My First Book: What It Took Me
By: Kseniya Kovaleva
Tags: Storytelling, Books And Authors, Books, Writing A Book, Storyofmylife

My First Book: What It Took Me

It was my fifth attempt to write something cool. The book I mean. The first try I made being 12-years old kid and what’s the most interesting — all issues remained the same.

A cover of my book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva

A few days ago I sent my book to the typography and in 10 days my first book will be printed and sent to me in those big boxes, each movie shows. It is 8 months since the moment I decided to start writing a book and I never thought it would be this hard living with the finished one. I got used to writing every evening and reading the same stories over and over again to find another mistake or place for improvement. Now, when I got more free time than during all of this year, I am writing about this book.

1. Idea

When the lockdown started, I was living with a boyfriend in a small one-room flat. And almost every day we had guests to talk to. I am talkative by myself and having conversations with different people always was a hobby to me. During the lockdown, accidentally, more and more talks were happening, more and more people were sharing stories with me, and I started thinking about “Woah, this story deserves being in a movie”. Then, I went to my parents on a weekend like I always do and my mom was talking all evening about the hard and heavy life of my granny. And that moment, I was almost sure, that there are plenty of people, whose stories can be the same impressive and can teach others a lot. And right the next day my boyfriend said after watching another interview:

Why don’t you make a book with interviews of all these people you’ve heard of or met?

And here the story began.

An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva

2. Interviews

I’m a sociologist by education and writer by heart. So, I’ve decided to mix science with art while working on the book. I’ve flooded all my social accounts with posts “we’re looking for stories” and contacted everyone who may have an interesting thing to tell. Finally, 35 people agreed to give us an interview. We’ve scheduled time and began.

Some were coming to my office, some were having Skype calls with me. But all the time, I was listening carefully and trying to define if this is what I looked for. I knew for sure, that the story was the right one when I started feeling emotions while listening to it. Touching, amazing, shocking, scandalous, unique — stories had to have this. Even if they were about everyday drama, they should have this to become a part of my book.

Once the interviews ended — it took me 2 months to listen to all people — I’ve started re-listening the stories. Some I deleted at that stage, others I’ve transcribed and deleted when they made no sense on the paper.

Finally, I had 16 stories to go.

3. Writing: 3 concepts and me

The initial idea was just to note down the live talks and fix mistakes. But when I’ve done that, stories seemed to be too wrong. They were good to listen to but awful to read about. So, I had to change the concept completely. And I’ve decided to add some more details and background. On this stage, I wanted to make a book-website, so everyone could have free access to the stories.

An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva

Yet when I was 12-years old girl, I had issues with creating a story. I am a good dreamer but in my head. And when it comes to the paper, it is hard for me to create a fairytale. So, I was adding dry facts and background, that should make characters more detailed. That was the second concept. But when I’ve done it, it still wasn’t enough for some of the gorgeous stories. At this stage, I thought that the mobile app would be better, so when I was not writing, I was thinking of the concept.

So, I’ve decided to make another try and create a complete story, with easy to understand characters, with an interesting plot and real story in a base. It took me around 2 months to re-work everything and make my vision of the book come true.

I was feeling emotionally sick. I was feeling like I’m losing my mind. When I was writing those stories, I was living them by myself. When in my story someone was dying, I felt like I was passing through it. When someone was heartbroken, I was too. A good writer always writes what s/he can feel. And I felt quite a lot during those 2 months.

At this stage, I understood: a book should be a book. We needed to go with the printed version.

An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva

4. Editing

I never was an attentive person. And finding mistakes for me is something similar to looking for a rare bottle of wine in the 10-floor wine shop. So, it was harder than anything else. I was reading the text myself 4 times, then I asked my boyfriend (but he reeds too few and actually couldn’t make it to the 7th story out of 16). Then I asked my super-attentive mom.

I thought now I could publish it. But when I decided to print a paper draft to re-check once again, I found a mistake on the mistake with another mistake. My book looked like it was written by a fifth-grade student. So, I had to take 4 more rounds of fixes.

When I fixed all the mistakes, I had to fixe comas. I thought I’d die actually (hah), but I needed to finish the book

5. Choosing a publisher

I wanted to give my book to the publisher. It took me 3 weeks to ask each and every publisher in my country to publish my book. But some wanted to add pictures, some wanted to change the name and make some parts changed, so I refused.

I thought it would be impossible to get my book in a print version. I even started searching for opportunities to publish them online. But then I thought, what if I just print the book by myself and will be giving it to people I know? I just called my dad, who has typographies as partners all over the city, we’ve chosen cover and pages paper and a book went to the typography.

An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva

8 months of work, around a litre of my tears, tones of wasted nerves and 16 lives I had a chance to live while was writing this book. Now I have people writing to me with requests to get a book and I feel like I’ve done something wonderful. And every time I am getting scared, that none will like my book, I remind myself, that it is not just a tale, it is 16 lives, that are frozen on the paper. And I am so happy that I had a chance to memorize these 16 lives.

I made a note on the cover, that the book is dedicated to my grannies. And I have quite a few time to present my book to them yet they are still with us, but I believe they will like it. And there is nothing better of a feeling, when you know, that once, in years and years, some child will accidentally run into my book and will read about 16 people, who probably will be dead or very old by that time. But their wisdom will be spreading. Because this is how love goes from one to another.