If you're serious about being an author, put your book first 🥇
Today's guest is USA Today bestselling author Emma Hamm
Every day, you face 1,000 other things you could do besides write.
It’s easy to get distracted, procrastinate, and fill your day with more menial tasks like emails and errands. These all quickly become rivals to your book and the time that could be spent writing.
Put your book first.
If your goal is to be a published author, your manuscript must stop being the item you leave at the bottom of your list, only after everything else is done. It needs to be treated like your most important appointment.
Putting your book first requires saying “no” to other demands and treating your creative time with the same respect you would an important meeting.
In today’s interview, USA Today bestselling author Emma Hamm shares the importance of prioritizing your book, the cost behind publishing, and how to get back in the writing groove.
🚨 Important alert: scammers are impersonating me with several fake Gmail accounts. My official channels are:
Website: www.alyssamatesic.com
Email: hello@alyssamatesic.com
OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…
Emma Hamm
USA Today Bestselling Author
Available for preorder: A Light So Blinding and The Heartless One
What is the most memorable writing tip or technique that you have heard, and how did it influence your process?
Don’t stop to edit or reflect on your work in the middle of the process. It slows everything down, you start questioning your own outline or where you want to go, and then all of a sudden you’ve been working on a book for 3 years because you keep questioning yourself.
Write the book. Get it DONE first.
Then edit the crap out of it.
What part of the writing process brings you the most joy?
Connecting with readers! There’s nothing better than hearing someone escaped from the stress of the world through one of my books.
When life gets busy, how do you protect your time to write?
You have to write, that’s how you make money and how you build a career. You have to put it first. Yes, you’ll probably have a job with it, and both of those need to be a priority. But take the time and the effort to ensure that you get words on a page every day. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Even if it’s 100 words, that’s 100 you didn’t have before.
Ready for feedback that takes your story to the next level?
“Having Alyssa edit my manuscript was truly one of the best decisions I could have made. Her suggestions absolutely made my story better. Then, the very first agent I queried requested to read the whole manuscript after reading the revised pages we worked on!”
—Laura Geraghty, historical fiction author
What’s the best piece of feedback you ever received? How did it change your story?
If you feel like you’re blocked, just sit down and write. It’s hard sometimes. It’s going to be. But once you start writing, even if nothing is coming out correctly, you will get back in the groove. You just can’t let yourself stand in your own way.
What’s one thing about the publishing process no one tells you, but should?
How expensive it is! To do it well, publishing is a very expensive journey.
ICYMI…Last week on YouTube, I ranked the seven basic plots and revealed my favorite type of story.
I thought I had it covered (a designated time to write) until I had my second child.
Every day that I don't work on my book is the day I have to pull myself back into reality and remind myself that my baby girl won't be a baby forever. Besides sitting down and typing, I do what I can, which is thinking about the plot and characters while I walk with my baby, and put little notes in the books I read as my inspiration.
I love the notion to sit down and write, however, what did she do that made her publishing experience expensive?