The past year was a roller coaster for me. In 2024, I began taking the first steps to write my first book. I started working on planning and creating the structure of my book and the writing process started pretty easily, but after the first chapter, I made a big mistake.
I started reading other technical books and compared the polished version of these books to my raw first draft. It’s a good idea to read books in your genre, but doing this made me doubt my writing skills. I forgot to remind myself that I was comparing my first iteration to a polished version that had gone through multiple iterations.
I spent weeks writing and comparing, but it made writing a book more complicated and less enjoyable. I only wrote a small number of words each writing session, pretending that I was writing a book. Then I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t actually writing a book; I was just imitating the process and finding no enjoyment in it at all.
I decided that I had to either take writing seriously or stop it altogether. I set a goal to write 15,000 words in 3 weeks. If I couldn’t meet this goal, I knew it was time to stop lying to myself and move on. During one week of those three, I went on vacation with my family. We enjoyed the sun and went swimming, but I also made time for writing. After 19 days, I had written almost 17,000 words and after that I completely changed my approach for writing the first draft of my book.
I wrote down all my thoughts about the topic of my book, reminding myself that I could always revise my manuscript later. My focus was not on writing perfectly, but on expressing everything I wanted to say. And in the meantime, I stopped reading other books in the genre until I finished the first draft. This helped me complete the manuscript in 3 months. Writing this way made me enjoy writing again.
Of course, I found a lot of mistakes while self-reviewing my first draft, but the first draft is not a polished version of the book.
This experience taught me several valuable lessons:
- Creating something great takes time and practice.
- Enjoyment is an important part of the process.
- Even small adjustments can bring back enjoyment and motivation.
- Break down your goal into small chunks, take action, and reflect. Without this approach, progress will be slow and efficiency will suffer.
I’m still on my journey to writing my first book, and it’s already been a roller coaster ride full of unexpected twists and turns. However, it’s a journey of self-discovery. It reminded me that passion and enjoyment are crucial for creative success.
