Okay, Fine. I’m Writing a Book. Send Help.

I am tackling this journey slowly and with more patience, persistence, and tact than I have in the past. I’d say it’s not a New Year’s Resolution because I decided to do this before 2019 started, but let’s be real – the new year makes me want to do it this year, so it is a Resolution, by definition.

My plan is to write 1 page per day (~300 words) minimum. If I get inspired to write more, I will. This is a very slow approach to writing a book, but I’ve never written one before, and what is more, I have never given this a truly good start. I have written a few pages here and there, and I have a general outline that changes as my ideas evolve, but I do have a thin foundation to start on. Better than nothing.

I want to have the book fully written (not edited, just written) by the end of November, at the very latest. That should be a little over 300 pages – enough to be considered a novel. It has been my brain-child for years now, and is intended to be part of a series. I have struggled with which part of the series to write first, but I have decided that I must make a decision.

The title of the book is 2203

It is essentially part 3 of a (currently) 6 part series. I say “currently” because part 4 was added randomly a couple years ago, inspired by a single word. That one will be called Sidereal when it is fully written. Assuming I will be learning new words this year as well, I might get another book idea out of nowhere.

I need help. I know I don’t have a ton of followers, and I’m not sure how many of you out there in the black hole of the interwebs actually read my writing, but I need some more accountability than just myself. I am trying to keep myself accountable for this project, and part of that is writing so little over such a long period of time. It is a tactic I read about in The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. Take slight edge steps – do something that is easy to do. It is just as easy not to do, but I must decide to do it each time because not doing such a small step is quite honestly embarrassing. If you wouldn’t mind, please take a slight edge step for me and prod me. Ask me what I have written recently, how it ties into the rest of 2203, and how many times I have changed details around to make this current page fit.

I wrote 1 page, just over 300 words, last night. I felt so good as I went to bed because of those 300 ridiculously simple words. If I can crank out 300 words every night, I imagine it will do wonders for my self-confidence (which needs a lot of help, too). If I do it consistently enough, my thoughts and ideas will begin to form more linearly and make more sense when smashed up against the thoughts from the night before, which hopefully will make sense next to the ones from the night before that.

So I do want to ask – what has been your approach to writing books? How did you go about writing your first book? What mistakes did you make that you could have avoided, and that I should avoid while writing my first book? How did you keep yourself accountable? How old were you when you finished your first novel? Finally, did you reward yourself at milestones, and what were those milestones for you?

I appreciate the crap out of you for making it this far in this post. Thank you. Please stick with me, and tell me what your projects and resolutions are so I can help keep you accountable, too.

❤ December