Advice for New Writers

Are you a new writer?

​Maybe you've already started writing, maybe you're still working on the idea for a story, or maybe you already have a completed first draft. 

No matter where you are in your writing and book publishing journey, trust me when I say that I understand how scary and overwhelming it can feel, which is why I'd love to share with you some of the resources that have been absolutely invaluable to me since I began working on Sparks Fly back in 2016! 

Let's kick it all off with the book that got me started. When I first had the idea for Sparks Fly, I'd never written anything even approaching a full-length novel before. I'd only ever toyed around with short stories and half-baked concept, so I really felt that I needed some help. 

I stumbled across How to Write, Publish and All That Good Stuff by R.L. Mathewson, as I'm a big fan of her romance novels. I love how immediately engaging they are, how relatable the characters are, and I think the fact that she's an independently published New York Times bestselling author who's written over 30 books is pretty amazing. 

This book really was a great starting point for me as, for someone who had no clue where to start, it was really plain and simple with no jargon and a straightforward plan for how to approach writing and publishing a novel.

Now, don't get me wrong, I won't be following every piece of advice and there are some things that may be a little outdated since the book was written in 2014, but it was a really great starting point if you have no idea how to even get your idea onto paper. 

My next recommendation is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which helped me to write the first half of Sparks Fly. Without NaNoWriMo, I don't think I'd have been focused enough to dedicate time every day to writing, it really helped to get me into that writing mindset and along with the sense of community and the ongoing writing sprints, it was incredibly supportive. 

My final recommendation is for the Self-Publishing Advice website from ALLi (the Alliance of Independent Authors). This blog, along with the weekly podcasts have been soooooo helpful in answering a lot of the questions I've had (and still have) about self-publishing my own book. From writing advice to publishing and marketing, there really is advice to help with every single step of the journey. 

As an added bonus, I've also recently joined ALLi as an official member, which means that I now also have access to a bunch of other benefits to help as I publish my first book, and the books that come after. 

As well as the three resources above, my only other piece of advice to new writers is one that I'm sure we've all heard a lot - read, read read and write, write, write. The more you do each, the better you'll get! 

Happy writing!