Why is writing so hard?

Writing is hard.

Even a seasoned?ghostwriter?like me finds it a challenge, and I’ve written over 20 books in all. Whether you’re authoring a business book, a self-help guide or a memoir, getting 50,000 words into a coherent and compelling order is no picnic.

Most people who start writing a book?never finish the first draft, let alone publish a bestseller. However, there are three key things you can do to improve your chances of being published.

Write about something you know well

It sounds obvious, but when you’re a true expert in the subject matter of your book, you’ll have an easier time convincing your readers to buy into your ideas than if you’re not. You’ll also find it less challenging to write.

Think of your expertise as being like a mountain.

The summit is your core knowledge – the stuff you’re rock solid on, have unique experience of, and enjoy helping people with the most.?The middle is what you know a lot about, but isn’t your?gold. You’re competent enough to advise people on it, but you’re not steeped in expertise.?And the foothills are what you’re less sure of; you might have read books about them or been on courses, but not practised them in person.

It’s best not to clutter your book with the foothills. Instead, you want it to be bursting with value, which means picking points from the summit and middle levels alone.

To give you an example, as a ghostwriter and book coach, the summit of my mountain is strategising and writing books. My middle level is publishing and marketing books, and my foothills are the technicalities of self-publishing and also of public speaking to promote books.

So when I wrote my guide to planning, writing, and promoting a business book,?Your Business Your Book, I left out the foothills. Why bring them in? There was more than enough to talk about without them, and my book did a much better job of focusing on the higher levels as a result.

Being honest, it was aso a massive relief when I realised that I didn’t have to bother with the content that I wasn’t so confident about. Why bog myself down?

Start with an outline

Always, always, always start by creating an outline of what you plan to cover in your book, together with the individual points you want to make in each chapter. This is for two reasons.

The first is that it makes writing it so much easier. Our brains work in a different way when we’re in creative mode to the way they work in analytical mode. When we plan our points we’re being analytical, and when we write about those points we’re being creative.

If you’re working out what to say at the same time as writing about it, you’re rapidly switching between the two modes. That’s exhausting. Give your brain a break by plotting?then?writing.

The second reason is that when you plan first, you’re less likely to get yourself muddled up when you start to write.

There’s nothing more annoying and frustrating to realise part way through Chapter 3 that something you said in Chapter 1 would work better there, so you have to copy and paste it in. But now there’s a hole in Chapter 1. What should you do? Oh, and now you think about it, you forgot to include a certain idea or story in Chapter 2, so you have to go back and re-write that.

Before you know it, you’re chopping and changing things all over the place. Aaargh!

Plan, then write: it makes sense.

Write about something you love

If you’re writing a book about something you love, you’ll find yourself motivated to keep going. And when you do finish, you’ll feel proud of your accomplishment.

That’s one of the best ways to enjoy the writing process.

Ask yourself: why have I chosen to write about this specific topic? Is it because I know a lot about it? Is it because I think people will want to read about it? Or is it because I find it so enjoyable and fascinating that I could talk about it forever?

Hopefully it will be all three, but if you’re finding it hard to pin down that elusive subject, this?flowchart to help you pick the killer idea for your book?will help.

There’s no getting around the fact that writing is hard, but these are three things that you can do to make it easier. When your book finished, it will all be worth it.