Why it is important to get help!

November 26, 2021

Christine Sheehy

Christine Sheehy is an author and book coach for purpose driven leaders with a message worth sharing. She’ll help you refine your core message, find your authentic voice, show up boldly online and write the book that’s in your heart, so you can grow your audience AND your business. Christine currently writes, dreams (and persistently tries and fails to give up coffee) from a seaside village in New Zealand.

I had a call with a new client a few weeks ago. She’s writing a book next year, so she’d been doing some research on the writing process.

Before our call, she asked three published authors for their best advice on writing a book. And the overwhelming theme was:

Get help
Get help
GET HELP

All three authors told her to get as much help as she could afford throughout the writing process. Because as awesome as it was to have a book proposal accepted by a publisher and a contract in their hands, the writing of the book was hard and it was lonely.

The reality is that publishers simply don’t have the resources to guide you through the writing process, as they did in Hemingway’s time. They need you to deliver the best, most polished manuscript you can.

That means having a really clear vision and a logical flow to your ideas.

It means knowing when you’ve gone off track or having the courage to cut an anecdote that you really love but is distracting from your message.

It means picking yourself up when you’re feeling low, when imposter syndrome comes knocking at the door or when you’re so deep in your manuscript that you can’t see it clearly anymore and you’re wondering ‘who would read this anyway?’

It means holding yourself accountable to your deadlines so that you get that damn book written.

And all of that comes BEFORE you even start looking at the beauty in your sentences, or the grammar or the editing.

Writing a book can be a lonely task. But it doesn’t have to be.

As your book coach, it’s my task to walk alongside you through the planning, writing, and pitching of your book. I’ll help you find the book you really want to write, map the reader’s journey, test your ideas so that you know they’re robust, pick you up when you’re struggling, hold you accountable to your dreams and celebrate with you when you hold your book in your hands.

If you know a book is in your plans for next year, now’s the time we talked.

Until 24 December, you can book your Roadmap for a Book package at 2021’s introductory price. From 1 January 2022, the price is going up, but if you book now for Q1 I’ll honour this year’s pricing. So if a book’s in your near future, let’s talk.