My First Book and How I Wrote It

My first book is available on Amazon again – and I decided to celebrate it with a post about it and how I wrote it ^_^

But first, here are the links to the book itself: free first chapter, Kindle edition, paperback, and hardcover. A digital version (pdf or epub) is also available on my Buy Me a Coffee page.

If you buy it or read the first chapter, please share your impressions, I’d love to hear them.

Now let’s dive into the story!

1. What the book is about
2. How I got the idea to write it
3. The process
4. The result
5. Why I am publishing it
6. Final Thoughts

What the book is about

The book is a young adult novel, a mystery and a bit of a thriller with light sci-fi elements in it.

It is actually something I would most likely enjoy reading myself – there are all my favourite genres and categories. Even though I don’t read as much young adult stuff as I did a few years ago, it still has a spot in my heart, and I do enjoy checking out a YA title once in a while.

How I got the idea to write it

I used to write a lot in my teenage years, although it was mostly cringey poetry. But there was prose, too, and plays, more of these in my early twenties. However, I never believed that I was capable of writing a book.

Then, in 2015, I came across this video and found out about NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a yearly writing challenge, and the main idea is to write a 50 000 word book during the month of November.

All you need to do is write 1666 words a day, completing a 50k novel or any other book in 30 days. And if you manage to shut up your inner critic and just write, it is entirely possible and a lot of fun.

By that time I already kind of had an idea for a book or, rather, the first scene for one: a girl waking up and not remembering who she is. Not the most sophisticated premise and not exactly original. But it was enough to get me started.

The process

In 2015 I still had a typewriter. Not a cute super old-fashioned one, it was a more “modern” electric model. Still, it seemed more stylish and more “writery” to start writing my first novel on any kind of typewriter rather than a laptop, so that’s how I started.

I didn’t last long. Correcting typos when working on a typewriter is a huge pain in the butt. And by the end of each day, the pages needed to be scanned and OCRed, translating the image into typed text, which didn’t always go well and whole lines often needed to be retyped.

On day 3 I ran out of tape and patience and decided to stop showing off and choose comfort over style.

Writing 1666 words a day is not too hard, especially if you used to be a language student with lots of essays to write, but it still takes quite some time.

There were also days when I didn’t feel too inspired or was too busy, so on other days I had to catch up with many more words to write – that was harder.

But by the end of November, I did have a finished manuscript.

I then put it aside for over a year – partly because I didn’t really have any plans for it. After a while, I re-read and edited the book, and was surprised to find the book not too awful.

The result

Is my book a masterpiece? I don’t really think so. It was written quickly and it is my first book. The story is fairly simple. But it is a solid YA novel and can be a rather enjoyable read.

No, I don’t just think so myself – I also had a couple of reviews from people reading it which I was really happy to hear.

Why I am publishing it

I first published the book back in 2017. I was fascinated with the idea of self-publishing something through Amazon, thought the book was quite good, and hoped that it could be a start of a writing career.

I then had problems with receiving payments and now I don’t even remember whether receiving payments from Amazon was then completely impossible or I just didn’t explore the options well enough. Anyway, I archived the book and practically forgot about it.

Last year, I moved to a different country and eventually figured out different options for online payments – including one that would actually work with the Amazon self-publishing service.

Funny thing: when I connected the new payment option to my account, I received 3 dollars from Amazon – the royalties from a few book sales all those years ago.

I decided to republish the book – I still think it’s a nice read and it’s part of my story that I want to have available.

Final Thoughts

I don’t have as high writing ambitions as before, but I am planning to write and illustrate more books in the future – and this is a fitting first step!

Thank you for reading the post – and, hopefully, the book! Feel free to comment and ask questions under the post, I’ll be happy to chat.