Writing a book is an exciting process. It can also be an excruciatingly slow and painful journey. That’s why reading these tips for first-time authors could make the difference between a project that sits in a random file on your computer for years on end and a first print author’s copy of your book on your shelf.

Key Takeaways

 

The struggles of being an author are not unique to you. Seasoned authors just have more experience and have overcome those struggles time and time again.

Maybe you feel discouraged at how your project is going. Or maybe you don’t know what do next.

And for some of you, the idea of writing a book is so overwhelming that you don’t know where to start.

These 5 tips for first-time authors will help give you the book writing tips for beginners that will help you finish that book you’ve always wanted to complete.

So get your pad and pencil, clear your mind, and let’s get you past that blinking black line on a white page.

1. Tips for First-Time Authors: Get a disciplined schedule going

A lot of people wish they could write a book. By pure numbers, few actually go through with it. While estimates are that 4 million titles are published every year, you have to remember a few things:

• That’s a global count
• Plenty of those authors have already written a book
• A good portion of those titles are low-content style books (think journals, etc.)

At the end of the day, there are a lot of people publishing books. Which should be an encouragement. It means that many of those people found the time and the discipline to get a book written.

One of the most important tips for first-time authors is to set a disciplined writing schedule. Beginner writer tips like this help you set your sights on the day to day process so many accomplished authors follow.

Many aspiring writers make the mistake of thinking that they should only write when inspiration hits them. However, in reality, the muse so often either hits when you’re in no position to start writing your book, or it hits when you’ve been grinding away at the book for a while.

Your discipline creates the space for creativity to flow. And while you’ll have plenty of days that feel like an utter struggle to get a sentence down, other days you’ll flow with ideas as though they weren’t coming from you…but from the muse.

Set a time when distractions are minimal, and you can get at least 10-15 minutes of writing done.

Which leads us to the next tip for first-time authors.

2. Write when you can. Even if it’s only a few sentences.

We mistakenly believe writing a book means having hours on end to clack away at the keyboard or scribble on the pad. After all, the best-selling greats like John Grisham or Stephen King sit around and write all day, right?

Wrong. Stephen King used to clack away at his typewriter in the laundry room of their tiny house while he was a teacher. Only after his books caught on was he able to make writing his full-time profession.

John Grisham was a criminal defense attorney and wrote in the early mornings before he started his day.

Take advantage of the moments you have to get a few thoughts down. It may only be a half-page or a page or two of writing before you have to go give the kids a bath. But that focused time means putting sentences on the page.

And when you relieve yourself of the pressure of “all or nothing” relating to time set aside for writing, you’ll find that even those small 10-minute windows of writing are extremely valuable.

3. Tips for first-time authors: Get everything down

Kurt Vonnegut stands as an exception to this rule. He would write a single page, then tear the entire thing apart. After countless rewrites and a pile of crumpled paper in the trash bin, he would finally accept that the page was as good as it was going to get. Once that page was finished, he’d go on to write the next page.

You don’t need to be that way. In fact, most authors drive themselves into the dirt by editing and judging their work as they’re in the writing phase.

For most of you, a good rule to follow: do not judge anything you do until you’ve got it all down on paper.

Get everything down in your head. Then, once you have a finished chapter or manuscript, feel free to go back and edit what you did.

Other, established authors may edit the stuff they wrote the day before.

Or, if you’re like Stephen King and have two sessions a day, you could edit the morning’s work in the afternoon.

But one of the biggest mistakes creatives make is judging their expression of creativity while they’re still in the creative mode.

Here at Panthera Publishing, we encourage our authors to reserve any and all judgment on their creative process until they get everything in their heads down. Such advice for debut writers helps them get out of their own way.

When writing a book for the first time, an author may mistakenly believe everything they have is good, or be discouraged they didn’t get it all right the first time. This makes them nervous to think about a massive editing process.

When publishing your book for the first time, have time for writing everything in your head to protect yourself from the overly critical inner voice.

From there, an author can go through their work with a massive red pen.

And that leads to our next tip for first-time authors.

4. Murder your darlings.

While the saying is attributed to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, plenty of other greats have championed the same idea (like King and Hemingway)

The idea is: be ruthless with your editing.

Those flowery, poetic 40 lines of description in your second chapter? You may feel like you painted the canvas with words. But more than likely, your reader saw a block of text that immediately sent them cross-eyed.

The fewer words in your draft, the better. After all, a good writer doesn’t need 40 sentences to say what could be said in one.

That’s not to say deep description or longer, complex sentences don’t serve a purpose. But until you learn the rules of best practices, don’t pretend you have the right to break them.

So cut out useless words, sentences, and paragraphs. Change ideas. Change plot lines and plug up plot holes. Rewrite your characters and scenes.

Allow yourself to find a certain perverse satisfaction in turning your paper into a butcher shop floor.

Because what will come out of it will be so much more concise, richer, and powerful than the pretentious slop you slapped together the other day.

5. Keep going.

Every day, make a little bit of progress. When the valleys and discouragements follow, just put one foot in front of the other and get some words down.

When you miss a few days because of family, work, in-laws, and lawn maintenance, then get back on the horse.

And if it takes a little incentive to get back into writing, then go for it.

“For every sentence I write, I’ll eat a few chocolate chips.”

Go for it. Whatever it takes to get you writing again.

Keep moving forward, knowing that even if you only take a few steps each day, the amount of progress you make will blow you away within a few months’ time.

These Tips for first-time authors will get you started on the right foot.

Nothing replaces good old-fashioned hard work. Outside of AI, that is. Which we also cover in another article.

But at the end of the day, becoming a first-time author means you’ve set aside all of the doubts, worries, criticisms, and struggles, and you put something in print.

The effort to write a book is worth much more than the number of copies you may ever sell. Holding a published book in your hands is a prized trophy of your dedication to finishing what you started.

Remember, most people never write a book. And plenty of those famous people who come out with a book to much fanfare?

They didn’t write it. They had a ghostwriter do it for them. Which…if you get good and want a solid side income, might be a good profession for you to look into.

So get to it. Stay hydrated. Stretch a little bit. And get back to writing words and murdering them.