Today I want to take a look at the part of the publishing process that kickstarts your publishing success or dooms you not to succeed. This step might seem obvious, yet many a writer makes a misstep from the get-go: Find the right idea.
Recently I met, Ronda, a potential new client. As we discussed her book idea and how she came to write it, she mentioned that she has loved writing since she was a little girl. She didn’t realize not everyone thought writing was a fun activity.
Eventually, it dawned on her that her love of words was a gift that not everyone possessed. She turned her mind to writing a novel when she was a young mother. “But that novel isn’t what I want to ever publish,” she explained to me. “It’s just a place where I started writing, and it didn’t take me long to see it wasn’t at the level I’d want it to be.”
Is Your Manuscript a Practice Piece?
Would that every writer had that kind of insight! The first manuscript you complete isn’t necessarily the one destined to be published. It’s probably a practice piece.
Ronda paused after talking about the “practice” novel and said she didn’t know why it took her several decades to start to write her next book-length piece. I knew the answer and piped up: “You hadn’t lived the story yet.”
Timing Is Everything
I’m not necessarily that perceptive; it’s just that Ronda’s book, a memoir, is an expression of what her life has become in those decades. It’s what she’s always longed to write, but first she had to live out certain events before she was ready to spill words onto the page. Now she’s ready to write the book she’s yearned to write.
Several times I’ve met individuals who use their writing to work through issues that life has saddled them with: anger, bitterness, betrayal, lost love, disappointment. It takes time to see the courage and heart instilled as one processes challenges faced years, if not decades, before.
Writing about most topics takes time to let the concept simmer on the back burner. That’s where it gathers all that satisfying flavor and depth.
So the first step toward being published is to find the right idea–or to be open to the right idea when it finds you, as happened to Ronda.
How to Know An Idea is It
- Your gut tells you this is it. Listen to your instincts.
- You see signs that, for society, the time is right. What ideas form today’s zeitgeist? Is the zeitgeist of-the-moment, or will it last long enough for you to write your book, find a publisher, and have the book release (often at least a two-year process)?
- When you tell others about your idea, their eyes light up, they’re engaged, they want to know more. (Test this with people besides your mother; sorry, she’s probably such a fan of yours, she’s not objective.)
- Play with the idea to see if it gains momentum in your imagination or stalls.
Now what about you? How many book-length manuscripts have you written?
If you think you’ve found the right idea for you, how did you know this was it?
What idea do you wish had been yours but someone beat you to it?
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Your words are so true, Janet. In the last couple years, God impressed on me the need for more discipline in my life (to the point “discipline” is my one-word for 2020). He directed me to study ancient Christian prayers, practices and hymns. It is falling into an organized pattern, and I’ve shared some samples with my critique group. But I clearly hear God’s message: “You have to live it first yourself.” I don’t know if it will ever come together to be published to a larger audience. For now, it is changing me, and that’s enough.
Shirlee, congrats on expressing discipline both in the prayers and practices but also in realizing you shouldn’t rush to make this into a book manuscript. All in God’s good time, right?
For oldsters or millennials,
I’d write a tome ’bout facing fear;
the issue is perennial,
and is thus a good-eyed deer (geddit?)
Everybody’s scared of something
(hummingbirds give me the chills),
so I thought I maybe could bring
a message that could soothe what ails
the shaking heart of anyone
who happened to pick up my book;
hope’s bright message, couched in fun,
’cause life taught me what it took,
but I sure did plumb forget
that the Bible beat me to it.
Yeah, scared of hummers…they keep trying to stab me with their little sharp beaks, and Barb has a Scripture for her phone’ screensaver…with a ruby-throated hummingbird prominent in the picture. Brrr!
Janet, I love when the idea finds me. For most of my stories, I looked for something that I knew I could write about from the heart either because I lived it or because the idea/message spoke to me. But, for my next story, the idea definitely found me.
When an idea intrigues me and keeps me mulling for a while, and then the story begins to come alive in my heat, that’s when I know the idea is solid.
The stories that find us are the most precious.
It’s so valuable to journal through our struggles or challenging seasons, because when we do get ready to write about that hard topic, we can remember.
Good point, Shelly. Journaling brings back all the vivid details.
Janet, what a great perspective! I’m a widow. My novel is about widows. I’ve lived the story.
Yes, you have. And until you do, you can’t imagine…
18 book manuscripts written. But the encouraging thing is to see them improving book by book.
Who said the writer’s life was easy, right? You’re showing such perseverance; good for you!
This is “gold” Janet–thank you! Same situation here. A lot does depend on instinct, and the Lord’s timing. I tried to bend & shape a piece of work into a romance-entered it in a competition and agent said it would work better if I wrote it as women’s fiction. The clouds parted and the light shone through!