I believe that we all have stories to tell. We’ve all lived a life and in doing so, have had experiences that are worth hearing about. Why? Because they connect us with each other. Think about any casual encounter you may have had, and during that encounter you realize that you have something in common. Suddenly, this isn’t a stranger standing next to you in line at the grocery store, this is someone you could have known if circumstances had been different. This shared experience makes our day a little happier. Not “I’ve won the lottery” happier, but happier, nonetheless. When you write a book, you are connecting your readers to yourself, and each other. I am a big fan of making connections, especially when they are happy ones.
Now about the work part … yes, it is a lot of work to write a book. And a lot of re-work. The first versions of my books were about sixty percent of what ended up in the final version. But, I didn’t go from sixty to one hundred percent in one fell swoop. There were at least twenty iterations before I felt it was finished. After I thought it was finished, that’s when the professionals took over and I got to “finish” it again with their improvements. (Still missing the squirrel … and did I tell you about the porcupine hugging the balloon?) My last step is to read it out loud and amazingly, when you do this, you catch things that need to be changed. It’s funny—what reads OK doesn’t always sound OK when read aloud. It’s my favorite edit step, though I will say that it’s the hardest one. I’m not fond of my own voice by the end.
But why do you have to write a book? Simple answer, you don’t. But you could.
