How to write a book: Working alone to write your book

By Dennis Mellersh

One of the realities of being a writer of books is that you need to accept the fact that you will be working alone.

In your singled-minded decision to write books, you have chosen a rewarding but highly personalized path.

You will be like a dedicated entrepreneur, likely working by yourself at home; and your entrepreneurial product and service will be writing books that in some way add enjoyment to people’s lives and improve them.

Writing books, by the accounts of many established writers, is a solitary craft.  You will do the research for your books on your own; you will likely plan, outline, and write your books in solitude; and the ideas and concepts you will convey in your writing will be original – yours and yours alone.

But although your writing work will be largely done in solitude, you need not be a detached and isolated loner.

Nor should you be. To do so would hurt your writing.

If you become a hermit in respect to your writing, and don’t have any kind of social interchange with other writers and people in general, you will miss a lot of opportunities to gain new insights, techniques, ideas and advice that could add to your life experiences and improve your writing abilities.

Murray Felsher wrote in his book, Working Alone, that he considered it a social disservice to accumulate knowledge, but not pass it on and also that by not passing it on, you will not benefit from the work you are doing.  He noted, “Working alone then, means it is all the more necessary to keep in close touch with all that is happening around you. In Mr. Felsher’s case, this means the world of consulting in Washington D.C.

In your case, that of a person who wants to write books, “the world around you” means keeping in touch with all aspects of  the world writing, not just information specifically on how to write book. This can includes activities such as:

• Reading and commenting on blogs, websites, and other venues such as YouTube that are focused on the general subject of writing
• Reading magazines about writing such as Writer’s Digest
• Interacting with other writers at workshops, tutorials, and meetings
• Attending talks by writers
• Reading books and articles about writing
• Reading book reviews by qualified critics
• Meeting other aspiring writers and exchanging general ideas on writing with them

The caveat, and this is a personal opinion, is that in seeking idea “feedback" you should keep the personal creative ideas on what you are specifically writing about to yourself. Talking about your original ideas, for your novel, for example, can drain energy from when it comes to writing about them.

 

You’ll get all the feedback you want, and perhaps more than you want, when your book is published.