by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: February 27, 2009

Writing a book is a massive undertaking and that is something we have to be acutely aware of right from the very start. There are very few writers of whatever ability who can sit down and simply write a book from beginning to end. There will be periods when the dreaded, "Writer's block," puts in an appearance; there will be times when we have struggled for hours on end to write one page and then decide that it is not of the quality we desire and scrap it altogether; there will be times when we grow despondent and question not only whether we will ever get the book finished, but whether we have in us the ability to do so at all. Writing a book usually takes months - at least - of hard effort and sometimes soul-destroying perseverance and is not therefore something we should undertake lightly

The first thing we have to be aware of aside from the above when considering whether we should write our book is whether we have enough quality material on our subject in order to do so. This applies to fiction and to factual works in equal measures. We have to absolutely determine that the material we have is sufficient to produce a book of what is usually upwards of fifty or sixty thousand words. The last thing we want to happen is that we spend months on end slaving away in the writing of our book only to find that we run out of material and have only actually produced a very long essay or novella. Detailed planning is therefore essential, be that in planning the structure of each chapter of our book or each section if it is perhaps such as a reference book or cookbook.

We also need to examine why we wish to write the book in the first instance. There are a great many people who are drawn to writing by the vast wealth accumulated by the world's most successful authors and think that they too have the ability to emulate the success of these authors. They have perhaps heard the ridiculous saying that we all have a novel in us and are convinced that they will be the next Stephen King or Jackie Collins. If this is your sole reason for beginning writing, I would urge that you consider several factors very carefully.

Yes, it is possible to make a lot of money from writing a book or more likely a number of books, but the odds of you actually doing so are smaller than miniscule. There are probably ten thousand other books published for every one that becomes in any way successful. Even many of the world's top authors struggled with their first book or first few books before making the breakthrough. Overnight success in this respect is therefore even less likely. I know this to be true, as I was once such an aspiring author.

If we wish to write a book, whatever type it may be, we have to know that the main reasons we are writing the book are that we want to and we believe we can. If it transpires that we do make money or lots of money from the process, this is of course fantastic. It is imperative, however, that this not be our main motivation or we are essentially setting ourselves up for heartbreak and a very big fall.

I hope that the above points have clarified some of the things that you need to know before you begin writing a book and very much so that I have not put you off the idea entirely.

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