The act of writing is not a boring one; or at least it shouldn’t be. If you’re bored by the words you’re putting down on the page, then your readers will be bored by what they’re reading. However, the writing process begins from the moment when you get the initial idea that you want to write until you actually hold the book in your hand. And some parts of it can get very dull for you, especially if what you want to write about requires you to step out of the comfort zone of what you know and into the realm of what you need to learn.
1. Research
Most writers do their own research when they need to add something specific to their novel. Usually, it’s something scientific that needs an in depth understanding and a lot of attention, or it can be details about working a job you know nothing about, but your character does it, and you need intricate details. But if you find the actual researching bores you and that it doesn’t yield the necessary results, then you can ask for help from someone who is knowledgeable in that specific field. That will save you time from researching everything on your own, which can be tedious.
2. Editing the story
The first draft of a book needs a lot of editing – that is always true, and some writers do it by themselves, while others work with editors. Nevertheless, if you get bored when editing the first draft, then it’s a problem, because, as stated above, the reader will be bored as well. You can do two things in this situation – you can hire an editor to help you with it, or you can reshape the story until you are satisfied. It might set you back a few paces, because you’d be essentially re-writing big chunks of the story, but continuing, trudging through the boredom will not yield the best results, and your story will not be the best version you can make it.
3. Editing mistakes
Grammar and spelling mistakes occur all the time during the writing process. It’s normal, because even if you’re using a word processor that has spellcheck, you might use a wrong word that’s spelled correctly (a homonym like there and their) and the word processor might not pick up the error. But, reading through a manuscript and specifically looking for the grammar and spelling mistakes can get beyond dreary. You have to both pay attention not only on spelling, and grammar mistakes, but also on wrong words. However, the good news is that you can hire someone to do it for you – you’re not changing the story, and you only need someone with a good eye who can spot each and every grammar mistake and possible wrong word.
4. Writing
How can writing be boring? If you’re not a writer, it will be. This situation can occur with writing non-fiction books. You have a great idea, and you want to share everything about the idea with the world, or offer a solution to a problem, or things you’ve experienced and are expert at. However, you cannot write it down, it doesn’t come out, and when it does, it bores you until you can’t continue. In this situation, it’s really preferable to hire a professional writer – there are many platforms on the internet that allow you to look for professionals who will write the book, while you will provide the information and the guidance. That will leave you with the freedom to take care of other necessary things in order to publish a book, like marketing the book, and creating an online hype. And even then…
5. Marketing the book
The marketing of the book is not part of the creative process that goes behind the scenes, but is a very important part of the whole process of publishing a book. Now, when something is boring to us, we might tend to just get it over with faster. This might occur to a writer who is self-publishing his work, because most publishing houses take care of the marketing. But writers can be inexperienced in the marketing field, and working within it can become a chore. If that is the case with you, you need to (again) find a professional who knows everything about it, or learn everything about marketing a book by yourself. Because if your book isn’t advertised to the right kind of audience, then your sales and the success of the book will suffer greatly, even if your work is astoundingly good.
Image credit: Jesús León on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0
Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As a 22-year-old art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.