Lessons Writing 10 Books in 1 Year, a Self-Publishing Experience
What Are Some Lessons I Learned?
That’s what I’m going to share about this journey. I might even write a few articles about this as I ruminate on the crapshoot of a year that was 2020, the dumpster fire, the nuclear explosion, the aliens dropping their radioactive waste into our atmosphere, or the crack in the space-time continuum sucking us into a negative universe…
I’m not sure what the reason was, well… I have my suspicions as an intuitive. Either way, we survived!
We all learned a lot about ourselves, our communities, and our world.
What did I learn about writing while evading a raptor riding great white sharks with horse legs and mechanized machine guns attached to the sides?
I learned… that it’s still hard.
Writing Is Still Hard
In January, I began writing my nonfiction series, Writing Conquers the World. I finished the first book about websites quickly. Web development and marketing are my day job as I transition into the writing world.
That series sped along. Then came the pandemic. My depression hit.
The entirety of my writing depended on physical distribution at conventions while building readership to have the funding for digital marketing. I wanted to take things slow.
They slowed to a crawl. I struggled to keep writing, but my intuitive journey exploded in the spring, forcing my hand. The rest of the year, I wrote nonstop.
It’s hard to come up with things to write, write constantly, and keep the energy going. Creative energy requires movement and exercise. We require breaks. Writing hungers for education. Doing everything that’s needed takes time. Even during a pandemic in self-isolation, that time can be scarce.
Somehow, I did it. Granted, I work for myself and don’t have a family to tend. But you can do it, too. You can write all year long. You might not write ten books. You might not write five. But you can take the time out of your day, even if it’s just five minutes, and write.
It’ll be hard, but the difficulty setting directly corresponds to the emotional and physical reward of holding your book in your hands.
Write!
Never, Ever, Let Your Books Stack Without Editing.
As the year went up in a blaze of disgrace, with invisible praying mantises attacking our world from every front, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I studied, experienced my intuitive life, and reflected on the past.
At the beginning of the year, I made a list of books to finish writing that year. This was along with all the blog posts for my intuitive site, the short stories and weekly flashes for Patreon, and other works I needed to write on a near weekly basis.
I wanted to finish ten books, start to finish, not counting the marketing.
What I didn’t expect was the dumpster fire. The dumpster fire sucked the oxygen out of the air. It took away my motivation to edit. I’d write a book, print it out, and set it on the stack.
The stack started with one book, then two, then three. Come October, I’m looking at seven books waiting for their edits.
What Do I Do?
I edit, but then I write another book, then another, and then I finish another.
That stack mocked me. It knew I had an urge to defeat it, to fight back the demonic energy allowing it to grow larger and larger, laughing at me as it said I’d never finish.
I took a deep breath, opened the portal, and entered the seventh and final level of Hell, wielding only my loyal and ever trustworthy red pen of DOOM! It took weeks, turning into months, to edit those books.
My process includes printing them several times, editing them, entering the changes into the computer, running them through ProWriting Aid, and repeating until I can’t find any edits. With ten books, your eyes bleed in ways you never imagined. Fountains spurt red onto the paper. Your fingers dry, ache, and cry for it all to stop. No matter how much you love editing your work, and I love editing my work, the seventh level of Hell will do its best to defeat you.
As long as you hold strong, focus every day, and make yourself sit down to read the same manuscript for a tenth time to fight the last battle, you’ll win. You’ll finish editing those books all at once.
When you look the devil in his eyes, grab his leg pushing your shoulders into the ground, and toss him far away, you’ll feel the weight lift, a relaxation and excitement rise, as you revel in finishing your works.
This was hard. Editing all those books at the same time is not something I recommend to any writer. It was a hard lesson learned.
Don’t wait for a pile to grow.
I always give my books a week or two off before editing. Don’t wait six months or longer. Edit as soon as possible. Get that work completed.
You don’t want to visit that seventh layer of editing Hell.
Do What You Love
I learned I love to write more than doing anything else in the world. No, axe that. Chop it in half, mince it up, and feed it to an ogre.
I love my intuitive nature exploring the universe, and I love to write more than anything in the world. Without the intuitive nature, my writing becomes meaningless. My intuition is my purpose in life. Writing is my tool to disseminate that journey.
When Revenge of the Brownie releases, I’ll have over 15 books released in two years, with my intuitive experiences book following soon after. In taking this journey, I’m happier every day for discovering my love of writing.
If you love writing, write. Don’t wait. Set the time aside. Write every day. Create stories to help people escape the world. After 2020, we need those stories. Everybody can teach something they know. If you have something to teach, write that nonfiction book. Send it into the world to help others.
Whatever it is, do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.
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Will writes the action-packed urban fantasy series The Fae Awakening. He writes about depression, anxiety, and the writing life. You can find him active with the writing community on Twitter. You can support his work on Patreon.
He’s an awakened empath and intuitive communicator, teaching others to awaken their intuition.
When not writing fantasy or working with others across the conscious world, he writes books and blogs for self-published writing success.
