There’s a problem I’ve noticed with many writers out there and that is the feeling of intimidation when it comes to writing their first book or at least even getting to the process of starting it. A lot of writers sort of work themselves through the planning and world building phase and then they reach the part where they have to write the story and suddenly, they feel overwhelmed or they start to doubt their ideas and their stories. Every writer goes through this sort of doubt, but today’s post is going to focus on why you should never let that doubt stop you and why you should start writing your first book.
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There is No “Perfect Time”
I heard a quote once that I honestly live by when it comes to work: “If you start when you think you’re ready, you’ve started too late.” Let me break this down a bit:
We often think that we need to wait for the right time, when everything is perfect. When we feel like there are no issues. But guess what? Nothing in life will ever and can ever be perfect, and so what happens is that a few days later, you’ll start criticizing your ideas, your story, and then you’ll get into a circle where you can’t seem to ever start because you keep telling yourself that you’ll start when the time is right.
You’ll never truly feel ready to start a major project, and you’ll probably never reach a point where you think everything is perfect because artists always hate their own work–well, most of the time anyways. But it’s common for an artist to be the most critical of their own work because they always want to improve. The same is true for writers.
If you’re waiting for the perfect moment to get started, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. There’s no such a thing, so you can’t keep holding off just to wait for that moment. Going for it and starting to write your first book, even if you feel unprepared, is the best thing to do. You’ll learn on the job!
Self-Doubt Will Always Exist
Self-doubt when it comes to writing is a big one that I’m sure nearly every writer has experienced out there at some point in their lives. You think you have a great story idea but then you start to read other stories, or you think a bit more about it, and suddenly, you think your idea is just never going to be good enough. You feel like nobody will ever read your story and that people will never pay attention to it.
I do want to say that I have seen some books before on the shelves at bookstores that have made me double take at how strange the premises are or just downright weird. There’s a lot of romance books that definitely fit that bill. But guess what? Just because I thought it was strange, doesn’t mean that there isn’t an entire readership base that’s interested in that story, enough so that it got published. So, what I’m trying to say is don’t doubt your story over perceptions of people not liking it!
Your Story Matters Too
A writer’s greatest tool is their ability to write and craft worlds, ideas, and plots. Writing has always been a major staple of every culture since the concept of writing was invented, but even before then, oral legends were stories too! Your voice matters and so does your story because even if you think that your story has been done over and over, it’s completely fine. I am of the opinion that no true original ideas are out there, but what is out there is the ability to add your own spin and idea to the tale as well.
Books help us connect with each other and with ourselves and someone out there might really genuinely feel connected to the themes of your story. You may not realize it yet, but your story will matter to a lot of people and if you don’t write it, you won’t be able to reach those people that love your ideas too.
Don’t Fear Rejection
One thing that has commonly been existent in the publishing industry is the idea of rejection. Back then, you really needed to get a publisher to be known, but the world today has so many different tools. Even if a publisher doesn’t think your story will work, that doesn’t meant that they’re correct about that. Self-publishing is also an extremely viable way to get your story out there. There will be people who stereotype self-published books as being “bad” but those people just don’t understand the reality of the indie publishing world. Self-publishing is a great and useful tool for many whose stories didn’t get given a fair chance.
Even if you get rejected, your story doesn’t end there. You can market your book too (FYI, publishers make authors do this nowadays, so just getting published isn’t enough anymore) on social media and you can help yourself out and control the royalties you get!
If you want to learn more about self-publishing, check out this post I wrote about it.
Set Goals and Achieve Them
Goals are one of the best ways to keep yourself motivated and on-task, and it’s one of the most important tips that anyone can recommend when it comes to writing. Even if you aren’t sure of your story, but you have a goal in mind, you can come up with ways around it and figure out new ideas and concepts for your stories.
Goal-setting is a way of keeping ourselves monitored and accountable because accountability is important when it comes to achieving something major such as writing an entire book. Don’t make it vague though and just say “I’ll write my book someday in the future.” Instead, actually try to set a time frame to achieve this goal. You can look into SMART goals as well, as those tend to be more specific and detailed.
Create a Writing “Ritual”
You also want to try and create a ritual for your writing time where you get your mind into the mood of actually writing. This could include many things like making some tea or coffee, putting on your favorite Spotify playlist, wearing a cozy sweater, grabbing some snacks, or really anything else that works for you.
Writing shouldn’t feel like a super stressful time and it shouldn’t make you overwhelmed. Instead, you should enjoy the time and you should have fun with it. You’re writing a story! That’s really exciting and you should treat it like that.
What About Writer’s Block?
Writer’s block sounds like it’s a really annoying situation to deal with and chances are, you’ve heard many writers talk about it in the past. Writer’s block or the idea of it is just that you feel like you have no ideas for your story so that makes you feel like you have a block on the flow of ideas. However, writer’s block doesn’t have to be considered a bad thing. Sometimes, what you need is a well-deserved break and then to get back into writing when you feel like you have more ideas again.
If you are experiencing writer’s block and you really want to just get back into writing again, there’s a lot of things that you can do to help overcome that. You can change where you’re writing, giving yourself a fresh new location and fresh perspective. Check out this post to learn more techniques to working through writer’s block.
Another thing you can do is to try freewriting by using writing prompts. I have plenty of writing prompts here on my blog like this 100+ free fantasy writing prompts that you can use to practice writing ideas. A lot of the times, you just need a little bit of a push to get new ideas going in order to break writer’s block.
I also recommend doing something like playing video games that have stories at their core. A lot of single player story-based games are great because they actually engage you in the story and let you think about decisions and outcomes. This is a big one when it comes to writing and I think that it’s a good idea to try out some games because they can really change the way you see a story when it’s in a more interactive format than just words on a page. If you want video game recommendations, check out this post here!
Conclusion
What I want you to take away from this is that your writing is important and your ideas are worth sharing and they’re meant to be shared. Don’t let fear or perceptions stop you from writing your story, because even most of the famous authors you see today once started out like you: A writer with an idea in mind. There’s a long road ahead, but you can’t start it if you never start writing your story. So, put your doubts and fears aside and just start writing. Who knows? Maybe you’ve just started your next big thing!
Before you head on out, be sure to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so you can stay up to date with all the latest posts, WIPs, books and more!