I’ve done a lot of writing within the past few years. Between February and May of 2014 I wrote over 25,000 words in order to publish my first book – released it in June of 2014. The book is 25,400 words or so, but after all of the editing I probably wrote at least 30,000. That’s roughly 250 words per day. In reality it was more like a few days of 500+, brainstorming, analyzing, getting rid of entire chapters, writing them over and etc.
It was a ton of work.
Despite feeling exhausted from all the writing, the hardest part of writing my first book was publishing it. Not writing it. It wasn’t the months of constant writing, editing and critiques I recieved. It was the idea that all my efforts, thoughts and words would now be available to the public. Open to getting poor ratings, horrible reviews and not having an impact on anyone at all. I was afraid it would be a failure. It was an emotional effort beyond what I predicted.
The difference between writing and publishing is courage.
It’s the fear that what you’ve written can now be judged, ridiculed and taken the wrong way. That your good name will no longer be good, but broken. That all of the blood, sweat and tears from the keyboard would be wasted. That no one would care.
As soon as I clicked “publish” I realized how ridiculous it was to be afraid of those things. When you click that button, you will too. I promise. Over 700 people have now shown me that they care. Even a little bit. By simply downloading my book. Some of them have emailed me personally to thank me for writing it. Some went further and left a review on Amazon or iTunes.
All because I hit publish.
Writing is hard work. Publishing is taking that writing and making it courageous.
I have to say this, because of your book I’m now following your blog. I mean, I was reseaching books in english (I’m Brazilian btw) to improve my skills on the languange and I finded your book. And I enjoyed it so much. I had a blog once, but in portuguese and now I’m thinking to start a new one in english to show my progress and help another people that are learning the language. Maybe a blog or a vlog. Anyway, now I’m following every post that you do (It’s sounds like a stalker). But somehow I like the same things that you, music, photography, desing… And I really appreciate what you share bro! Keep doing it!
Thank you so much! Your words mean a lot to me. Reading this made my day! I’m so glad I can help. You give me a great reason to keep doing what I’m doing here.