Writer's Block Book: The Saga Begins

Back in June I put my money where my mouth is, so to speak an inaccurate cliche, by committing to gather up the most popular posts on Writer's Block into an eBook. That would be a brief, tidy little project, I thought. Maybe something to offer as a holiday gift in a month or two. I still might do that, but read on.

Later in the summer at the Writer's Digest Forum, I ruminated about whether or not I wanted my ideas to stand on their own or risk tainting them with the influences of previously published works on Writer's Block.

Simultaneously a friend published her novel with Amazon's CreateSpace and lent me a reference book on using MS Word to format a manuscript for printing. Just like in Betsy's murder mystery, I suddenly had the means, motive and money (very little needed) to perhaps self-publish! My eBook developed a tree book specter, the same one that haunts most all writers ... just to hold a book I wrote! An utterly irrational, unfeasible, nearly irresistible urge.

I realized the product would be a "slim volume" indeed with only a few dozen posts, and thought I might examine other books on the subject after all. To be honest, my fear of researching was less that they would influence my thinking than that I would find either duplication, no support, or worst of all, deterrence. Yes! I feared that I might develop a block and become unable to carry the project through. How ironic would that be?

Nonetheless, trepidatious research began last month with Amazon and the local library system. As I read the first books I could borrow, I found vindication of the positions I'd been stating, albeit couched in scholarly terminology, sourced by notes. Am I the only person who drools over footnotes? The excitement of research--tracking down references, cross-checking, consulting indexes for journal articles--overcame me.

I think I might see a niche for a book that knits up the various strands of research, theory and advice into a comprehensive, but readable and useful guide for the contemporary everyman (especially every woman) writer. Visions of self-publishing dissipated, replaced by plans for more research and proposal writing (with nonfiction, you sell the proposal, then write the book).

There is still the possibility I'll happen onto a publication that does exactly what I have in mind, or I'll get too caught up in researching (love those details!), or Life might intervene. I've only just begun to consider the work seriously.

See the Original Commitment Post.