Intro

Inevitably when I tell someone that I have written a book, and I tell them I want to self-publish it, I get lots of questions. The first question is usually asking what the story is about, then a close second is usually how I did I come up with the idea. Luckily, I have a whole book that says what the book is about, and I also have a page where you can learn more about the book, and get your free sample of it.

The answer to the second question is quite easy. I was looking at writing prompts on Pinterest, and came across one that said, “A world that has never known darkness gets plunged into a night without end.” From there I was able to come up with characters and a deeper storyline that would work with a world like that. Things changed throughout the story as I began plotting it out and trying to figure out all the right details of how to make a cohesive story.

Both of these are fairly easy questions to answer, but they got me thinking. What if I were to ask myself questions about writing and becoming an author. If I were to ask myself, the first question would have to be – why?

Why did I want to write a book? Why did I want to become a published author? Why did I want to spend hours of time working on a story when I could just go to the library and check out a book?

Thinking about these questions, I decided to break it down into five reasons as to why I wanted to become an author.

1. I Wanted to Have a Better Way to Spread the Gospel of Jesus

I would be lying if I said that when I first thought about writing my book, I thought about using it as a tool to help spread the gospel to more people. However, looking at it now, from a place of being almost ready to publish, I can’t think of a better use for my book than as a tool to help people come to Jesus.

I have read many books that are by Christian authors which I have loved, and I’m sure that there are many who have come to know Christ after reading books by famous authors such as C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien. I know I am not as big of a name as they are, and that’s okay. I know that God can still use me regardless of the number of people who read my book. If even one person comes to know Christ as a result of reading this book, then I know that it will all be worth it.

If you are interested in learning more about what we believe, you can click here.

2. I Liked Reading

Even from a young age, my nose was always buried in a book. It didn’t much seem to matter what the book was, I was probably going to like it. As time went on, I found that I had a propensity to read fantasy.

I just couldn’t get enough of it, and I was always wanting to read the next book, or start the next series. After reading many books, my mind was filled with ideas, and one that kept coming to the surface was “what if I wrote a book?”

It is such a simple question, but soon I found myself thinking about it more. At first I tried my hand with writing short stories, but they didn’t seem to scratch the same itch that I knew writing a book would. Soon I found myself trying to pay more attention to the way that things were written to see how to write better characters, better dialogue, and even better descriptions.

I kept pushing it off, thinking that one day I would do it, but I never was serious about it until I made the decision to sit down and do it with a deadline. There was now a simple goal. Write a book that I would like to read.

3. I Had a Story that Needed to Come Out

When I sat down to write what I then thought would be my first book, I had been wrestling with the same idea for years. I had tried several times to write my story, but I found that after a week or so I would lose interest in it and give up.

Several times I found myself coming back to this story, and wanting to write it. Some times I would come back to it and try to edit it before making a little progress and again failing to finish it. Other times, I would start over from the beginning, keeping nothing but the basic storyline and a few of the characters.

Regardless, I had this idea that wouldn’t get out of my head, so I knew that I had to write the story. In January of 2020, I gave myself the challenge to do something similar to NaNoWriMo where I challenged myself to write 50,000 words in my book during the single month of January, and I was successful. On January 29th, I wrote the words The End which brought my total to 50,000 words exactly.

I had done it. I had beaten the challenge that I set for myself, and I had done more for writing my book than I had done with all of the previous attempts. When I went to edit it, I found that there was so much that needed to be edited that I became disheartened and quickly gave up on the goal of publishing the book.

That didn’t stop me from wanting to write though, and over time, I found myself coming up with more ideas of things that I could actually use to form into novel-length ideas. Eventually, I came to the idea that I would use for the novel that is about to be released.

Like the previous book. There were many times when I stepped away from the project, only to come back to it a few months later with no idea where I was in the story, or where I wanted to go. Even though I kept stepping away from the book, I knew that the story had to come out. After doing some serious brainstorming, I knew that I would have enough material that I could work with that with editing, I would actually be able to make it into an actual book, and not just a file on the computer.

4. I Thought it Would be Cool

I am not ashamed to say that part of the reason that I wanted to become an author was that I thought it would be cool. I don’t know many other who are twenty-five, and can say that they published a book. I wanted to have a way that I could separate myself from others because I know that there are many who say that they want to write a book, but there are few who ever decide to put in the hard work and actually do the hard thing.

There’s not much more to say on this subject, other than the fact that I thought that it would be a neat thing to be able to tell people of what I had done.

5. I Wanted to Control My Schedule

Even from a young age, entrepreneurship has been something that I have been interested in. I have come up with several business ideas that I have wanted to take off, but I have never put in the work to grow it into something to where I could spend my time however I wanted.

When I started writing my book, my head was filled with illusions of grandeur of how life could be if I could make enough from my books that I didn’t have to go to work again and I could go to the beach whenever I desired.

I am fully prepared that my book likely won’t get me there, but I have never been able to make a digital asset which has done much of anything. I have tried a few things here and there, but most things have done nothing, and one thing has sold maybe three times in as many years for $0.99. It’s hard to be able to control your schedule when you are making less than $1/year with passive income.

I have known for a while that I have wanted a family, and I am so blessed to say that I have a lovely wife, and a baby on the way. With the addition of a family, it becomes even more important to find a way to support them in a way where I can still spend time with them.

Since I had already decided that I was going to write the book, it was easy enough for my brain to imagine what it would be like if the book became successful.

Conclusion

I know that everyone decides to write their book for a different reason, but this is just a few of the reasons behind why I wanted to write a book, and what I want to see come out of it.

Though there are several more benefits of deciding to write a book, mine boil down to spreading the gospel, liking books, having an idea that needs to get out, being cool, and wanting to be able to control my schedule.

What about you? Have you ever wanted to write a book? If so, why? Please let me know below in the comments.