If you’ve been through something that changed your life, you can become a writer. But it’s not easy getting the words on blank pages.

Writing a book took so much longer than I expected. It wasn’t because I couldn’t find the right words to say. But because I had to re-live the things I was writing about…

It’s when I understood why they say “writing heals”. I found through writing that many of the emotions I tucked away came back to haunt me. It’s what took me SO long to finish my book. when I couldn’t handle feeling those emotions I would just stop writing.

In this blog post I want to share some of the things I did while writing my first book that were BIG enough to hold me back from my deadlines.

This is what I learned…

First, I avoided writing when I felt overwhelmed and stressed. There were many days I felt like I was too STRESSED OUT to write. I would decide to just take days off. Those days turned into weeks and eventually months that I didn’t write.

I went online looking for something motivational to get back on track. usually my go to place for motivation is Youtube. I began scrolling Youtube videos looking for motivation.

I found the perfect video as I was listening to a self-published best-selling author, Jerry Jenkins, I heard him speak words I’ll never forget throughout the rest of my writing career.

He said “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader”. I was supposed to be feeling my feelings! This forever changed my outlook on waiting until I don’t feel pain anymore to write. It’s the emotions that connect your reader to your story.

People are looking for emotional connection when they read books, not just simply information. from that point forward I just allowed myself to pour both ink and tears onto my work.

Author Karin Chan expresses in her article Unlocking the power of emotion in your writing, “Regardless of whether you’re trying to entertain, educate or influence them, you need to connect emotionally with them through your words. It doesn’t matter how good your story is if no one cares”.

Readers MUST feel emotionally connected to what you’re writing or it can cause the reader to lose interest. For example how I mentioned early in my writing how stress got in the way of being consistent with writing and how feeling uncomfortable emotions caused me to STOP.

Chances are this is something many new authors experience. It entices the reader to keep going. And it builds trust that the writer understands your pain.

Second, I didn’t cut out a scheduled time of day to write. I just used to “fit” my writing in where I found the extra time. I didn’t treat it like WORK. Oftentimes I didn’t cut out parts of the day to commit to focusing on writing. I just used to wing it.

Sometimes I wrote late at night after my kids went to sleep (I’m a mom of 9). Sometimes it was early in the morning before they woke up. Sometimes it was in the middle of the day while they were running around the house.

I was desperate to get words on the pages and tried out all different times of day. Then I realized I’m at my highest level of focus before the sun comes up.

I eventually made a writing schedule that would start at 5am. I had a newborn so I BROKE down into tears on the numerous occasions that my baby woke up at 5am and I couldn’t finish writing.

Wow, writing this post is really taking me back to what I’ve been through trying to finish that book!

I wholeheartedly agree with advice from novelry.com where the author recommends “one golden hour a day”. Not to worry about or count words, but instead engross yourself into the writing experience for a good hour each day.

This takes me into the third and last tip for this blog.

Lastly, one of my BIGGEST mistakes was NOT logging the time I spend on actually writing. I was attributing all the overthinking to “working on my book”. I would sit to write, but would just be thinking of what to write half of the time.

I used to tell myself no matter how hard I tried I wasn’t able to keep up with my writing. I felt like I was writing so much, but it was never enough to be half done with my book.

Until I downloaded a focus app that helped me track the time I spend on activities. I used the app called “Forest”. You plant a virtual tree for how much time you spend on an activity and the trees create a forest.

This was a game changer! By the end of the week you can see HOW MUCH time you actually spend on writing. Some weeks I hurt my own feelings, because I had been lying to myself…

How can I expect to finish writing a book by working on it for 2 hours a week? Experts say it takes on average 100 hours to finish a first draft (approximately 1 month). At 2 hours a week I would be at 8 hours after 1 month.

I had to do better!

I was spending more time overthinking about writing than doing the work. That’s when I started logging 10 minutes a day, by using the timer on my Forest app (it’s free to download and use btw).

I always went over the 10 minutes, because it was less pressure than 1 full hour.

From there I built up to “one golden hour a day”. That’s how I completed my first draft and was able to submit it to an editor.

Bonus tip: RELAX, your first draft isn’t supposed to look like a well put together book. It’s messy, it’s embarrassing, that’s normal. You haven’t gotten to the editing phase yet.

Until next time! Happy Writing!