I Did It!

I published a book! How surreal.

I think two weeks ago, @raymondspeaks was like, “hey wanna try something new?” I did not think he meant publishing a book! I have never done that but it was something I was looking into with the help of @tengolotodo.

When Ray brought up the suggestion, my impulsive response was to back down. I have so many written works that I haven’t published, and I thought it would be like one of those ALX courses I never got to complete. I already thought it was going to be rigorously complicated and one fear was starting something once more and not seeing it through. However, I finished this. It’s not a full length book but it is an achievement nonetheless.

How it happened

So Ray helped me get onboard with this 7 Days Publishing Challenge where there were also a bunch of other people. Closest though, @hetty-rowan and @abenad followed.

There were live sessions and recordings to fall back to. I have to say, Hetty set the pace. She was on fire and her fire lit my fire if not, I may have fallen back and done the procrastination thing. It was really awesome having these people around. We shared our book covers and gave feedback.

Watching these people who seemed to have experience go on it (I used Rays outlines for guidance) just stoked me. I knew I wanted to complete this. Seven days seems like so little time but for someone like me who has a long history with procrastination, anything can happen. I guess that was my fear. I was afraid I’d give up…lol.

I just went ahead and did it. Deciding not to think and just do what I can. I already had guidelines and watching Hetty, I went faster than I imagined. Ray was also not backing down. He has a lot on his plate with projects and family, yet he made time to do this. So hell why not? Why can’t I?

Then Abenad joined the game, and although she didn’t publish, she really gave me some horsepower. It was really fun trying to meet up with brains the size of Saturn. So I started writing.

What inspired my topic?

One of the first things we were asked to do on the challenge was pick a topic. I already knew what I was going to talk about. I’ve always been fascinated by this thing called the mind. I have it and I use it. I’ve witnessed its power and I’m also intrigued by its entirety. So I settled on my topic and began to write.

Having an outline helped a great deal. I had no idea what the word count would be but we were challenged to do 5000 words least. Bro! I write 30k words a week for people. Three days of my lengthy Hive posts is almost 5000 if not more. So I have no excuse. I told myself that I’d hit at least 6k, and I surpassed it by a 1k+. Honestly, I had no idea then where the words would come from but I was very sure that I wanted to start writing.

What all this means to me.

This means more than you can possibly know. Anyone who knows me, knows I struggle (to some extent) with self doubt. Mostly because I have failed myself more than once.

Picking up and doing this took more effort mentally than it did physically. Sure, the words just flowed out almost effortlessly but the nagging at the back of my head that I won’t hit the mark or even finish kept popping up.

I just ignored it even if I’d pause typing and close my eyes. To many experienced writers, this would be nothing. But to me, it was everything. It was a challenge worth doing.

My expectations.

I expect that this is the first of many more to come. Now that I have done this, and achieved this milestone, I know I have to delve deeper. Learn better and practice more.

It’s a door to many more opportunities for me especially when it comes to my passion. I love writing. I love words. If you know me, you know how much this means to me. I love to write. It’s my favourite way to relax (after reading that is). I hope to make money doing this too. I hope to write life changing books like the ones that changed my life and mindset.

Where to buy the book.

It’s now LIVE on Amazon (Kindle). After the review that took 72 hours, I think, I got an email at 2:47am today telling me my E-book was LIVE. And another at 12:58pm saying the same of the Paperback. I’m stoked!

So you can get it on Amazon or you send HBD for purchase directly from me. Sweet @abenad is trying to help me get into using V4V. That option will be available once I understand how it works. Thank you Abenad for your patience with weird me…lol. And thank you Ray for being the first to patronize me.

Appreciation

Thank you to my one woman cheer squad @jhymi, who despite being occupied with exams made sure to burst into my DMs with her PomPoms and words of encouragement. And also to @el-herah who also left me with “sweet feelings”. And to @justfavour, thank you darling. And to my very own @tengolotodo, thank you for always believing in me even though I give you shit all the time. Quite a pain, aren’t I? lol. But you deal with it. Thank you and I love you. I love all of you (before JustFavour will start plotting my murder…lol)

Okay okay… I’ll stop here now. This is the opening to many doors.