Posted on by Janet Eriksson

Every Word Counts

If you’re just starting to write a book, the scope of the project might feel overwhelming. You think of how many words go into a book. You’re just starting out. How will you get from here to there? Can you do this?

Yes, you can. You can write and finish your book. Just remember: every word counts.

Maybe at the beginning, you have 100 words you’ve written in a draft. You might have a few more words written in different files, in journals, on napkins. Thoughts you’ve gathered. A blog post. Attempts to start writing on the topic of your book.

How will these different words come together? Or will they?

Yes, they will. Beautifully.

Writing a book involves getting your heart onto paper. It would be nice if that process flowed like a waterfall. It rarely does. It comes out more like jigsaw puzzle pieces scattered across a table. When placed together, over time, these pieces create a beautiful picture of a waterfall, and that is your book.

Writing a book is like putting puzzle pieces on a table. First, you create the pieces. Then you connect them. Photo by Joseph Malone at Unsplash

What you’re doing right now is writing. That means getting words from your heart onto paper. Your thoughts may come to you at different times, in different ways. You might start to write one section of your book and end up somewhere else. That’s okay. It’s part of the process of writing.

As you start writing one part of your book, your words might tap into a memory that belongs somewhere else in your book. Go ahead and grab it, write it. Keep all these different pieces in a folder, till you start to see where they fit. Main thing is to get a hold of those ideas as they come to you. You can go back later and add to, tweak, make connections.

Every word counts. Some of the words you write today might not end up in your book. But they are part of your path in finding your story. Not one word is wasted. It’s all part of the beautiful process of writing.

Every word counts. Sometimes you’ll write a scene that won’t go into your book. That’s okay. It got you to that next scene along your writing path. Photo by Sarandy Westfall at Unsplash

You might jot down ideas, scenes, memories that you end up setting aside for a different purpose some day. You realize they don’t belong in your current book, but you wrote them along the way. Hang onto them. You never know when you might want to use them. What matters now is those words helped you discover more of what goes into the book you’re working on.

So jump on in. Start writing those words. Let your words prompt you, nudge you, inspire you to more ideas, more scenes, more words. Every word counts.

What can you do today to write more words toward your book?