The Writing Experience is one of Muditta

There’s a book on one of my book shelves that has my name on the cover.

Yep, that’s me. A.E. Prero. And that’s a book I wrote and published.

http://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Detectives-Lesson-A-E-Prero/dp/1512109371

It took me about 8 months to write it and another month to format the darn thing to turn it into a paperback book and, after my own feeble attempts, $50 to pay someone to format it for Kindle. And now, here it is, sitting on my shelf and the shelves of at least 25 other people, according to the Amazon stats.

Hand on heart, how many of you truly think you, too, have a book in you, if you could only find the time to sit down and write it? And maybe you’ll even do it someday. I’m here to tell you that it’s well worth the effort, even if that book inside you never makes it into a physical reality on your bookshelf.

Don’t get me wrong. I love having actual books in people’s hands which are the product of my imagination, time and self-discipline. Yay!

But, believe it or not, there are many other gratifying results from plowing through the entire process of writing a book.

Beginning to end.

Concept to character development to plot to consistency to description:conversation ratio to word usage to editing, proofreading and formatting….and maybe even marketing, though I haven’t begun the serious lifting where that’s concerned.

I’ve read some great books about how to write. Writing down the Bones is probably the best.

But Natalie Goldberg has others out there, and some different authors have offered some helpful ideas, too.

When I actually sat down to write, I realized that while much of what those people suggested had registered in my brain, it all became a mutant version once the spices of my own personality and imagination were added to the soup…and that was okay, even good.

I learned what I, as a reader, liked.

I pondered what made me pull out one book from a bookstore bookshelf and not another. I asked myself what it was about one first chapter that pulled me into reading a book as opposed to putting down another. I went so far as to correspond with one author whose first paragraphs in her many books never fail to hook me and ask if I could use her formula.

Wow! Now, THAT was a surprise.

After a few months, I could finally sit down to write even if I hadn’t:

Washed the dishes,
done the laundry,
watered the plants,
made dinner,
cleaned out the studio,
answered emails, phone calls and text messages,
updated Facebook, or
had coffee with every neighbor within walking distance.

No, that’s not really my house but there were days when it felt like that…and I wrote anyway.

The further along I got with my book, the more I grew to appreciate the beautiful turn of a phrase or use of a word in the books I was reading. “Wow! How does she do that?”

The more I grimaced at a much over-used adjective or descriptive tool.

The more I became enchanted with how one character became someone I cared about while another was just plain irritating.

You might think that the magic of the well-written, well thought-out book would be lost once the smoke cleared and the mirrors were revealed. But the opposite has been true for me.

Sure, there are some books I can’t look at anymore. I can’t easily fill time with just any old thing I find around the house, on my friends’ shelves or on the table at the doctor’s office. But I’ve developed a full hearted, deep, experiential response to other books.

I feel the author behind the words. And they become my friends as much as do the characters they skillfully develop. I’m happy for them for their work well done. Reading has become a double pleasure. Pleasure in the book and pleasure for the author’s success in having written a book which brings pleasure.

Roland Merullo Natalie Goldberg