Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms. She writes weird books for teens in lots of weird genres like, fantasy (Blood of Kings trilogy), science fiction (Replication), and dystopian (The Safe Lands trilogy). Find Jill on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on her author website.
The last book we did together was called Do Hard Things by Alex & Brett Harris. (We let the boys come for this book, by the way.) This was a pretty cool book that talked about the low expectations that our culture has for teenagers, and that teens can and should do hard things while they’re young. In the book, the authors gave a 5-step plan that can change your world and help you do hard things. I felt that writing a book was, indeed, a very hard thing to tackle as a teenager and that the Harris brother’s list was one you all could benefit from. So here are five steps that can help you change your world.
1. Take a risk.
You’ll never write a book if you don’t sit down and start typing. It’s hard, and it’s time-consuming. But take the risk, declare your dream, set the goal, make the time to do it, and invest in it.
2. Raise the bar.
If you want to write a book worthy of publication, it’s not enough to finish the book. You have to go back in and rewrite the book. And to do that, you have to find out what makes writing “good,” so that you’ll know how your writing measures up. It’s not easy, but you can do it. Read lots of books on the craft of writing to help you raise the bar.
3. Don’t go it alone.
Writing is a very solitary discipline. But that doesn’t mean you can’t involve other people in your dream. And writing a book worthy of publication is too big to accomplish all by yourself. If you’re here reading the Go Teen Writers blog, you’ve already found communities of writers and made connections. That’s awesome! So, make friends, trade books, read each other’s work, critique each other’s work, and cheer each other on. Writing friends are the best!
4. Don’t despair. Small hard things are good too.
Writing a book is something that takes a very long time. Even if you wrote your book quickly, it takes time to rewrite, to meet editors and agents, to pitch your book to them and wait to hear back, and if you sell your book, it still takes time to wait for edits and cover designs and advance reader copies, etc. And most writers don’t sell their first, second, or even their third book. Some sell a short story or article first. Some publish a book online to try and build a readership. And these small things aren’t easy either. And you should be proud of them. Stay faithful to your goal and keep at it!
5. Take a stand.
In the Do Hard Things book, this is where the authors talk about taking a stand for what is right and going against the cultural norm. That might not seem applicable to writing, but I think it is. One way is that you could write a book about a topic that you are passionate about. But if your book isn’t really about a theme of right vs. wrong, you’re still taking a stand in regards to your dream. Our culture would say that teens should be enjoying their youth by hanging with friends and having fun. And if you do write, our culture would say it should just be for fun. But if your dream is to write a book worthy of publication, you’re going to have to take a stand with your family and friends and make sacrifices of time and fun to get the book done and write another and another and another. You don’t have to hurry. But you do have to be consistently loyal to your dream.
So I encourage you all to Do Hard Things in regards to your dream of writing a novel. Most of you already are. Where do you find yourself in this five step list? Are you just starting out and need to take that first risk of declaring your dream and setting the goal? Or are you farther down the list? Let me know in the comments.
ps. I’m going on a little book tour this weekend. If you live in Salt Lake City or Phoenix, come and see me, Jonathan Friesen, Lisa T. Bergren, and Lorie Ann Grover!
