Wherever you are on your book writing adventure, you’ll find what you need here…
What to do if you’re just starting out on your Author Adventure: planning, preparation, and dealing with your Inner Dickhead
Sometimes, people tell me they hate their book. Their work in progress.
On occasion, I say it myself, about a book I’m working on.
“Okay,” I say. “That’s okay.”
And then I ask: “What do you mean by hate?”
Because hate is such a strong word. We sling it around without really thinking about what it means.
You may have heard the instruction “eat the frog first”. It’s a favourite of the productivity bros and there’s a bestselling book by the name Eat that Frog.
The idea is that you do the most difficult, horrible task first and get it out of the way, then the rest of your day will be plain sailing.
I’m gonna need you to stop reading books now. WAIT — hear me out. Reading is one of the best things in the entire multiverse. You should read. Widely and deeply and like a writer. Read books about how to write, by all means. I’ve written several of them myself. I love Steven Pressfield’s War of Art, it’s great; as is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Stephen King’s On Writing and any other of the great and famous books written by writers on how to write.
The Heretics by Will Storr made me mad as hell. I got a handful of pages into it before swearing and banging it down on the bookcase, abandoning it.
"Aargh! I hate writing my about page!"
Yep, we all do, toots. We all find it tough.
How do you strike that careful balance between "hilarious, kind, and helpful" and "obnoxious douchecanoe"?
Tricky.
Luckily, I have a quick tip for you
Want to know how I've gone from a chaotic cranefly who couldn't get out of bed to a 6 am person who writes every day and sometimes eats like a healthy adult?
