Personal Development & Community: Self-development

Why do you want to do this?

I want to do this for many, many reasons. When I was a child I used to sit around and write stories all day long, then I would color pictures to go with the theme. It was an amazing outlet for the chaos of my childhood, I used story writing as an escape. Now that I am older, people in my life have told me I should write a book about my life. They say I live a better soap opera than is on TV. I don't know if I agree, but I do lead an interesting life, which always seems to be made more complicated by one thing or another. However, what I want to focus on is one particular facet of my life, which has taken up 26 years of my 45 year life. This particular facet is intended to teach people in this category what they are getting into, and hopefully helping them understand it so their decision can be based on all the facts.

What three things will you need to make this happen?

Time, time, and more time. Writing a book is not an overnight process, and this book will require interviewing others like me (and not so much like me), so I can provide a full circle analysis of this situation.

Publishing the book. I have no clue about how this is done. Do I need to find an agent? Can I manage this on my own? If I need an agent, how do I find one of those? I guess I will have to seek out people who know people who have written books. Luckily, I think I know one or two people who can help.

I'm really not quite sure HOW to write a book that is coherent, not too short, not too long, that grabs the attention and keeps it. However, I am committed to this project, so I will figure it out as I go.

What is the biggest barrier to your achieving this?

I think the biggest barrier is getting it published. The point is to help people, but I also need to make a living and I want to do it through writing. The unfortunate part of this is I lost my creativity during my 18 year BORING, DEAD marriage. But, I'm working at getting it back.