Writing and Getting Published

Many business people, especially professionals, feel it is important to get published. Others have a deep seated craving to write the next #1 Best Seller, and still others want to write so they could share personal notes, stories and anecdotes about their past, values or ethics, and some want to become a social media star. Whatever the reason you need to start.

Starting might reveal a suppressed talent or that you do not have anything to write about, but nevertheless you need to start to find that out. Here are some tips.

• Two magazines that are particularly helpful and motivational are Writer’s Digest and The Writer magazine and I recommend them both. There are others but before the pandemic, I read these in my local public library so I became familiar with them. Now I read them every once in a while when I buy an issue on a newsstand. I decided not to subscribe since they would end up in a pile and I rather like my present routine since I really go through the issues I buy. Hopefully, my library will start letting us read magazines shortly. They could also be read on online.
• Some books I read about writing that I recommend are: On Writing by Stephen King and also Misery which shows how the main character in a novel is developed. The Novel by James A. Michener is a novel about how a novel gets written and published. There are others and you can do a web search for “books about writing” and see what looks good to you.
• A novel that shows how to research a story is Fair Warning by Michael Connelly. Interesting and teaches how to be detailed oriented, plus a good story.
• A movie and streaming series on how to develop a blog or become an Instagram influencer is Julie and Julia and Emily in Paris.
• I just posted a pretty thorough column on how to get started with writing and be published written with my mentor, friend, colleague and writing partner Sidney Kess. Here is a link: https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/art-of-accounting-getting-started-with-writing. This is focused on accountants but you can pick up some useful tips on how to choose a topic and get started writing.
• Another form of writing is to write a personal history or about your values. There are quite a few books on how this is done. An easy way to get started is to get a blank-lined book and start writing. It doesn’t really matter what you write as long as you feel you are telling a story you want to tell. Instead of a journal you can open a new file and start typing away or dictating on your computer or iPad. Do not be overly concerned about the style, grammar or how it is organized. After you’ve written about a dozen pages it will start to take a shape and what you write afterward would be in a usable format. You can always go back and rewrite what you started with.

I and many other people that write for pleasure enjoy it immensely and I suggest it is worth trying, especially if you feel you have something you want to share. Try it. You might like it and get something done that you would be proud of.

If you have any tax, business, financial, leadership or management issues you want to discuss please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].