So You Want To Write A Book

By Tom Poland
December 20, 2013

 

You Should Have Started Yesterday   

Three times a month on average someone approaches me wanting to know what goes into the writing of a book. What, they ask, is the secret to writing a book?

It’s simple, I respond, you need four things at least: something significant to say, a unique way to say it, talent, and the desire to spend a lot of time alone. Time alone. That’s the deal killer. Work, family, other things get in the way. I talked to a fellow who’s writing his life story. How much time are you devoting to writing a day, I asked him.

A day? Oh, about fifteen minutes a week.

That, my friends, will not cut it, not unless you can live as long as a Galápagos tortoise.

No matter the hurdles people dream about seeing their name on the cover of a book. There’s something magical, something alluring about the notion of writing a book. It’s on the to do lists of many people. Reasons vary. Many feel their life is so unique they must share their story. Some are bursting to share life-changing events, a son’s suicide, for instance. Others envision their name in bright lights when their novel makes it to the silver screen. Just think of the money I’ll make. Some want to share their expertise. And some have no idea what they’ll write, only that some day they’ll write a book.

Maybe you long to author something. I believe this dream goes back to our early connection with books. From the start, we learn that books signify achievement. We’re required to read them, tested on what’s between their covers, and we move through the grades, propelled by books. And who hasn’t read a book you remember all your life.

When I was a boy I read every volume of the World Book Encyclopedia Mom and Dad gave me. I read a series of science books, the All About books my Aunt Vivian gave me. And then there were The Hardy Boys mystery series, written by various ghostwriters.

Great books transport us to other worlds and other lives. My favorite books include Deliverance by James Dickey, For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, Burning The Days, a memoir by James Salter, and Out Of Africa, a memoir by Isak Dinesen. Books like these amount to works of art and no small amount of effort preceded their publication. Long before the first word appeared, planning took place. A spark of imagination fanned by the winds of hard work fired these writers’ creativity but nothing would have happened had they not spent a lot of time alone.

Just you and your thoughts … that’s the true secret.

And that’s the thing. Most people who tell me they’re going to write a book some day fail to grasp that writing a book is a prison sentence to solitary confinement. Writing a book demands huge chunks of time. No other way to publication exists. There are no short cuts.

Night after night you burn the midnight oil. Long days with nothing but a keyboard as your companion, music in the background. It’s intense and the isolation and loneliness can crush you or comfort you. You can’t write a page or two now and then. That won’t work. It takes commitment and there are no guarantees it’ll ever see print. It’s risky. A gamble. Most people shy away when they size up the reality.

I taught a course in college, So You Want To Write A Book. A lot of folks signed up. For most of my students taking that course amounted to therapy. Just taking my course made them feel better. It gave their dream credibility … Someday, they say … someday.

And the people I meet along life’s byways who want to write a book? I give them this advice. Block out a writing schedule and start making notes. Make an outline, write a synopsis, and most of all research and write on a regular basis. If you intend to run a marathon some day, you’d better be running now on a daily basis.

I’m asked to ghost write books and I take on promising projects. In the last few years I’ve shepherded three such books through publication. All clients are pleased as punch as old Hubert H. Humphrey used to say. You wouldn’t believe, though, the silly offers I get. One woman, a transplant from New York City, insists I write her book, which, she’s sure, will be the basis for a hit TV series. With hands flying, she squawks, My Gawd, you Southerners are so backwards. My book’s about a gal from New Yawk City who comes down hea and adapts to you Southerners. (Trust me, she hasn’t.)

People will wait in line for our book. We’ll get a TV series and a movie! So you write it for me and we’ll split the money.

Devote three or so years of my life to her book—for free? Ain’t happening.

So you want to write a book? I know many of you do. You’ve told me. Remember what I’m about to tell you. Be tough. Don’t get discouraged. Writing the manuscript is Act One in the grueling drama of seeing your dream come true. Act Two is getting an agent for fiction or a publisher if it’s nonfiction. Very tough. Act Three is dealing with editors and seeing the manuscript through production to print. It won’t happen in a hurry and it won’t be easy. In fact, it can seem near impossible. Act Four is marketing and seeing what kind of reception you get. Expect a lot of frustration no matter how smoothly it goes.

Thirty agents and 15 publishers rejected A Time To Kill by John Grisham. Thirty-three publishers rejected Chicken Soup for The Soul. Among rejected writers’ ranks you’ll find Pearl S. Buck, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Louis L’Amour, Jack London, and Dr. Seuss.

Despite the many gatekeepers, bad books make it to print. Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected 20 times. Too bad it isn’t 21 and counting.

Here’s my closing chapter for would-be authors. Have something worthwhile to write. Establish a writing routine. Study the publishing world (it’s chaotic due to the Internet and major industry changes), have an artist’s soul but be a businessman and have a thick skin. You will get your feelings hurt.

Don’t listen to friends and family. Let no one influence your writing; it’s your book.

One more thing … if you succeed you’re as close to immortality as people get on this Earth. Books live on long after their authors go to that big library in the sky. Get your name on a cover and someone in a distant future will say your name and wonder what you were like. And just maybe they’ll think … Someday I’m going to write a book too.

 

All Photos by Tom Poland

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net 
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected]

Tom Poland is the author of seven books and more than 700 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press just released his book on how the blues became the shag, Save The Last Dance For Me. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture.

 

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