Write a Book-Craig Ferguson Motivated Me
Craig Ferguson told an aspiring author on his TV show to write one page every day and in one year you’ll have a book. He got me past just getting started on a book and never get past about 15,000 words. I called it My 365 Page Book and in one year I had a 95,000-word book. My goal was 250 words a day. I wrote 147 pages in 147 days ending on December 31, 2011. July 2012 I hit 365 pages.
Post at One Million in the Bank about Craig Ferguson
What Did I Write About?
Me! I figured I would just write my own stories, what better place to start I know me pretty well. This book was about every story in my life I could think of, childhood, school, sports, college, anything and everything. It was fun. I wound up writing a good record of my life for my family if they ever want to read it, but never planned to publish it. It was a great sense of accomplishment. I still add to it too.
My First Book-One Million in the Bank
While I was writing My 365 Day Book, I started All the Secrets of Success. My goal with a book was to write a book that would help others. I went from bankrupt to millionaire in 3 years and I wanted to tell others how to do it. Writing almost every day was inspirational. I was 30,000 words into it All the Secrets of Success. My son (brilliant, Yale, Harvard Law) told me there was nothing new there, no stories, and it wouldn’t help anyone. He said it nicely. So I sat it aside and started over.
I found a story of an immigrant with no education who started his own business (flower nursery) with nothing and was now worth over $14,000,000 dollars and had put six relatives into business and they were all millionaires too. That put me on the path to One Million in the Bank: How to Make $1,000,000 With Your Own Business, Even If You Have No Money Or Experience.
September 2015, I self-published that book. www.onemillioninthebank.com Getting that book written was a tremendous learning experience. It won 7-awards, it is still doing very well.
I also self-published the Veterans Guide to One Million in the Bank and the Women’s Guide to One Million in the Bank at the same time as companion pieces.
My Fourth Book-Crime Fiction Novel-Kill Crime
My wife has Parkinson’s, so I sold our company in the fall of 2016. I had other business non-fiction books partially done and many more planned. But I don’t have time to do the research and interviews. So I sat down on the couch April 15, 2017, with my laptop and decided I needed about 90,000 words for a book and I decided to try and write about 1,300 words a day on the average. It took me 2 ½ months, the first draft of Kill Crime (the hero is Jeff Case) was done 1 July. Then the editing and beta reading started. That is a whole story in itself which I will share in other posts. It went back out to an agent interested in my story today with changes made that they suggested today 16 March 2018.
My Fifth Book and More
Kill Crime II (working title) is written and is out to the first editor now. It will get edited a few times and beta read even more. The book will take more work to get it as good as it can get. I plan to keep writing Jeff Case novels and a lot more fiction to include a female PI. It is all very exciting. www.mikeslavinauthor.com
It All Started With
It all started with me getting in the habit of writing every day, just writing my own stories. Anybody can do that. Get started today, but to get to the end and finish a book—keep writing about anything. The process of writing is so great to keep spawning ideas.
Not A Natural Writer
I am not a natural born writer. My grammar isn’t bad, but not to the level of a really good writer. But I am getting better as I keep writing and getting feedback. My books are good because I get all the help I can and…wait for it…keep writing—keep writing. I’d like to say more, and I will, but that’s all for now.