Bookdiary #1

What a reasonable date to remember -

 12.12.2020 - the day I've started my book.  

My idea to write a book came up in 2019 for the first time. This was when I was travelling for my job and private the most of my entire life so far. I must have counted about 15 countries that year. 

It seemed like I met people on my way, which are leading me towards myself. Towards a better self. Because this person I was on my travels - confident, spontaneous, smart - I liked that self. Maybe that's the reason why every journey felt like an escape from everyday life at home. Every trip left memories which I wanted to remember, which I tried to keep alive in my head. My way of doing that was to write the stories down. I kept my journals always with me. By this time, I have about four journals I'm filling in parallel (but this is another story) - maybe this expresses my passion for writing. Especially while traveling.

In contrast, I was feeling emotions which in everyday life never appeared. I collected these stories, how I felt and who I met in these journals. One day I thought 'paper is not safe enough, let's make it digital' and then I started to type it down and add more details which I still remembered. I wanted the stories written down as memories are fading when time passes. After several captures were written and it appeared a lot to me - I thought 'wow, this could end in a book'. But who is going to read it?

And so the idea came up.

This book with the story of my life is not the book I will publish first.

I will keep it for later.

The book I'm writing right now is about Clara.

Clara, a person with I can identify myself. She has big ambitions to become a writer in the city of London. But the critical part of her journey is socializing and learning about other stories too. There will be more than her as the main character. There also will be Tom, who is an essential factor in discovering the dark past of Clara. Clara does not talk about her story in the book because she is embarrassed. But with Tom, as he supports her, she found a trusted person. At least she thought.

As I was hearing a masterclass yesterday by the author James Patterson, he was talking about twists. He at least tries to put one twist in every chapter. The reader cannot guess the storyline and will be surprised every time, which also makes the reader turn the pages. And that is what we want to achieve. Keep the reader reading and identify and feel the character. Eventually like, love or even hate the character - the main thing is that the reader gets emotional with the actors in the story.

I was listening carefully to the lessons of James P., and sometimes I felt like 'Oh man, this is all a feeling thing' - sure consistency is everything. But do you know if you listen to somebody who is a hero in his section - who is a real specialist and has a lot experience - there is a moment where you as beginner just feel like a fool. He motivated, that's for sure, but on the other hand, it's like... how I can turn his tips into my writing? I decided not to think too much about it and just get these pages filled. 

Even the outline (which is the structure of the story or book) at this moment is not really fixed. But that's okay. James said in the end, the story turns out completely different as planned in the outline. Especially the end of the book! So I stopped thinking and started typing. And eventually, by the end of the first chapter, I was feeling the point. The story itself leading me almost magically into the twisting point. I now can open up more of both main characters without telling the story by themselves - which would be incredibly boring. So the twist helps me to show the reader more about the characters in a more detective character. I'm even flashed and excited by my own story, can you imagine !!!

So that's it for my first update. 

I will soon post my summary to the tips of James Patterson in a separate post.

But the top tips I will leave here, not only for you but also for me - because as we all know repetion is key!

1. Consistency is key, try to write every day and make it a habit
2. Build in twists and surprises in every chapter, so you make the reader turning the pages!
3. Think about your reader as a friend sitting in front of you and listening to your story - make him stand up once you finished!
4. With everything you write, move the story forward!
5. Practice, practice, practice - you only become better if you practice.

Hear you soon!