You’re here to learn how to write a book and kick writer imposter syndrome to the curb. Let me tell you about the time I accidentally wrote a book, then finished it on purpose. I call it my “mess around and find out literary moment.”

I’m giving you the PG title. IYKYK.

A few years ago – around 2016/2017 I wrote Heartbeat. At the time, I was in the middle of a client drought and unemployment. Now, before you think this is one of those “so I turned to writing to make money for my family” stories it’s not. I wrote this entire book in one summer as a jumbled series of scenes because the characters WOULD NOT SHUT UP.

They ran around in my head with their drama, random conversations, and passion when all I wanted to do was think my way out of the current financial predicament my family was in. And sleep. And shower. I wanted to do a variety of things, but playing host to Mike and Maya was not one of them. However, they would not leave me alone. I decided to write to quiet the voices. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was the first time it happened with a love story.

I messed around – writing the scenes as they came. Out of order and often at random times. By the end of the summer, I found out I had 6-7 notebooks worth of scenes that, when tagged and rearranged like Tetris, became an entire book. With epilogue. Three epilogues in fact. (Don’t worry they didn’t all make it into the book. Gotta have some bonus content for my boos right?!) 💃🏾

So why did it take so long to publish Heartbeat? Well, Writer Imposter Syndrome, life, making a living and transcribing a lot of notebooks happened. I’ll give you three guesses as to what was the hardest to overcome.

Writer Imposter Syndrome is a bear I have not fully trained yet.

After my husband had a serious medical emergency that has become a life-long illness this past August, I realized life is really too short to mess around with “maybes” and “someday.” You may not get a chance to do whatever it is you’re called to do, want to do, try to do after the kids are in high school, when you’re in a better place financially, etc.

Do it now.

I accidentally wrote a book, but I finished, published and promoted it with intention.

How to Write A Book, Finish It with Intention and Sidestep Writer Imposter Syndrome

1. Commit to writing every day.

Common wisdom says the key to writing a book is to write at the same time every day, but if you’re like me, you have a very busy life where your time is not always your own. Reclaim your book writing time whenever you can.

Twenty minutes here, an hour there, throughout the day it all adds up and it keeps you focused and excited to return to the keyboard. Experiment with what works for you then stick to it.

2. Research the book genre AND the publishing industry.

Check out what types of book covers are in the top spots in your genre of choice. What themes are there? Are you on-trend? Setting yourself apart? What are the pros and cons of either? Who are the literary agents and publishers that are into what you’re writing? Are there shakeups happening in the genre? Publishing house? (Hello mass exodus of editors from big publishing houses). Which authors are killing it with self-publishing in your genre, in general? What tools are they using?

There are a lot of things to learn about the industry and business side of writing a book. Don’t wait until you’ve got a completed manuscript to start learning.

3. Start building your author platform today.

You wouldn’t wait until after you decorated to invite people to the birthday party, don’t wait until you’ve finished writing a book to start building your platform. A cohesive, stable platform takes time and effort. Squeezing it in the period between when you type “The End,” and your book’s presale launch is poor planning. I followed readers and authors making great content, podcasts, and publishers, anyone who enjoyed what they do, share knowledge, and are interested in building the book community.

4. Set book goals.

“If just one person reads my book I’ll be happy.” Bull.

There is nothing wrong with wanting many, many, MANY people to read the book you spent a great deal of time writing. It’s not a bad thing to have ambition. The idea that in every other profession in the world it is okay to want more, to strive for recognition and success, but writers are supposed to be humble little beings noble in obscurity is ridiculous. Eff the false humility. Set those goals, create a plan with benchmarks to achieve them. Then do it again.

Every time you’ll get better, learn more, and reach higher.

I have a spreadsheet where I have budget items, goals, and promotion ideas etc. Each subject has its own tab and I use it to keep my thoughts and tasks organized. Then I printed out my goals and wrote in a road map to get myself there. Every time I hesitated to add a goal, I purposely made myself share why I hesitated. Sometimes holding yourself accountable means talking to yourself.

5. Write the book now.

I’m cheating by repeating myself, but this is important. Write the book now. Those goals and benchmarks will help you get to the next step. You don’t have to write the book in order either. Write what excites you, the scene or pain point or solution that’s been running through your head. Repeat. Stop every so often and see if you can start to map out how each scene feeds into the other. Where you need bridges, where you need to patch up holes. Then get right back to it.

If outlining is your thing, go for it. Experiment with different solutions and ideas until you find what works.

Writing my book Heartbeat sounds like an accidental stroke of genius, and it makes a great story. But the book only made it to print because I took an accident and added intention.