College of Pension Actuaries

Writing your first book can seem like a daunting experience. But if it is something that you have always wanted to do-why not go for it? Writing costs nothing and is something that can be done in your spare time, initially as a hobby.

If you really want to get your work published then it needs to be of sufficient quality and will take hard work and dedication; but it is possible. Follow these guidelines to help you get started:

Have A Plan

It is important to have a plan for the whole book and individual chapters. This can add structure to your writing as well as providing motivation during periods when you are struggling with certain aspects of the writing process. If you are short on ideas with some chapters but have a particularly strong ending or conclusion a plan will allow you to move on and come back to the earlier chapters at a later date when your creative juices are flowing again.

Break It Down

Writing a book with hundreds of pages and tens of thousands of words can seem like a daunting project. You can only write one word at a time and that should be your main focus. Sure, you should plan ideas and chapters, but concentrating on the very next sentence and the process instead of the outcome should help to keep you motivated; even when you have thousands of words still to write.

If you have never written anything close to the amount of content required for a book then you should probably test the water with some short stories or a blog. By doing this you can discover how and when you write best.

Create The Right Environment

Conducting research can be fun, exciting, and frustrating all at the same time. Whether an individual is researching for a school project or for their own self-curiosity, unexpected things can be found which enriches a person’s own learning as well as those that they choose to share their findings with. That being said, it is common that once one question is answered, at least three or four others surface. This is the frustrating part (or the exciting part, depending on how you look at it!). However, never fear. There are many things that one can do while researching to take away some of the headaches that one may encounter.

1) Cite. Keep a record of every resource you look at, regardless if you decide to use it in your essay or a bibliography. Better to be safe than sorry and who knows, you might find further down the road that something you need was actually in some obscure resource you nearly tossed out early on.

2) Use others’ bibliographies. One could spend a lifetime just looking up the other articles that a researcher cites within their own work. Just flip to the back of the article and take a look at their bibliography and search for what applies to your own topic of study.

3) Use databases. Databases are your friends. Most colleges and universities and many high schools subscribe to databases that can be used to look up scholarly peer-reviewed articles. Ask at your library how to access these databases. Learning how to work the databases is beyond the scope of this article, but a general tip is to familiarize yourself with using a Boolean search.

As you seek to promote your book or yourself, you may have speaking engagements or interviews. People may call to ask you questions about your work before they book you as a speaker or ask you to be a guest. Whatever you are doing, this is a great opportunity to expand your reach even more by turning whatever you say into articles, blogs, or even a book. Plus, if you are speaking or doing a guest interview, you can videotape or record that – or get a copy of the video or audio recording – and post that on your website, blog, on Facebook, and on other video sharing sites.

A good way to start turning what you say into what you write is to make a transcript of the recording. Then, you can draw on the ideas expressed in that transcript to write an article, blog, or section of a book.

Normally, just transcribing a transcript isn’t enough, because we speak differently than we write. In speaking, you may ramble, have asides, digress to another topic, and add in placeholders like “uhmmm” and “you know”. So you have to organize, edit, and polish up whatever you say. But transcribing what you say is a good starting point, since you have laid out your ideas in your talk or interview.

In creating a transcript, figure on about 4 to 5 hours of typing to produce about 12 to 15 single spaced pages for each hour of speaking. So, a 15 to 20 minute talk or interview might take an hour to an hour and a half to type up, resulting in about 3 to 5 pages of copy. Then, when you reorganize and polish up your transcript, that could result in up to 2 or 3 articles of about 500-700 words – the ideal length for most articles today – depending on what you have said and how well this lends itself to one or a series of articles.

Reading is a culture that most people find hard to adopt, especially with the busy lifestyles that leave very little room for leisure activities. However, if you really want to become a good writer in any field, reading must become your companion in life. Try to read other people’s works, especially well-known writers in your field of writing, and set this as a personal goal. For instance, you could make it your goal to read at least one book every month, and then find a way of monitoring yourself to ensure you are actually doing it. Remember that starting a new habit is never easy, so talk to a friend or family member to ask you every once in a while whether you are doing this.

You may want to ask, how does reading help my writing? Well, here’s how:

(a) Improves your stock of vocabulary and richness of expression: Although the use of big words in writing other than for academic purposes is not usually encouraged (simple language tends to be more favorable for the average reader), knowing a few additional words and how to use them may just provide that extra punch to your writing. The idea is not really to borrow other people’s expressions, but to open your eyes to new possibilities and more creativity.

(b) Inspiration: One man’s verse could be another man’s chapter or paragraph. Some of the best poems I have written were inspired by reading the works of other poets. Don’t ever be deceived that your writing talent is the best; there are other writers out there who have the very gems you are looking for to beautify your own writing. Sometimes a poem can be the inspiration for a short story, or a short story can inspire the script for a film. Inspiration is a valuable asset that every writer needs to have, especially in creative writing.

Perhaps the most difficult part in writing is getting started. We all experience this feeling of not knowing where and how to begin be it in the case of a professional and expert writer or a starter or a less experienced one.

Writers have this inner urge to finish an article in the first try. But no one, even seasoned writers really gets it perfectly in the first draft. Even if you try, you will always end up proofreading, editing, and revising. Scribbling is one simple way to get started. Just like how we all started to learn how to write as kids — we scribble on walls. Just write what is in your head. Write your thoughts and feelings. You could also talk to yourself out loud then write down the words that come out. Doing these simple activities with a specific topic in mind will get you into some point where you could actually begin your story. It may seem messy and cluttered at first glance but if you will lean back and see the big picture, that white paper which was blank minutes ago is now sprinkled with ideas and thoughts good enough for you to write your introduction.