The Greek philosopher Epictetus said,
'If you wish to be a writer, write.'
Simple as that!
I'll add to this by saying, 'If you have a story to tell about your life and times, then I'll bet people will want to read it.'
Tell it well and compellingly, and you may just have a book that will not only sell but will touch the hearts and minds of the people who read it.
You may ask: 'How does she know this?'
Because we all have a built-in curiosity about others, a hard-wiring that goes right back to our earliest ancestors sitting around fires at night. Before language there was visual communication. Take the charcoal drawings in the cave of Altamira, renderings of local fauna and the prints of hands. Perhaps this was a visual sharing of the story, 'Look what we hunted and killed today and now we're eating it for dinner.'
Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming has now sold over 10 million copies worldwide and her story could become the best selling autobiography ever. Sure, she received a real incentive to write her story - a reported $60 million US advance for the memoir - and this was a real measure of how eagerly anticipated her story was, now widely praised for it's raw and truthful telling of life before, during and after the White House years.
The corridors of power attract us, the lives of the rich and famous do too but we also want to know about the everyday, the lives of people like ourselves, those who have experienced something wonderful, traumatic, hopeful, joyous, or unbearably sad, and have been able to translate their thoughts, feelings, decisions and actions into the written word.
These are stories we can relate to, learn from, and enrich our own lives through the reading.
I'm so proud of Josh Komen and his book The Wind at My Back which reached number two in the Neilsen Weekly Bestsellers list for NZ adult fiction for the week ending 2 March 2019. Josh is a young man who had a special story to tell, one that has resonated with so many - not only because it describes the harrowing journey of a young man diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer but also because it is a story of hope, of overcoming a stack of incredible adversities to beat the odds and find joy, friendship, and love.
You can do this too. You absolutely can. If you want to be a writer, just write, tell your story.
If you need help getting started, call me!! We can chat.