Writin’ Ain’t Easy

As an author, you spend a lot of time thinking about ideas and topics. A lot of time is spent problem solving and trying to find problems before they arise. If, as a writer, you think your idea is perfect you obviously haven’t completely fleshed it out. There are so many different ways to look at something and your job is to not find the quickest answer but the best answer.

Writing a nonfiction book might be more difficult than writing of fiction novel. In fiction you can make up your plot line and create new characters when necessary. Writing nonfiction book you have to play by the rules of the genre that you are writing. A biography would be absolutely worthless if you decided to fictionalize occurrences and add characters that didn’t exist. And a how-to or self-help book is absolutely useless if it doesn’t teach you how to fix the issue that it tells you it will.

As I am in the process of writing my first book, this experience is completely new to me. I am looking for advice on how to write. I am looking for advice on how to get published. I have to consider who the audience is and how I will best be able to serve them.

Teaching people the how’s and why’s of loving their neighbor isn’t a subject that should be taken lightly. James, the brother of Jesus, said in his epistle “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” He says this because those who teach and those who lead have the responsibility of leading God’s sheep closer to God but if they fail there is the very real possibility that they will become a stumbling block to those they lead.

That kind of responsibility can lead an author to paralysis by analysis which is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I am attempting to learn how to write a book and the business of writing a book, as well as truly examine what I am teaching for accuracy and helpfulness. I’m trying to keep a lot of plates spinning and sometimes I drop one or two but on the whole I’m moving forward and, God willing, this book is going to get published.

If you have any advice, please leave it in the comments below. Thanks.