My new book, The Daughter of Captain Burn, is now out. I am relieved to be done. The hours I spent writing, editing, and revising all seem to meld together in my head. This has caused me to feel an exhaustion and a burnout that I have not felt before. Although, the last time I published a book I also felt this complete panic when I finished. This constant doubt in my abilities and a worry that I perhaps could have done something differently sometimes eats away at me. However, I know how many hundreds of hours I spent researching, writing, and editing, and I truly believe that I put in my best effort. I do not know if other authors feel this way when they have completed a project, but I sometimes think that my mind is so focused on the outcome that when it finally comes, my brain panics.
This experience has, however, taught me that perhaps I need a different approach in the future. The day I published my book, I worked for twelve hours straight to make sure everything was just right. I know this is not the correct way to approach my work. The pressure I create for myself is incredible. Therefore, I know that I must change how I write. I must change how I edit, and I must change how I finally publish. There are times when I have to hide all of my finished books from view because I cannot help but look back and look for errors. I know this is wrong, and, I, at times, cannot help but obsess about what I would do differently in the future. I have to remind myself that it is my hope that when I am more well-established as an author, I will release second editions, and also write even more books. The next time I write a book will be different. I learn something new with each book, and I know that all of us make mistakes. Perhaps many creators feel this way. I sometimes feel as if I do not want to write anymore. I could just stop and take all my books down and not worry. However, I have to remember why I started. I wrote my first book because I love to write. I spent years writing and rewriting it because I wanted it to be the best story it could be. There is such a thrill in transporting to a time and a place that no longer exist. I want to share my stories with readers and I hope that others will read my books and discover the unknown worlds that I have uncovered. That is why I write. I love to write scenes in my head at night when I cannot fall asleep. In fact, I remember when during recess in third grade I did laps around the playground and wrote stories in my head. There was one teacher who even commented to me that I seemed to like to walk. No, I was just coming up with my next third-grade epic. In sixth grade, I would take notes during class, but imagine stories about the students in class and what everyone would be like in college. I always tell my students now that they should not do what I did, and that they should actually pay attention. Stories have always been a part of my life. I feel that I have to return to why I started in the first place. Even if it means never publishing again. My hope, however, is to keep writing, and God-willing, to keep publishing. I have a few more books in my head right now, but I know that I must take it slow, and publish only when I am truly ready. I hope that more people will read my books and will enjoy them. Even if I find just a few more readers, I will be grateful. My hope is that my books will inspire others to write and go on an adventure of their own. Please visit my books tab to see where you can order my books. Happy Reading!
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These last few weeks have felt so exhausting, and at times it is so hard to determine why that is. I have spent many hours writing, but I have also had to put my writing on hold because I feel so overwhelmed with work at times. I greatly enjoy working with my students, but as a teacher, there are times when I spend over twelve hours a day at work. It is a lot. It is very difficult to come home then and write for a few more hours. I, however, am a strong believer in doing all of your own work. I spend a lot of time on research, journaling, editing, and revising all the elements of my book.
With that said, I am determined, determined that I will continue to do what I enjoy doing. My hope is to write because I love writing, and also not lose sight of why I started writing. Even if I do not ever publish a book again, I want to keep writing. Publishing, especially self-publishing, is very stressful because you have to make sure that every element of the book is correct. Then, if something is wrong, that will just eat away at you, and that feels as if it saps the joy out of writing and creating. I see the benefit of partnering with a publishing company, especially since some people will not even give my books a chance once they hear they are self-published. I can assure you, however, that I have put as much effort and time as possible into my books, and I hope that hesitant readers will give self-published authors a chance. My hope is to keep writing and to keep publishing, for as long as I can. I may perhaps at one point partner with a publisher, but right now I will keep writing what I love, and hopefully keep up with self-publishing. In the last few weeks, I became very overwhelmed with the whole writing and self-publishing process. This is what I was worried about when I started publishing, that I would get lost in the process and lose my love for writing. There is so much to know and it is a very long road. It requires a lot of work and research just to know how to self-publish a book.
I decided to start over in some respects. I had been trying to post on YouTube, Facebook, and Pinterest, and it all got away from me. I decided that I would post when I am ready, and try not to feel like I need a specific timeline. I deleted a lot of my content and decided to start over. I know it can be daunting, but I am a writer, not a social media creator, and that is not who I want to be. I have updated some things and will continue to write and publish, but try not to get carried away with everything else. I am a teacher, so for me, writing has always been a hobby, something I love to do. I really want to share my stories, and my love for historical things. That is why I decided to publish. I write a lot by hand. I take a lot of notes. I spend hours editing and revising, but I do not want to become obsessed. I want to keep this as something I find fun and relaxing. Not an activity that takes over my whole life and creates endless worries. I think this can be difficult in any job, in anything that is interesting or fun to do, but I hope that I can place my worries to the side, continue to share my love for writing, and continue to post about my writing journey, but not lose the reasons why I started. I want to motivate others to read and write, and that is the reason why I started. In this age, when everything seems to be run by computers and social media, I hope to bring people back to a simpler time, a time when people read for entertainment, and wrote their own stories. I hope that people can go back to a time when people did not depend on the computer to write for them. There is something so wonderful about sitting down with a journal and writing. It can give you a place to write down your thoughts, sort through problems, and go on an adventure. My hope is to continue to do so. Hopefully, we can all step away from the social media world for a little while and find our next adventure in a book, or even in our own journal. Happy Reading! I think that perhaps my way of writing books is different, but it is probably more than likely that all authors have different types of processes. Usually, when I write a book, I will write out all the events in order, then I will type them all up in a Word document. From there, I will start writing the book. As I get through about a quarter of those events, I then start creating the chapters.
I will then break the book into chapters and organize the rest of the typed-up events by chapters. I will then continue to write my chapters. Sometimes I write them in chronological order, and sometimes I will type up my chapters out of order. For my current book, The Daughter of Captain Burn, I am writing my chapters out of order. Sometimes I want to get to the most exciting parts first. The hardest thing for me to type is the filler chapters. The chapters that you need for the book to make sense, but are really there to connect the main events. I try to make those fun as well, but it can definitely be tough! Also, sometimes I will write out parts by hand. My best ideas come to me at night, so I will often keep a journal near my bed so I can scribble down my thoughts. At times this turns into full-blown scenes. I have been plugging away at my new book, The Daughter of Captain Burn. I have organized all of my chapters, and am currently writing chapters, but not in chronological order. After getting stuck on one of the chapters, I decided to just create all of the chapter headings, and then create the chapters that I am certain about, and then come back to the chapter I got stuck on.
I am not sure why, but for some reason, the story in that part of the book is not flowing. Sometimes it takes me some time to get an idea that will click. It has been slow going with this book in general, but I am hoping to make a lot more progress this week. Happy Reading! I was truly hoping to produce more blogs and more writing by now. I wanted to update my blog once a week, but my plans fell flat. I have truly had a lot going on and it is difficult to have a full-time teaching job and to try to write on a full-time basis as well. So, therefore, my goal is to continue to strive to improve. I have written quite a bit of my book. I am struggling a lot with the research, but I hope the effort will pay off in the end! My goal is to post on my social media pages every week and also to post here on a weekly basis.
I enjoy writing and love the process, but it is quite taxing and can take a lot of mental effort. Sometimes I do not want to put in that mental effort after a whole day of work. That truly is on me. However, I want to produce more interesting blogs, and updates. I will continue to write and publish. My goal is still to produce two books this year. I am hoping to release, The Daughter of Captain Burn, in September or October, and then release my next book, Hello, My Name is Emma, in the Winter months. My hope is to always encourage others to write and to strive for their dreams. I have also set a goal for myself to read twenty minutes a day. Reading improves our writing skills, and I think that is essential for anyone who wants to succeed in school or in a career. It is so wonderful to get away from a computer or a phone and just immerse yourself in a book. I see a huge difference in how relaxed I feel after I have spent time away from my phone. I am a big proponent of getting away from screens and either creating an adventure by writing, or going on an adventure by reading a book, especially older books have great lessons, and are often very unique! Even if you are not a great reader or a great writer, pick up a journal or a book, and start your next adventure! There are many things I do to prepare in order to write a book. Since, most of my books are set in a historical time period. I will first start off by doing some research. Most of my research is a combination of primary and secondary sources, which usually include eyewitness accounts of the events of that time period, newspaper articles, and journals. Afterward, I will read secondary sources which may help fill in some gaps in the research I have done. Usually, primary sources are great, but since they are written by someone at that time, they may be missing essential information that may be useful when writing a book. I doubt that most people, when they were writing letters one hundred years ago, thought that someone would be reading them to write a book about the events, so they sometimes will leave out a few things.
With my latest book, the greatest challenge is making sure that I accurately stick to the events occurring in the early 1700s. I have started creating a timeline of historical events that are going on in the backdrop of my book. I have now rewritten the timeline, but have realized there are still a few gaps. There is also some missing information that I have to make sure I know when I write the rest of my book. Some of these events will be crucial to the actions the characters take in the book, so I have to make sure I get them right. So far, I have typed up the first three chapters, have handwritten several essential scenes, and am hoping to type at least two more chapters this week. I have a few more scenes in my head that I hope to record before I forget what I wanted to write. My entire storyline is planned out, but I realize I may need to add some scenes along the way. I am still working on planning out some characters. I hope my readers will check back next week to learn more about how I plan out characters and what my process is for choosing character names. Thank you for reading! I am in the early stages of writing my new book, The Daughter of Captain Burn. This is a book that I have been planning for quite a while, but because of my other writing projects, I have just started typing it. I did have a good portion of the first chapter written by hand, and I also have the ending written. A while ago, I outlined the whole book, but the outline is very rough with just a list of ideas of how the book will progress.
Recently, I sat down to type what I had written already and to continue the story. I had originally written the handwritten first chapter in the first perso, but decided to change it to the third person. I also formatted the book title and the page numbers. Over the course of my previous book adventures, I realized that it is wise to format first, even if in the end you have to change some of the formatting. It makes the process much less tedious in the end. I still have quite a bit of research to do as this book includes a lot of information about sailing the ocean in the 1700s. I love the ocean, and I love ships, but do not know too much about how they would operate on a daily basis. My hope is to learn a lot and to infuse my learning into this book. Please check back for more updates! I am excited to take this next literary journey with you! After I finished writing my last book, I decided to take a little bit of a break. I had spent countless hours writing, formatting, and editing. I felt overwhelmed and exhausted. I do not want to lose the love I have for writing, so I took a break and tried a few new things. I took a cooking class in which I learned how to make Spring Rolls. I also took a Charcuterie Board class, which is something I really wanted to learn. Currently, I am taking an art class, and am learning how to paint with watercolor. I painted the northern lights, which I thought was apt based on the books I have written. Sometimes taking a break is important, especially when writing starts to feel like a burden instead of something enjoyable. Writing for me was always a hobby, an adventure, and not something for me to dread. I would love to keep it that way. Now that I have taken a break, I am ready to get back into my writing. I also am hoping to post more on my blog. I want to post at least twice a week and share updates on my writing, research, and other topics of interest. As always, I want to inspire others to write and grow to love this craft. My book, Three Days out of San Francisco, is now out. I have spent endless hours writing, editing, formatting, and publishing. For five weeks before the publication date, I was working on this book for at least five to seven hours a night after a full day of teaching. Sometimes I would work until midnight only to wake up for work at 5:30 the next morning. This is after working tirelessly on this book since June.
I have decided to go the route of self-publishing, and it is quite a tricky situation. Whenever I make a change to formatting or if I make edits, it takes about five hours to go through everything and check all the changes. My hope is that all these hours of work will give my readers an enjoyable reading experience. There are mistakes that I make along the way, but I feel that with every book I learn something new. Three Days out of San Francisco is very different from anything I have written before, and I hope that my readers will enjoy it. It steps away from the wilds of Alaska and explores the city of San Francisco during one of the worst natural disasters in the United States. As of right now, I am hoping to take the rest of January to regroup. I do have another book that I have started planning and writing, but I want to do quite a bit of research before writing more. I have written the first ten pages and the last two pages, but everything in between is a mystery. I am trying to take things a little slower in 2023 and put out only two books. I originally planned to put out three books, but the amount of work this takes can take quite a toll. One of them is already handwritten, I just have to type it. I am planning to put that out in the second half of 2023. The other book I am working on, I am very excited about, and cannot wait to keep working on it. If you are a reader, please leave a comment. Please also leave a review on Barnes and Noble if you have enjoyed my books! I am posting a link below! Thank you! Eugenia Nick To leave a review for Reflections in the Northern Lights, visit this link and scroll down the page. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/reflections-in-the-northern-lights-eugenia-nick/1141745741?ean=9798218005399 To leave a review for Three Days out of San Francisco, visit this link and scroll to the bottom of the page. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/three-days-out-of-san-francisco-eugenia-nick/1142880913?ean=9798986628233 |