On Becoming an Author

I’m new to the writing world, at least as far as getting published goes, so I was surprised at first when Authority Magazine asked me if I’d share some tips on becoming an author. Am I qualified to do this, I wondered to myself. And then I thought, I just might be!

Here’s a link to the full article on Medium.com If you’d just like to know my five tips for new authors, I’ll share them here:

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why?

Write every day. You’ve probably heard that writing is a muscle that quickly atrophies when not regularly exercised. I heard that, too — and initially ignored it. Writing every day translates into significantly increased productivity. When I finally got around to making that daily commitment, my progress went through an extraordinary acceleration.

Find (or create) a writing circle. There’s nothing more motivating than connecting with a group of talented people who are doing what you want to do. It’ll take some effort to build your cohort, but they’ll keep you moving. Heck, you might even have some fun.

Retreat. Not from writing, but from your regular world. It’s not the easiest thing, especially if you have bills to pay and major work commitments outside of your writing, but if you can carve out a moment (or a week or a month or more), it can set a path for your writing project that gives you direction and clarity. After two years of very slow progress on my memoir, I disappeared to an island in Southeast Asia and threw myself wholeheartedly into my project. Without all the distractions of my everyday life, I completed my manuscript in two months.

Become a morning person. I wasn’t. I’m still not. I always told myself that I was more productive at night. But a writer friend persuaded me to try waking early for a week — keeping my phone switched off and dedicating the first two hours of each morning (after ten minutes of meditation and two cups of coffee) to writing. Those hours have proven consistently to be my most creative and fruitful. I can’t say I’ve happily converted myself into a morning person (some people can assure you that I haven’t), but with persistence and some really good coffee, I’ve reaped major benefits from working through those wonderfully productive morning hours.

Consider investing in professional help. I’m talking about an editor in this case (though I probably could have used a therapist as well). I started my writing project determined to do everything on my own. Things improved when I got involved in a writing circle — and that definitely made the writing process more enjoyable. But you can’t bring a whole manuscript to a writing circle and expect everyone to read it, so I ultimately sought outside help. An editor helped me clean up my manuscript and put together my pitch package. It proved to be a very useful investment.

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