"This is how you do it; you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy - and that hard."
Neil Gaiman
I have lost count, over the years, of the number of people who have told me that they are writers too, or that they are working on a book and hope to get it published. In all my years as an author, only one of those people has actually managed to achieve this goal and get his book traditionally published. What sets this person apart from the rest is that he'd already made a name for himself in his field of expertise, and so he had a ready-made audience the publisher could sell to. In addition, military books are quite the publishing trend right now, so that worked to his advantage too. Plus of course, he actually finished writing the book!
Many people don't. They make excuses of not having enough time because they work, or have kids, or travel, and so their dreams fall by the wayside. My friend does all of those things, yet he still managed to finish the book and get it published, so a lot of it is down to personal dedication and commitment. The fact remains though, that you will only get published once you have written something that a publisher can turn a profit on and so having an audience already in place is a huge advantage.
Writing a book is hard work. It might not be physical labour, but it is certainly a mental work-out. When you are spending 8-10 hours a day writing, you can expect to finish up with headaches and blurry vision! Your body might be aching from sitting in one position so long, but your spirit yearns for fresh air and movement, while your mind is in a fug of tiredness and longs to switch off. This can lead to burn-out if you don't take enough breaks, or if you also work in another, more mundane job and write in your spare time.
Writing is always a juggling act. To begin with you will be balancing your creative life with your normal working life and family time. You might dream of one day quitting your day job and being a full-time writer, thinking that this will put an end to the juggling, but that's simply not the case, because as any professional writer will tell you, there are many things to juggle when you write full time - taxes, deadlines, different projects, promoting your work, writing synopses, meetings etc.
Writing your first book is like an oasis of calm in comparison to what comes later! When you write your first book, you will usually be writing it on spec, with no publisher and no deadline, so you can take your time with it. Even if you write to commission, as I do, editors generally allow extra time for new authors to nail down that first book. They know it's hard work, so they give you space to get on with it. You are able to fully focus on that single project.
However, when you make writing your sole career, then by the time the first book is published you should already be writing the next one, plus you will be expected to complete a variety of other tasks as well, such as creating new book proposals, attending lunch meetings, responding to editorial queries, flat-planning new projects and so on. Not all these tasks will lead on to paid publishing contracts. Some will, but some will be discarded. That's just the nature of the game.
In any one working day, I might be achieving a daily word count on the current project, then going through proofs of another book, while promoting the most recent drop, emailing editors to negotiate new contracts, invoicing accounts for monies due, dreaming up ideas and creating synopses for new projects, researching topics, mastering my taxes, editing copy to make sure it's as clean as can be, ready to send and so on.
That's quite a lot of balls to juggle! It can be easy to become overwhelmed, especially if your House works to a fast turnaround, like mine does. For example, the project I delivered at the end of June is already in its proofs stage, so I'll need to make time to go through those proofs and send my feedback to my editor, in addition to working on the current project, which also has a tight deadline. Sometimes you just need to take a breath!
The point is, that you will always be juggling your writing with other things, even if you write full time. Having swathes of free time to write books at a slow and steady pace is a pipe-dream, a remnant from the Victorian Literati era which simply isn't feasible in modern publishing.
If you are easily overwhelmed, or an anxious person, a professional writing life might not be for you, but you can still write for fun. If, however, you hope to become a professional author one day, then my advice is to get used to juggling your writing with other responsibilities as soon as possible, because while the responsibilities might change, the juggling won't. You must be mentally and emotionally equipped to keep your balls in the air!
The writing life can be quite stressful at times. That said, there is no better feeling than holding the final published copy of your book in your hands, and seeing it on shelves in bookstores, or anticipating the release of a project that you have poured your heart and soul into. It's all worth it, because it really is the best job in the world!
Happy Writing.
BB Marie x
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