When I started out to become an author, leaving the comfort of thirty years in full-time employment, I had no idea how my first book would be received.
I worked on it for almost a year while doing part-time at ST Electronics. Juggling between work and writing is a feat not for the fainthearted. There were days when I came home tired from the lab and had to summon energy to write. There were weekends when I would have rather rested, but instead sat at my desk, wrestling with chapters.
I couldn't remember how many times I ground through each chapter. Every footnote. Every reference. Just to be sure I got everything right where it belonged.
Writing a book, I discovered, is not like writing a report. Reports have a beginning, middle, and end. They convey information and stop. Books need flow. They need rhythm. They need to carry the reader along, not just dump facts in their lap.
As a self-published author, I had to manage everything.
Writing, of course. But also editing—going through each sentence, each paragraph, each chapter, looking for ways to improve. Proofreading—catching the typos and grammatical errors that inevitably creep in. Designing the book cover—creating something that would catch a browser's eye and make them want to look inside.
These were skills of a different kind. Skills I picked up along the way, learning by doing, making mistakes and correcting them.
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