3 Things to Keep in Mind When Writing Your First Book

It’s not a matter of being ready. It’s a matter of doing it or not.

Photo by Irena Inderike on Unsplash

I have been wanting to write a book for about a little over a year now. I haven’t written one for the obvious reason: fear.

I’m afraid I won’t be able to write an entertaining story, that no one will like it, or that I don’t have the necessary skills storytelling requires.

It’s also daunting. The journey ahead of me will be long and have unexpected turns, and I don’t know how long it’ll take me to complete it, which is the most terrifying part.

I could take years writing this book.

So, I never wrote one. I started, a couple of times, but those drafts are still sitting in my laptop, stored under a folder named “Stories.”

Then, NaNoWriMo came along this year. I wasn’t going to sign up and do it. I don’t need some month dedicated to writing to jump start my book, I thought.

Two days ago, I stumbled upon Jan M Flynn’s piece. It’s titled, A Love Letter to NaNoWriMo, and she writes about how it jump-started her own novel.

At one point, she urges her readers to sign up to the challenge on the website. She wrote, “Don’t overthink this step; the point is simply to give your…