As I was listening to other authors talking about their new books, I got to thinking about what they had gone through, up to now to get to the stage of publishing a book. There must have been an initial idea about a storyline, possibly followed by putting a few ideas down on paper before the story flitted away. Now for the first coffee.
From little ideas big things grow, or so I am told. Having got their storyline down then there must have come many hours of drafting out the story and when finished get it published… Hold on, that seems too simplistic.
Time for a rethink. Yes, they must have had an idea for a story but how would they really have proceeded to expand that idea. Come to do some more thinking, the idea must have been put down as short ideas with addition plotlines added, shuffled many a time with research into concepts undertaken followed by the first draft being made. Yes it must have been a first draft because nothing is perfect straight off, or so my own building design experience shows. Many a redraw and tweak happened with my building plans.
After that first draft they must have read through what they had committed to paper and seen that, like my building designs, they needed re-arranging, correcting, deletion, tweaking or discarding and starting again from scratch till the final draft got it as it should be. That sounds more like it. Where’s that coffee? Urgh… gone cold while I have been thinking.
That must have been satisfying for them. Getting their ideas into a book and all those words, fifty to sixty thousand of them they said.
They also discussed how they had to spend ages in making contacts to find someone who would even consider reading their manuscripts and progress them to publishers accompanied by many rejection letters. From elation to depression. But finally they became published.
I remembered that I had years ago, probably about the age of fourteen started to write a mystery, got as far as a pageworth before realising I wasn’t a story-teller. But now I have had years of work and play experience I could have something to write about. Not building construction, nor my life story, but about my hobby. Railway modelling, yes that I would like to do. But I would have to make it interesting, factual, and aimed at a wide audience or I would be wasting my time. Oh, and I would have to put over the information but in my light-hearted, I hope, style. I’ve had years of writing technical reports giving facts in a concise form, now I could express myself how I say it.
I will write a guide to encompass what I know of railway modelling for beginners as well as maybe as light reading for them that know it all.