Anyone here ever wrote a book? Or have had the urge to write a book?

I've just written a children's book. I hope to self publish it in the new year.

I wrote a book about gambling called "THE MUG PUNTER'In it I said that the next time you are going well at the gambling look at the car you are driving and then look at the bookies car and ask yourself whos car is the best.The problem is you paid for both of them

im planning on writing a book next year, with a view to doing it as a new career. will be interesting cos i dont really read books, certainly not novels. no idea how to even set it out. in my mind it will be like a movie script. so not sure how to "think" in book form. but thats just details i spose.

Wrote a radio play. Sent it to the BBC.

They kept it for 5 months before informing me they weren't going to use it!

bob, there's loads of site giving advice on writing books, scripts, etc.

The reason I asked was because I bumped into an old mucker who I hadn't seen for years.

I asked him what he was doing these days, and he said he was writing a book about his life, and he was hoping to get it published soon.

He is one of many I've met over the years who have either written or hoping to write a book. None of them have ever gone to print as far as I know.

^^however he was upbeat and optimistic, so maybe writing is a form of therapy for some? It's a though some people feel they have a book in them?

Emden, I wish your friend well, but unless he is a well known personality, he has no chance of getting a publisher. He can self publish but these companies refuse no one as they don`t care on the content or quality of the book, they are just in it to make money out of people`s dreams. That`s why they call it Vanity Publishing. His best option is to self publish it on Amazon Kindle. It costs nothing and is easy to do.

Thanks Emden. It was about Sport but I don`t want to elaborate for obvious reasons which I`m sure you will understand.

I would love to write a book one day. I regularly have ideas but don't seem to have the time or energy to see them through. Got a few pages into a cheesy maverick cop short story a year or two ago, but oddly, the only projects I've actually completed in recent times are a couple of short stories in Spanish.

Coincidentally though, when this thread hit the forum, I'd just planned to take a couple of days off next week to go to a quiet, sunny retreat, sit by the pool with my laptop and get started on my latest project - a science fiction, vaguely Matrixy affair about beings who can skip between worlds. One of them is drawn to this one...

Um, the ... is supposed to look mysterious, but tbh I'm not really sure what's going to happen next so I had to put ...

themightymac

How long did it take you to write the book?
Did you do many re-writes?

I read On Writing by Stephen King, and writing a book is a tough gig.
But I loved the bit in On Writing when he came home one day from his job as a schoolteacher(?) and opened a letter from his agent.
He had got $2,500 for Carrie, but the letter said he the agent had sold the paperback rights for $100,000(?) (Wiki says he got $400,000).
He sank to the floor when he read the letter, and when his wife got home from her job as a waitress(?) and he told her she started crying.

However, like I said earlier, writing a book about your own life is a waste of time unless you are well known. Fiction is the best money spinner and if your book catches on, then you can hit the jackpot.


But some peoples real life stories are so unbelievable they're like fiction, fact is usually stranger than fiction and harder to make up to, if you know what I mean.

It seems remarkably cheap to get  your own book printed - if I have read it correctly.

t y for making me laugh btw squeeze, very good.

SqueezeFirmly 10 Oct 13 22:47
I was writing a book about the different gasses in the Universe. As I was finishing the chapter on Helium the doorbell rang. (I GUESSED THE PUNCHLINE HERE)I put the book down to go and answer the door, and wWhen I came back I saw it floating away over the garden fence.


That must be the most laboured joke ever on here, have you been given access to SDKs joke book?

I got about 17,000 words into a novel then got stuck.

That was years ago. Might try to pick it up again now.

There you go, 'dear mr tarbuck....'

I also once wrote a short story for my English class when aged 13 or so. It was called 'the lonely house in the countryside,' still remember the spooky lettering technique for the title!

Yep.

Wrote a book of poetry that was published 15 years ago, contributed to a few punting books and am a contributor to a book about Oasis that's being published in a couple of weeks, Supersonic - Personal Situations with Oasis by Stuart Deabil and Ian Snowball

Probably their biggest fan in the early years. I lost count after seeing them 50 times in the UK and all over the world. Amazing times, amazing stories.

Lost interest when the music became sh1t (album 3), because it was always all about the music for me.

I too have written several books – that is not to say they are any good of course, and I have also read Steven King’s “On Writing” which I found quite inspirational. I don’t like his books at all, but I admire the man greatly.

I started about ten years ago and did what everyone else does, sent loads of copies and stuff around publishers and agents, and of course like so many others I have enough rejection letters to paper a couple of large rooms.

Someone told me that the big publishers reject something like 2,000 manuscripts per month, and would sign up on average 2 new unknown writers per year, so the odds of being accepted are infinitesimal.

I finished a book about 5 years ago about a philandering man who had never been in love – sound familiar, chaps? – and tried the usual avenues without success, so I just threw it under the bed.

Last year I dug it out and edited it down from 550 pages to 450 and showed it to 3 or 4 people (all women btw) and they all said it was good and I should publish it – they were probably just being kind to me – so as it is now so easy to publish and so inexpensive – just publish on Kindle almost for free – and see where it takes you, I did release it.

It’s called “The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene” if you are interested, and while I am on a shameless self-publicity tack, I have also written a series of detective novels featuring my detective, Inspector Walter Darriteau, who operates in and around Chester.

“The Murder Diaries – Seven Times Over” is out now, while “The Sound of Sirens” will be released at the end of this month and features as part of the plot, a contract out to murder the England centre-forward!!

So if you feel there is a book inside you, just get on and write it. You’ll enjoy it, never regret it, and get a real kick out of finishing it. I certainly do, but don’t expect to earn a fortune, because you won’t.

And one last thought on editing and spell checking – all very important of course, but you are in good company if the odd typo/mistake gets through. Last month I read a Harper Collins book that was riddled with spelling mistakes including five on one page, and don’t mention my horrendous DOE instead of DOUGH in Gringo Greene – DOH!