Find your Voice then Write your Book

My wife always told me that I should write a book. I also felt that I had something to say. And after years of preaching and teaching, I knew how to study, research, and prepare sermons and presentations. But I couldn't find my written voice, my way of saying something in writing. I didn't trust that I had a written voice.

Now, after three years, I have eight books on Amazon and one more in the oven, about ready to be published.

How did I go from reluctant writer to published author? Here are the three steps I took.

1. I Used Existing Content: I had taught classes before and still had my notes and outlines. One day, I stood in my study, cleared my throat, and re-taught a lesson from a year earlier. I recorded the entire lecture. The only audience was my dogs.
2. I Wrote a Table of Contents:?I wrote a dozen titles and subtitles for the chapters I envisioned for the book and arranged them logically.
3. I Found a Mentor/Writer:?I found a ghostwriter to sketch out the first few chapters' first drafts. I gave him everything I had written and recorded. We met together for a recorded interview for 90 minutes.

The Ghost Returned with My Voice

A month later, the ghost emailed me the first few chapters. I read them silently. Then I listened to them on an app. And then I read them aloud.?That was when I discovered my voice, my way of saying something in writing.

It was surreal to read what the ghostwriter had written. The content seemed very familiar. Indeed, I had said it. But I hadn't written it. It wasn't me, but it was me. I had thought these thoughts. They were my thoughts. I didn't type them, but I had, in a way, created them.

Reading my thoughts on paper gave me new confidence and momentum to write more, develop new chapters, and complete a 35,000-word book in the next six weeks. Since then, I have written seven other books in two different genres, and more will undoubtedly flow.

But it started when I found the help I needed to find a voice I could trust. My own.