Learning how to write a book requires discipline

By Dennis Mellersh

With the many self-publishing programs available today it is true that generally, anyone can write a book and have it published.

What is definitely not true is that anyone can write a well written book that will interest people, and through that interest become a successful book in terms of either free or sold distribution.

A poorly written book will be recognized as such by most people, and even if the book is available at no charge, most people will not bother reading it.

Three of the key ingredients to a successful book are:

1. Well written
2. Well organized and presented
3. Well promoted

This brief article is basically a reminder that if you are a beginner writer, the first part of the process of learning to write well is to instill discipline into your creative writing efforts and into your learning process.

 

You will need discipline to learn and practice:

• The rules of English composition
• The rules of grammar
• Spelling (abc spell-checkers are no substitute)
• Writing something every day
• Reading well written books and articles every day (one of the best ways to understand what constitutes good writing)
• Using a dictionary and thesaurus correctly
• Writing concisely and clearly
• Writing outlines
• Doing research

And, the list goes on…

 

A comment by the writer, Anthony Trollope sheds some light on this:

“There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.”

 

Stated another way:

There is no easy way to learn to write, nor to do this without discipline.