What Does It Take to Write a Book?
By Barbara Bush Forletta
What does it take? In my case, it took over 10 years from the idea to the completion of Unlocking the Writing Process; Inspiring Lessons and Stories to Get You Started.
During my teaching career I developed lessons to help students become interested in writing and to share their knowledge, not only by talking about it, but by putting it down on paper. I taught for 30 years, from elementary school to high school level. I ended up returning to university to secure my Special Education Credential and that’s how I began working with students who had a variety of learning issues at the secondary level.
The last 15 years of my career I taught at a continuation high school where many of my students had difficulty writing. My lessons needed to capture their interest and motivate them to write.
aides (Marie at left, Lida at right).
At one point, my principal asked me to present my strategies for teaching writing at a conference for continuation school teachers. This gave me the idea to write a book when I retired. Easier said than done.
The second year after retiring, I pulled out all the materials I had saved. I organized the lessons into a cohesive outline and there it sat for several years. I eventually worked on the book by myself, but it wasn’t until I joined a writing group that met at a local library that the book started to be a reality.
I had many anecdotal stories to go along with the lessons and I shared those with my writing group at weekly meetings. At first it was frightening to read them out loud to the group. I was exposing myself to criticism and who likes doing that? However, I think everyone has those feelings. The group would comment and then give helpful suggestions to improve my writing. I looked forward to those sessions as it helped my book take shape.
Being part of a group was important because it gave me the courage and the contacts to finish what was just an idea to finally self-publishing my book. Hopefully the book helps teachers who struggle with ways to get their students to write. It’s also a resource for parents who home school.
Then there is the proof reading that needs to be done. Many people did that for me and I am very grateful, especially to my daughter and granddaughter who are in education and brought the educational content up to 2021 because I had retired in 2005.
I found a writing coach through the group and also a book formatter. There’s a lot that needs to be done through the internet like securing your ISBN numbers and your publishing company name. You also need to copyright your book and find someone to design the cover. There were many, many things I was unaware of, but I was helped along the way by people in my group and by my son who helped me with computer issues.
The reward comes when you finally get to hold your book in your hands and understand how much it means.
Find Barbara’s book on Amazon here.
Great post!