What’s Stopping You from Finishing Your Book?
October 10th 2007 10:11
Many conflicting priorities drag us from our writing and marketing, so it can be difficult to “get round to it”. Read on for tips on how to motivate yourself and improve your writing.
What stops me from finalising my second book and launching it is: a) funds not allocated, and b) time. But when I really delve down, these both could be overcome if I keep my passion and self-belief alive. So it is with most writers.
There are books to help you:
“Your Writing Coach (2007, by Jurgen Wolff) offers breakthrough techniques for finding the time, the will and the way to write. Featuring exercises, quotes and encouragement Wolff shows you how to hook readers and keep them engaged and offers powerful tips on how to stay motivated and transform your inner critic into a constructive guide to get past the dreaded writer's block.”
The Australian Writer’s Marketplace manual is helpful for publisher contacts, agents, journals, and writing prizes.
There are also local writers groups, writers’ courses by your state’s Society of Authors or Writers Centre, publisher sites, and writers’ forums. Even participating in reader’s groups might stimulate your thoughts on techniques and ideas used by successful authors. See this helpful writer’s guide at Allen & Unwin.
Manuscript appraisal services or professional editors can help improve your chances of getting published with normal publishers, and they are also good for novice self-publishers unused to the conventions of books. And of course they help spot errors and omissions.
Pass your manuscript around carefully: choose people you know who are respectful, perhaps fit into your target market, and can also give you descriptive feedback - rather than the unhelpful "it's very good". Then work up to the "industry expert" in your outer circle (or not even that), whom with some polite pleading, may give you a valuable comment for your cover.
What stops me from finalising my second book and launching it is: a) funds not allocated, and b) time. But when I really delve down, these both could be overcome if I keep my passion and self-belief alive. So it is with most writers.
“Self-doubt is the great enemy—most of the time, every sentence I write looks like a dead loss (that's why I do so many drafts)”
- Kate GrenvilleThere are books to help you:
“Your Writing Coach (2007, by Jurgen Wolff) offers breakthrough techniques for finding the time, the will and the way to write. Featuring exercises, quotes and encouragement Wolff shows you how to hook readers and keep them engaged and offers powerful tips on how to stay motivated and transform your inner critic into a constructive guide to get past the dreaded writer's block.”
The Australian Writer’s Marketplace manual is helpful for publisher contacts, agents, journals, and writing prizes.
There are also local writers groups, writers’ courses by your state’s Society of Authors or Writers Centre, publisher sites, and writers’ forums. Even participating in reader’s groups might stimulate your thoughts on techniques and ideas used by successful authors. See this helpful writer’s guide at Allen & Unwin.
Manuscript appraisal services or professional editors can help improve your chances of getting published with normal publishers, and they are also good for novice self-publishers unused to the conventions of books. And of course they help spot errors and omissions.
Pass your manuscript around carefully: choose people you know who are respectful, perhaps fit into your target market, and can also give you descriptive feedback - rather than the unhelpful "it's very good". Then work up to the "industry expert" in your outer circle (or not even that), whom with some polite pleading, may give you a valuable comment for your cover.
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