed along to beta readers, go through minor and maybe even major edits, but one of the hardest milestones to hit has been accomplished. You realize you can do it, even though at times it felt impossible. And now it’s time for a break! After all, you absolutely deserve it. Writing books is no easy task, and it’s about time you treated yourself…before having to go through this whole roller coaster again with the second draft.

If you’ve never written a book before, I just want you to know that you can do it! It’ll be hard at times, and you may even seriously question your writing abilities and ideas, but I promise it’s not impossible. If you have written books before, do these stages of writing a first draft sound familiar to you? Did I miss anything? A writer’s life is an interesting life full of all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, much like the stories they put on paper.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been trying to find my place in the writing community, and something that I’ve noticed is how many incredible, hardworking people are able to churn out book after book like it’s nothing. I’m constantly impressed by young authors who already have a large quantity of books for their potential readers to choose from, and even more impressed at how many of these same people have written full series. On the flip side though, seeing their impressive work left me feeling inadequate—like I haven’t been working hard enough. My inner voice kept telling me that I could’ve had a similarly large selection of novels too if I had just worked harder, smarter, and sooner.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that I cannot change the past. Could I have planned everything out better in the past to be more accomplished today? Probably, but what’s done is done. The only thing I can control is my actions in the present. With that in mind, I found myself vigorously planning my future books, hoping to “catch up” with everyone else. But now I’ve come to realize…it’s not a race. It might feel that way as I compare myself to others when I shouldn’t be, but it’s not a race. We all have a different starting point, different skill level, and perhaps most notably we all have a different pace. What might take one person three months to complete could take another person a year or even two, and that’s OK!

I’m trying to let myself breathe a little bit. Although I’m very excited for what the future holds for my novels I’ve yet to write, it does not matter a great deal what the authors around me are doing. I do learn from my fellow authors every day and admire their work ethic, but how I tackle my own workload is up to me. I shouldn’t feel intimidated by the way others manage their projects, because their projects are not my projects. I should only worry about what I’m doing and not on anyone else.

I hope to give all of my novels the time and attention that they need, and however long that takes does not determine how successful I am as an author. The writing process looks different for everyone. If you’re an author, how long does it take you to write a book? Have you found yourself comparing your process to others? Let me know in the comments.

In school we learn about grammar, spelling, sentence structure, dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s, and all the little secrets to supposedly writing “well”, but in the end writing is a lot more than just knowing when to start a new paragraph or recognizing the appropriate time to italicize this word or that. Sure, grammar and structure certainly matter on a technical level, but what some might forget is that writing is an art form. What you write is whatever you want it to be! You can decide to plan it all out before you begin, or you can just go with the flow and wing it. It’s up to you, as a writer, and your style is your own. There’s no formulas that have to be utilized, and it’s not a multiple-choice test where only one option is the correct answer. Even grammar is bent and broken at times if it serves some contextual purpose. I’m here to say: Don’t let your perceived technical weaknesses stop you from putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. The only person who can write like you, is you.

This is the part where I “out” myself a little bit: my lexicon is downright awful and is perhaps my greatest struggle. I constantly have to look up synonyms when the most descriptive words I can think of are “happy” or “it was blue in color”. Most people I’ve talked to have probably noticed just from five minutes of conversation with me that I constantly stumble over myself just trying to remember that word for that thing…you know, the thing! I have a hard time putting together that perfect description, or even identifying particular objects that I can only see in my head, but can’t remember the name of for the life of me. It’s a continual battle, but this doesn’t stop me, and let me tell you why:

If you view writing as an art, which it absolutely is, then writing is merely a creative expression meant to be viewed and consumed, not necessarily “corrected”. Of course, I still want the consumption of my work to be a positive experience for readers, so I will always try my hardest to write in a way that sticks to the “status quo” one might say, but comparing my writing to people more successful, or to people more technically or even creatively skilled than me, does not make me less of a writer. Perhaps it’s a bit obvious, but it turns out writers write. Do you write? Then you’re a writer. Period.

Forget what your technical skill level is. A writer is not defined by how many articles/books they’ve written, how many awards they’ve won, the profit they make from their work, or the size of their audience. If you have something in your soul that is itching to get out, and you have any writing capabilities at all, you can write it. And once you start writing, you’re a writer. Then with practice, patience, and time you will evolve and mold your style into one that is completely unique to you. I’d still recommend educating yourself in those areas you feel you could improve—I sure know expanding my vocabulary would do me a world of good—but don’t let anyone tell you that there’s a “wrong” way to do it, or that you’re not really a writer until you reach “x” milestone. Writing is your self-expression, so claim it, nurture it, take it for a walk and jump rope with it, and you do it your way. Because at the end of the day, the only way to write the “wrong” way is to not write anything at all.

One day you hatch an amazing idea for a book. In your excitement, you hunker down at your desk and start work on it right away. Eventually though, your brain stalls. That project that had you excited at the start has suddenly turned into a nightmare. The words just aren’t coming to you, and the ideas have stopped flowing. What now? In a lot of cases, the book gets abandoned. Sometimes people haven’t even written a single word, and are stuck staring at a blank page! Just like other writers, I’ve experienced bad cases of writer’s block myself, but fortunately I’ve learned some tricks that can help you defeat writer’s block for good.

Create an outline/Return to your outline

One thing that always brought failure to my writing projects was not creating an outline beforehand. I’d have a vague idea in my head of what kind of story I wanted to write, but I did not map it out. I would instead jump right into writing without a clear plan. If you haven’t made an outline yet, make one! Include the beginning of the story, the climax, major turning points, and, of course, the ending of the story. If you’ve already made an outline, but are still struggling on how to get from point A to point B in your novel, you could return to the outline and add more detail to it. Ask yourself questions like: What motivates my characters? What are their personalities? What’s the goal? How are they kept from their goal? And so on.

Whenever you find yourself stuck, it’s never a bad idea to go back to your outline and either tweak it or add more detail to it. You’d be surprised at the kind of new ideas you’d come up with from revisiting the original idea.

Give yourself a deadline

The book that I will soon be releasing on April 21, 2022 was an idea that came to me almost instantly. I was so excited that I pulled out a notebook and made a rough outline as soon as the idea struck. I then set out to get this book done, and I knew that if I didn’t give myself a deadline to finish the first draft by that I would just procrastinate it forever and never complete it. A rather surprising advantage to setting this deadline for myself though was that it forced me to write even when I felt like my ideas were running dry. My deadline date was constantly looming over my head, so at times I told myself it was better to write something than to write nothing. This doesn’t mean that everything you’ll write will be gold, but often times the next day you’re able to come back and make the previous section better after some reflection. It’s a matter of pushing through, even when you feel like you can’t.

Clear your mind of clutter

Life can get stressful as it constantly pulls your mind in opposite directions. Should you focus on this or should you focus on that? And when it comes to writing, your mind might be focusing on a bunch of different puzzle pieces of the same big puzzle, but is struggling to see how to put all those pieces of the story together. It gets worse though, there’s obviously some pieces missing! This situation is incredibly stressful, and what I like to do when I find myself here is take some time to clear my head.

How, you may ask? Well, there’s a number of things you can do. You can go for a walk, for starters. Get out in nature and just breathe in the fresh air for a bit. Keep your story in the back of your head, but don’t focus too hard on it. You can meditate, you can take a relaxing bath, you can listen to some calming music…whatever you need to do to center yourself. It might sound silly, but at a certain point parts of your story will become clearer. You’ll be able to see what works, what doesn’t, and what should be changed. Sometimes you may even get that epiphany you’ve desperately been waiting for! All you had to do was clear your head for a while.

Brainstorm with someone you trust

Some people don’t want to admit to themselves that they don’t have all the answers. You can only pick your own brain for so long before there’s nothing left to pick at. The best course of action in this situation is to seek out someone you trust to bounce ideas off of—my choice is usually my husband. Different people are able to provide different perspectives, or are perhaps just more knowledgeable on a certain subject than you are. And even if this trusted person isn’t able to provide any new suggestions, sometimes just being able to verbalize what you’re struggling with in your story can jumpstart the dormant ideas in your head. Saying everything out loud can be a miraculous cure to your writing woes.

Read books/watch films in the same genre

Sometimes if the juices just aren’t flowing you have to turn to works by other creators. If you’re writing a ghost story, read horror books or watch horror films. If you have a favorite horror book/film, go back and experience it again. As you consume these works, ask yourself a few questions: What makes this story good? What makes it bad? What’s the best part? What’s the worst part? Studying what other people have created in your desired genre can be extremely helpful. It may even be helpful to take notes about certain books/films to see if there’s anything that can spark an idea for your story. But remember, don’t plagiarize. Use other works as inspiration fuel, but don’t rip off the artists who created those works.

Some solutions to writer’s block may work for some people better than others, but you won’t know what will work for you until you try! For me, giving myself a deadline and brainstorming with people I’m close to have been the most effective, but maybe those ones aren’t the most effective for you. Try out some of these methods and let me know how it went. Also, are there any good tricks I missed? I’m curious what this list could be lacking.