I don't know how to write a book!

There I've admitted it.

If you're new to this blog or haven't visited in a while, I've been writing trying to write a book for a while now and I've nursed the ambition to write one long before I recognised I wanted to. So to discover after all this years of pent up passion and repeated attempts that I don't know anything about writing books is rather disheartening.

In fact, once I started out trying to learn how a book is written, I realised I preferred wanting to write one to actually writing one. There is sufficient satisfaction to get a high from talking about writing a book, writing about how I am trying to write a book, researching about the writing process (of which my favourite part is finding experiences of newbie authors that mirror my own experience of frustration), getting angry each time another person has written a book and I haven't (you know how you are sure you can do something better than someone except you haven't done a thing despite your "being better" and they have results to show for actually putting in the work and going through the process) and playing with story lines and characters in my head that I don't need the lows of staring at a blank page struggling with the thought that this isn't something I can do.

But again, I always feel that way when faced with writing a paper for one of my many MBA modules. In fact, I am always sure that I not only don't know what I am doing but that I can't do what is being required of me. This has happened so often now that I have started to recollect and recognise more incidents of debilitating self doubt each time I have attempted something new, past and present.

Luckily, I've been around that block enough times to understand that if I can stick out the discomfort of the learning curve and get to the other side, I will start to see the patterns, recognise the formula and find what works.

So writing a book (for me) has been a humbling process- one that is easier said than done. 

I don't get to be good at it right away or on my first try not even because I've written a blog for ten years, maintained several journals of various shapes and colours through the years or contributed great content to a handful of magazines- online and print.