Thanks for following along this week on my ‘Writing a Book’ mini-series. I hope this proves useful to anyone considering a book project to support your solo business.

For convenience, here are the links to each post:

1/ On writing a book…​

• If you don’t really want to, don’t do it

2/ Answering the ‘Why?’​

• My reasons included authority, exposure and personal challenge - what would be yours?

3/ Understanding the ‘How’​

• My infographic on self-publishing with steps, external partners and rough timing

4/ Reader questions​

• Self publishing vs. traditional, how to break up the writing, balancing with other business activities

5/ Wrap up​

• This email, but linked here if you want to bookmark it or share!

And to close out, a Lightbulber asked me about any surprises in the process (pleasant or otherwise). Two stand out immediately:

Writer’s block is real

Oof. I hit a wall in January. My dev edit was pushed back to February due to Fen’s schedule, so I took the holidays off the writing schedule completely — I really needed the break.

But when I came back, I just couldn’t get back into it. I had a half-written manuscript and just couldn’t bring myself to get back in the saddle.

And the craziest thing was I couldn’t even identify it as “writer’s block”!

It was like, I can’t possibly have writer’s block - I know what writer’s block is, and I know what I need to write, I just can’t get myself to do it.

Turns out, that’s writer’s block. 🥴

I even hesitated to reach out to Fen out of embarrassment.

Yup, dodging my coach/editor - what a writer’s cliche!

Fortunately, there’s a chapter in Fen’s book ‘Claim Your Voice’ that provides a guided meditation through such times. I’d been too blocked to even remember it was there.

The unblocking process is Fen’s to share, but turns out I was harboring all sorts of fears about the book (quality, originality, depth, imposter syndrome) and hiding them in pockets in my physical body (mostly shoulders).

Once I could recognize those fears, sit with them, and accept them, I found my way back to the chair.

AI fell short, and felt icky

Early in the process, I tried to use Chat to help massage out an initial book outline.

Just an hour in, I started to not recognize the hypothetical book. Chat had inserted topics I’d never pulled under my umbrella, slotted things in a sequence that seemed markedly different from the way I’d tell the story organically — each back-and-forth seemed like correcting rather than creating. You might know the feeling.

It was enough for me to say, I’m not touching AI in this process. I want every word in this book to be mine. I want to be able to immediately recognize a passage when a future reader asks me about it. And to intimately recall what I meant when I was writing it.

So aside from Grammarly, the book is AI-free. And I already feel reward in that.

That's a wrap! If you’re exploring a book for yourself (or currently in the process!), I’d love to hear from you anytime.

Otherwise, stay tuned for details on The Expert’s Privilege, tracking toward a late-May release!

💡

-Wes