Dennis L. Peterson
Apr 5, 20192 min
[The first in a series.]
The first step in the publication of my books was to come up with an idea in which I had a sustained interest, for which sufficient resource material was available, and that would interest enough readers to make it profitable for publishers to risk their money publishing it as a book.
I did not start out with the goal of writing a book. Rather, that became a goal after I had already invested a lot of time, effort, and research in pursuing a nagging interest. After having done all that, collected all that information, surely someone else was interested in learning it, in benefiting from my work. Maybe in the form of a book?
The ideas for both of my traditionally published books came from subjects in which I had (or developed) keen interest. If the subject doesn’t interest you, your writing will reflect your lack of interest and readers will not be as interested as you. If, though you are initially interested, your interest flags over time, then it’s probably not something you will enjoy over the long term (often years) required to do the necessary work. Choose your idea carefully, because by the time you’ve finished your manuscript you’ll probably be sick of it!
Ideas, for not only books but also articles, come from all kinds of stimuli. Something you read. Something you hear in a sermon or overhear in a conversation. An idea may be broad or narrow. Ideas are all over the place, if we would just be observant and act upon the best of them. Even if you later decide that the idea is no good, that you aren’t committed to the idea for the long haul, or that insufficient information is available, no work on it is really lost. Some day, when you least expect it, that idea might blossom.
Famed author Ray Bradbury wrote, “If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. . . . The first thing a writer should be is–excited” (Zen in the Art of Writing).
Bradbury’s ideas came from his playing word association games with himself and writing down the ideas as short titles: “The Lake,” “The Attic,” “The Fog Horn,” etc. Years (sometimes even decades) later, those seed germs awoke interest within him and became stories and books.
The same can happen to you if you’ll only develop an awareness of the possibilities that lie all around you and wait patiently for the stories to develop in your subconscious. At the right time, they will, and you’ll be off and running, having taken that first step toward publication.