When I started my first book, I nearly derailed the whole thing before I’d even finished chapter one. Looking back, there are three things I wish someone had sat me down and told me at the start. They would have saved me months of stress and a whole lot of second-guessing.
If you’re sitting on a book idea right now, I want you to have these three things from day one.
1. You Don’t Need to Write a Masterpiece
When I started my first book, I had this huge pressure on myself. I thought it had to be brilliant. I was already picturing it being turned into a screenplay, picked up by millions of people around the world. I know how that sounds. But the pressure was real, and it held me back.
Here’s what I didn’t realise at the time. That pressure wasn’t coming from my soul. It was coming from the critic in my head. I was writing for the critic instead of writing for the one person whose life this book would actually change.
Every soul is a masterpiece in its own right. You’ve lived through things nobody else has lived through. You see the world in a way nobody else sees it. That makes your book unique just by existing. The pressure to make it perfect is usually fear wearing a disguise. Fear of rejection. Fear of not being good enough. Once I saw that, I could let it go and just write.
There’s an old saying I love: let the seeds sow where they may. You scatter your words out into the world, and the people who need them will find them. Your job isn’t to write something everyone will love. Your job is to write.
2. You Can Learn As You Go
I took so much time with my first book because I didn’t know grammar. I didn’t know where to put speech bubbles. I didn’t know any of the editing stuff. And I let all of that stop me.
What I wish someone had told me is that editing comes later. It doesn’t come at the beginning. If you’re starting at ground zero like I was, the best thing you can do right now is pick up a pen and paper and start writing. Let the writing lead you.
Something I noticed quickly is that after 10 or 15 minutes of writing, the real gold starts to come out. That’s when the good stuff shows up. Not in minute one. Not when everything is polished. When you’ve warmed up.
One of the biggest shifts for me was changing how I talked about writing. I used to say things like “it’s going to take me forever to learn this.” Then I flipped it. Now I say, “I’m so good at writing stories. My stories are alive. My stories are changing lives around the world.” It sounds small, but the language you use about yourself becomes the truth you live in.
Storytelling has been around since the caveman days. People were drawing stories on cave walls long before grammar rules existed. You have a right to tell your story too. Grammar can come later.
3. Your Story Doesn’t Need to Reach Everyone
I used to think my book needed to reach the whole world. It doesn’t. It needs to reach the people in your world.
Think about it this way. There’s a pocket of people over here who love gardening. There’s another pocket of mums who homeschool their kids. Another pocket who love politics. Another full of faith-driven people. The world is made up of these little pockets, and you’ll be known in yours.
So if you’re sitting there wondering who your book is for, ask yourself a simpler question: what lights my soul on fire? What do I actually want to write about? Pick up the pen and start. The answer tends to arrive somewhere around minute five.
There’s something really powerful about putting pen to paper. It creates an opening. Your expressive self gets to come out, and the stuck stuff gets to leave. That’s healing, and it’s good for you, body and mind. You release the old to make room for something new.
And the thing you pour out onto that page? That’s exactly what’s going to help the person coming up behind you. There’s always someone a few steps behind, and what feels ordinary to you will be life-changing to them.
Start Before You Feel Ready
You don’t need a masterpiece. You don’t need to know grammar. You don’t need the whole world to read it. You just need to start.
If you want a gentle way in, I put together 50 writing prompts to help you get past that first blank page. No more staring at a blinking cursor wondering what to say. You can grab them inside my free Skool community, along with the 5-Day Book Starter Challenge to walk you through your first real writing sessions.
Pick up the pen today. Even one paragraph counts. You totally have this.