This month I was invited by the fabulous ladies at the Margate WI to give a talk on my work as an author.

As I truly believe we all have a story in us, I decided to take the opportunity to discuss my ten steps on how we can each write our own book.

I also tried out live tweeting for the first time which was fun! I asked someone to take over my account for the duration of my talk to tweet quotes and highlights. You can see the results of that here https://twitter.com/SaraAlexi?lang=en

Fortunately the ladies I spoke to were very welcoming and didn't give me too much of a hard time with the heckling and shouting out, and some were even polite enough to laugh at my jokes!

It was great to get to talk in person to people at the end of the talk too, and I have to say what a wonderful group of ladies the Margate WI are. They made me feel welcome, at ease and were a really friendly bunch.

Here are some photos from that talk along with my ten points to write your own book:





1. Breathe; be aware that what you are about to do is much bigger than you are.

2. Don't rush the details. Use all the senses to create your story.

3. When you get stuck, chances are you are trying too hard. Take a break.

4. When you are stuck, use it. Use the emotions creatively to your advantage.

5. Most important of all the points: Bum on seat! You've got to actually do the writing. Make yourself daily achievable goals.

6. Once you start writing don't look back. You'll get stuck in loops which mean you'll never finish that story.

7. If you are feeling entertained whilst writing, people will feel entertained whilst reading. And the same goes for feelings of boredom.

8. Get yourself an editor, it is worth it's weight in gold to get help.

9. Book covers sell. Find amazing local creatives to work with.

10. When that book is written crack open the bubbly, as you will have just finished something most people never will.

I hope you find these points useful if you are writing a book. As I said on Thursday, We used to tell stories around the campfire. Now Amazon is the campfire and there are millions of people to tell your story to. And someone out there will read your story.

Happy writing!

Sara