So, you want to write a book?
By: Katina M
Tags: Creativity, Authors, Entrepreneurship, Books, Writing

Exactly how I went from scribbling in my journal on the subway to landing a book deal in my inbox.

When I first graduated from college, I was convinced I was going to be an author.

Mind you — I studied finance in college and was working at a large investment bank at the time. I hadn’t written a full story in decades (well, since middle school, really). We can all agree that career path doesn’t necessarily scream, “writer” by any means.

But, the reality of my situation didn’t stop me. I was so convinced that my words needed to get out of my head and into the world that I spent my weekends huddled in coffee shops and my early, pre-dawn commutes scribbling away in my notebook. Any extra time that I could find I crammed into “book” writing.

It wasn’t until I finally spoke this secret project out loud to another human that I realized how insane it all sounded. I told a mentor of mine offhandedly that I had been casually (read: spending every waking moment) writing a book, and I was almost ready to send it out to publishers. I had been huddled away in secret for months; a regular girl who had no qualifications, no well-known name, no connections. I wasn’t even a writer by trade. But still, I imagined that once I was done, I would simply just find an agent to shop it around — and voila, here comes the million-dollar (or 100-dollar, whatever) book deal.

I didn’t know how wrong I was.

Because you see, the process of writing a book to the outside world is a mysterious and seductive. As readers, all we see is the final product. The hundreds of perfect pages bound into a beautiful book. A vibrant cover. A raving New York Times review.

All we imagine behind that “stuff” is years of writing in a beautiful forest retreat. We sit on the subway or on a plane or on a faraway beach, consuming someone else’s words and daydream about how they came to be. We craft our own stories about who this human is. How they went from regular person to esteemed writer. How they put their words into the world.

What we don’t see? The years and years of finding your voice. The late nights dedicated to building your community. The thousands of emails getting rejected from blogs and publications and publishers and news outlets and media sites, big &small. The millions of questions that your own brain comes up with day in and day out — is this good enough? Am I worthy of sharing this? Does anyone even care?

But, for some reason (that no one knows, really) you keep showing up. You feel like someone, anyone needs to hear your words, and maybe if you’re lucky, it will show one human that they’re not alone. Because, that’s what reading other’s words always did for you.

Well, that’s at least what happened to me.

After dozens of emails went unanswered, I realized that “book” was going nowhere fast. But, I couldn’t stop those words just kept flowing.

So, in 2016 I showed up on Medium back when it was a nascent little blogging site (you can read some of my early posts here and here). I had read a story that a friend from college wrote on here and thought, wow — I could do that. To be honest, I didn’t even know what blogging was back then. But, after writing a few stories, someone saw an interest in my work, and in the early days, all you need is one human to say “I see you” in order to keep going.

I put my “book” dream on hold and started writing publicly about growing up in a mindful and happy way. I began using the Internet as my journal. And, soon (well after many late nights blogging and commute times brainstorming ideas and weekends talking about my writing with anyone who would hear it) a few people started to pick their heads up. And, a few more.

And before I knew it, On Adulting was born.

Over the past four years, there have been moments where I would dream of writing an entire book again. But, something deep inside of me just said: Keep going. Keep building what you’re building and when the moment is right, it will come.

So, I put my head down (or lifted it up, really) and wrote and wrote and wrote. I pitched to Teen Vogue and Mindbodygreen and Fast Company and so many others. A lot of times my ideas got turned down. But, sometimes another human would see the potential in me. And, I would get another chance to keep going.

On Adulting became a space where close to 25,000 Millennials around the world could access resources, stories, and a community to know they weren’t alone. That this journey into adulthood is weird and confusing for everyone. And, that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, too — because we don’t need to settle for a life that’s good “enough.”

At a certain point, I thought my work was pretty much done. This community was thriving and I somehow found a way to do what I loved every day — in 2018, I was able to take On Adulting full-time and turn it into a sustainable business that also allowed me to live out my creative passions that I was craving so deeply years before.

So, one day when I received an email in my inbox from a well-renowned publisher asking if I wanted to write a book, I thought it was a joke. I was convinced that it was spam, a mistake, someone playing a mean trick on me or all the above. I almost didn’t allow myself to believe that it could be this easy. That my dream — the one that I had worked so hard at and was forced to let go of was suddenly laying right in front of my eyes.

Well, it was true and thankfully, it was not someone playing a mean trick on me. As I signed my contract, I turned to my fiance and said — I can’t believe this all happened so quickly. And, do you want to know his response?

You’ve been working towards this for years. Maybe even your entire life.

So, you want to write a book? Here’s my best advice, from a very-new-book-writer-who-has-been-working-on-this-for-years-or-maybe-my-entire-life: It’s okay if the process is messy. It’s normal, actually. It’s the windy, weird, confusing road that we don’t often get a glimpse of when instead, we see the beautiful, glossy cover.

Take your time. Let the words flow. And I promise: If you stay true to that inner knowing and keep showing up even when you think that no one cares — someone will take notice.

And, someone will become many, and many will become the right person. Trust your process.

From me to you,

You’ve got this.