My Writing Journey

This was how I started writing a book.

1. I started writing a book. Lol. Wrote awkward sentences, with very bad spelling--was told I spelled like the Unabomber, which I didn't understand until recently--but I hacked away at it. Started in 2005 and continued until--that particular book which is my best--about 2020 when I did the final edits.
2. I took a Creative Writing Course and I took English 051. And I followed the Creative Writing Courses' directions. If he told me to do something, I did. That's important. You need to learn how to write in guidelines--except one time I broke one of his rules, and got one point deducted, which is when I really liked him, and found out he was a very honest grader.
3. I read classic literature. Really soaked in all their ideas.
4. I watched thousands of Edutainment videos and video essays.
5. I memorized about 40 Literary Devices.
6. I had a dictionary on my phone that gave me a word of the day, and always had a dictionary on hand, to read. So, I read the dictionary.
7. I wrote about 5,000 words a day, for 20 years. Still not selling, but have 24 books published on KDP.
8. I studied all the major philosophers, religions, economics theories, political theories and psychologists. Also Persian, Ancient Near East, Greek, Roman, American and British History, as well as Norse, Greek, Irish and Egyptian Mythologies.
9. I read the Romantic Poets, and learned how to craft deeper metaphors.
10. I was in love with the idea of love.

So, that's my journey. I say that, because 1 year sounds like a long time, but you could be going at it for a lot longer. I was just reading Van Halen's rise to fame, it took them about twenty years before they were on the Top Billboards. 

Also, make sure you're at peace with your writing. If you ever feel something makes you uncomfortable, don't hesitate to delete it. Before it becomes public knowledge, that's a good thing to delete writing that, maybe for some reason doesn't reflect who you are. But, once it's out there, it's going to be out there. So know that you could be a household name, you could be famous, you could be wealthy... remember those things when you're doing this, too.