writing books

I was at the local Christmas Carols in the park last night. We took our picnic along, sat with friends and enjoyed the evening in the setting sun. (Don’t forget it is summer here in Australia – it’s very different than a northern hemisphere Christmas!)

I met some friends of friends. Two of them mentioned writing non-fiction books. One had tried and stopped because he got stuck with the process. The other is writing a book, on a subject which sounds fascinating. He explained how writing a good proportion of the book was really easy. It was basically a process of getting all the stuff he knows on the subject out of his head and onto the page/screen. But then it got really hard, with all the “joining together” bits.

I know exactly what he means.

When I write my books, there is heaps that you just know that you have to get out of your head and onto paper/screen. It’s obvious that these things need to be in there. But then you have the process of putting it all together, in a sensible order, making sure that you haven’t missed anything or made assumptions about what people already know.

This is the particularly difficult bit. I think it is probably the part the first guy got stuck on.

It was really enjoyable talking book writing with others. It’s not something I get to do very often, but when I do, it is fun. It is great to be able to share the things I’ve learned over the eight books I’ve written.

Do you have any book writing questions? Ask away!