Do you feel like you have a book inside of you but don’t know how to bring it to life? Writing a book is not about having supernatural talent that only a lucky few are born with—it's a process you can learn and even enjoy!
Imagine not only finishing the book you’ve been wanting to write, but putting together a publication path for that book which will help you meet your unique goals and dreams.
Whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, Portable Magic will walk you through the creative process step-by-step, from idea to outline to completion.
It's time to check writing a book off your bucket list. Let Portable Magic help you discover a clear, concise, and concrete method to help you create a writing and publishing process that will ignite the creative spirit in YOU.
Do you feel like you have a book inside of you but don’t know how to bring it to life? Writing a book is not about having supernatural talent that only a lucky few are born with—it's a process you can learn and even enjoy!
Imagine not only finishing the book you’ve been wanting to write, but putting together a publication path for that book which will help you meet your unique goals and dreams.
Whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, Portable Magic will walk you through the creative process step-by-step, from idea to outline to completion.
It's time to check writing a book off your bucket list. Let Portable Magic help you discover a clear, concise, and concrete method to help you create a writing and publishing process that will ignite the creative spirit in YOU.
When I was in 8th grade, I entered my Stephen King phase. I think most book people have a Stephen King phase, and now, looking back, 8th grade might have been a bit early, but that’s a subject for another day I suppose. My first book of his was Christine, which if you ask me is a masterpiece often overlooked. I moved on to The Shining then Pet Semetary (I might have needed therapy after that one), and on and on from there. I couldn’t get enough. My friend David and I would talk all things Stephen King at recess and swap paperbacks from the public library, careful to hide them from the nuns at Catholic school who probably would not have approved of our reading choices.Â
What I’m trying to say is that Stephen King’s books were my first literary obsessions. Books had the power to take me away from my own life, and into the life of someone else. I didn't know much during those years, but I knew one thing: I wanted to do what Stephen King did. I wanted to write books that made people stop and take notice.
I wanted to be a writer.Â
While I loved Stephen King, I never wanted to write horror. I just didn’t have any ideas for stories that would compete with the master himself. Besides, by the time I was in my early 20s I had discovered Jane Hamilton, Wally Lamb, Anne Patchett, and Michael Dorris, among so many others. I will never forget the first time I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and sobbed, wishing it would never end.Â
I could do that, right? I had always been called a good writer by my teachers. How hard could it be?
I completed my first manuscript when I was 19 and still in college. It was a 26,000 word novella called Getting to Kelsey. The story revolves around a girl whose father dies when she’s young. She takes a job as a summer camp counselor and meets an older man who owns a bookstore in town whom she convinces herself is her father. She makes up this whole story in her head about how her father never really died, and that she’d found him, and that she was going to “reveal” herself to him and they would live happily ever after. She does reveal herself to him, and it turns out he’s not her father, of course. But what she discovers through that journey is that her father lives in her heart, and she doesn’t need him with her physically to feel his presence.Â
Not bad, right? I had lost my father in junior high school and this book felt very close to me. I, obviously, was Kelsey. Writing that book was painful and cathartic and an ultimately wonderful experience. Â
Then I set out to publish it. I went to the library and checked out Writers Market 2000, which was what I thought I was supposed to do. I sent out a bunch of query letters to agents in New York City, expecting to be the exception to the rule that a first-time, unknown writer has a minuscule chance of landing an agent, let alone a book deal, no matter how good her book is.Â
Thankfully, I got offered a $20,000 advance for Getting to Kelsey within the first few weeks of sending out my first query letter. I couldn't believe it. The book was on the New York Times Bestseller list for 12 weeks that winter.Â
Ha ha HA! I’m kidding. Of course that didn’t happen. I got no less than 30 rejections before I gave up querying and put the manuscript in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. Convinced my writing career was over before it started, I took a “real job” as a business analyst at a high tech company.Â
It was the summer of 2003 when I picked up Stephen King’s On Writing. The book had been out for awhile, but it had been some time since I’d read any of his books. It had been some time since I’d read any books for pleasure. I didn’t have time to read books about writing. (I was too busy being miserable in my corporate job.) The way I saw it, you either were a writer or you weren’t. I wasn’t.Â
But this was Stephen King. The master. So I gave it a shot.Â
It wasn’t until I read On Writing that I fully appreciated Stephen King, the artist. Until then, I’d seen him as someone with a unique superpower for churning out books, over and over again. The stories were amazing, no doubt. But early in his career, he’d gotten lucky. He had his one bestseller, Carrie, and it was smooth sailing from there on out.Â
That’s what it means to be a successful writer, right? Land one great book deal, and the money, inspiration, and success just flow.Â
After receiving so many rejections for Getting to Kelsey, I’d resolved myself to the fact that I’d never attain King-level success. And that meant failure.Â
What’s the point of writing if you’re not going to be a superstar, right?
If you haven’t read On Writing, consider this your homework assignment. Read. That. Book. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll appreciate just how much dedication Stephen King has to his craft.
Best of all, you’ll be out of excuses for not living the writer’s life.Â
The biggest, most honest aha moment for me was that I was equating success with an end result. I wasn’t concerned with the process. I had no process. I thought of a story, put the words down, and hoped upon hope that someone would see those words and provide me with a six figure advance and movie deal.Â
On Writing made me take Getting to Kelsey back out from the bottom of the drawer. I re-read it with new eyes. Want to know what I discovered?
The reason Getting to Kelsey didn’t get picked up by an agent and publisher was because it needed work. A lot of work. Did it have promise? Sure. Could I have workshopped it to make it better? Absolutely. The characters were underdeveloped. The plot had obvious holes. The ending was weak. But the truth was, I didn’t want to do all that work. When I re-read that manuscript I realized that it had served its purpose for me. I lived out a character and story, however flawed, that I wanted to write. I felt good when I finished it, but I was ready to move on.Â
I know now that book made me a writer, despite it never being published.Â
In the years since Getting to Kelsey, I’ve sort of stumbled into the writer’s life. I’ve published five books to date, not including the books I’ve ghostwritten. I’ve worked in indie publishing and marketing for the past seven years, working with hundreds of authors and wannabe authors who struggle with the same issues around creativity that I do.Â
How do I know if my story is any good?
What do I do with my story after it’s done?
Where do I even begin?
I’ve found that “being a writer” is a lot like Stephen King described in On Writing. It’s reading and writing a lot. It’s immersing yourself in the written word. It’s understanding voice and character and tone. It’s understanding the business side of creative work. It’s finding the very delicate line between understanding the business of being a writer, honoring the process of writing the book, and having the confidence, maturity, and tenacity that this career requires.
It’s not easy. You probably know many people who’ve said they “want to write a book”, but never do. Maybe that person is you.Â
I get it. Writing a book is an intensely vulnerable process. It requires time, energy, space, and connection. In a world where we are constantly on the move, constantly distracted by any number of things, even sitting down and brainstorming an idea can feel overwhelming. And let’s be honest--why make time for that when you can watch reruns of your favorite TV show on Netflix?
Sometimes when I meet with people who want me to write their books for them, they have resolved themselves to the fact that they simply don’t want to make the time and space for the work. Writing a book is hard, they have realized. They would rather pay me to do it.Â
That’s cool. I love being a ghostwriter and providing this service for people who recognize that the actual writing of the book is not something they’re willing to commit themselves to. The money isn’t terrible, either.Â
And then, there are other people I connect with who break my heart.
I am so scared of starting that I just don’t.Â
My biggest goal in life is to write a book, and with each passing day I am more disappointed that I haven’t realized that dream yet.Â
I know that telling my story is important. But I’m just so overwhelmed by it all that I find excuses not to start.Â
My book will probably be one of the thousands that no one ever reads. Why bother?
These sentiments are why I’ve written this book. Of course, these are very normal worries, insecurities, and fears around the writing process. We can all think of some creatives who could use a healthy dose of humility, can’t we?
I also know that these fears can be so paralyzing that they will prevent you from doing what you need to be doing: sitting down and creating.Â
I was re-inspired after reading On Writing to keep writing. So I did. I wrote a series of essays and stories about my experiences living overseas. I wrote a couple short stories about my life and motherhood that I workshopped in writer’s groups.Â
None of those projects saw the light of day, and that’s okay.Â
What they provided for me was more than I could quantify in a paycheck. They taught me a process for creating. They helped me understand that books don’t happen through osmosis or wishful thinking. Writers don’t see their creative work to completion without having a process for making it happen.Â
And you know what’s totally crazy? I have learned to enjoy that process. Sure, making money as a writer is great. But having a writing process that is enjoyable, that gets me out of my head and to my desk to actually write? That’s even better and more fulfilling.Â
The best news I have to give you is that the technology of the 21st Century allows for any number of ways to “be” a writer. Writers write books, but they also write blogs, publish short stories, organize content for podcasts, and create work specifically for audio.Â
In other words, they’re taking advantage of the myriad ways people are “reading” nowadays. They’re tapping into their unique creativity and finding ways to express themselves and reach their audiences up to and sometimes beyond a printed book.
It’s liberating, right? It’s an amazing time to be a creative person. And, as I often say when I speak to writers, If you are a creative person and you aren’t creating, what are you doing?
Stephen King has said that books are “uniquely portable magic”, and they are. Chances are that if you’ve picked up this book you feel that way, too. They’re magic for the reader, and they’re magic for the writer.Â
But that magic doesn’t start when your first royalty check comes through. In fact, it doesn’t matter if you don’t ever get a royalty check at all. It starts when you acknowledge that you are a writer just from the simple fact that you have a story or idea in you that you’re willing to put down into words. It starts from a place of honesty and determination.Â
Being a writer is not found in publicity, social media likes and speaking gigs. Sure, those things can be great for your business. But none of that can happen without a book that you can stand behind for its (and your) lifetime. Being a writer is found in the process of actually writing.Â
Your process, just like your end product, will be unique to you and your vision. It will require some sacrifice and risk-taking on your part. This book is meant to help you figure out your unique angle, your creative energy, your specific process.Â
Because that’s where the magic is, friends. The magic is in the process.Â
How to Use This Book:
Let me start off by saying this is not a “you can do it!” kind of creativity book. There are tons of those out there, and there’s no need to add my version of “yes you can!” to the mix. I’ve never been great at that type of cheerleading, anyway.Â
If I can write a book, so can you. I believe in you, okay? But the truth is that I can’t get you to a place where you actually believe in yourself enough to do it. Other authors might be able to. Your friends, family, and maybe your therapist might be able to help, too.Â
What I can do is get you to a place where you embrace, and ultimately enjoy the creative process.Â
So, if you’ve picked up this book hoping for 100 or so pages of inspirational quotes about why writing is so magical, then you’re going to be disappointed.Â
If, on the other hand, you’re ready to create your own, uniquely portable magic, you’ve come to the right place.
This book is organized into 9 stand-alone chapters. For a while, I toyed with the subtitle From Great Idea to Published Author in 9 Months (More or Less). But then I worried that it might imply that you’ll want to spend a month on each chapter in this book, or, worse, feel compelled to finish a book based on some arbitrary timeline I created for you.  Â
Here’s the deal. There’s a good chance you’re going to breeze through some of these chapters. The first one, where we talk about your goals, might be something you can accomplish in an afternoon. You’ll be self assured and ready to move on to Chapter 2 about finding your voice right away, and maybe you’ll breeze through that one, too.Â
There’s also a chance that the first chapter is going to take you days, weeks, or months to process, because you’ve simply not ever thought about your writing goals before. You might stop and think, “Wait, do I really want to write a book? Or would starting a blog or a journal be better for me?” Or in Chapter 2, when we talk about finding your voice, you might be 100% clear and ready to go, or you might find that when you really start thinking about it, your specific “voice” isn’t something you’ve spent enough time on.Â
That’s okay.Â
It’s also possible we’re going to get to talking about what it takes to really publish a book and embrace the career aspects of being a writer, and you’re going to say, “Whoa. Not for me. I just want to write.” So you’ll skim and/or skip Chapters 6-9 altogether and stick to finding joy in the process of writing your book(s), found in Chapters 3-5.Â
It’s equally possible that you’ll be so energized by the thought of publishing your book, making your career and brand as an author a priority in your life, that you’ll spend days or weeks just on Chapter 7, which talks about creating your publishing and marketing plan.Â
All of that is okay.Â
Your process is going to depend on any number of factors, but from my experience the most crucial ones are these:
Your energy
Your time
Your willingness to do the work
And all of those factors include many, many things that are out of your control. Kids, work, family obligations, just to name a few. The list goes on and on and is very specific to you. The hardest part about being a creative is finding, making, and most importantly, valuing the time that it takes to do the work.Â
You likely have very legitimate excuses for not writing your book. Trust me, I have the same ones myself. I find myself needing to be constantly vigilant about honoring my need to make time for creativity. Some days are better than others. Now that you’ve picked up this book, however, those excuses and distractions really don’t matter.Â
What matters is that you’re here, and you wouldn’t be here unless you were ready to move from idea to process. Chances are, it’s not the ideal time for you to write your book. There’s never an “ideal” time to write a book! I’m here to help you figure out a process that will work for you, no matter what your life circumstances.Â
I’ve heard many publishers compare bringing a book into the world in terms of childbirth. It’s a great analogy. Your book really is your “baby”, isn’t it? There are plenty of great comparisons: the discomfort, the waiting, the uncertainty, the fear. It felt pretty logical to organize this book using that same analogy, with the goal being to “birth your book baby” in 9 months. However, while this book is organized into three “trimesters” so to speak, unlike pregnancy, those trimesters might not be equal as far as length of time.Â
Can you organize, write, and even publish a book in 9 months?Â
Definitely!Â
But I encourage you to lead not from a place of just checking off boxes and meeting an artificial, self-imposed deadline. I want you to take the time to find joy in the process itself, the process that will help you reach your specific goals. That might mean you can get to a point where you can crank out a book every three months once you get going, as the master Stephen King does. It also might mean that after you’ve come to a real reckoning about who you are as a writer and how to balance your creative life in a way that works for you, you’ll be more comfortable and motivated if you give yourself more time on any section of this book.Â
In other words, this is a judgment free, open-minded space for you to figure out how to put definition around the creative process as it works for you.Â
Whether that’s 9 weeks, 9 months, or 9 years, the point is to get you writing the book. To move your ideas from your head and down onto paper.Â
To create and honor the process for you.Â
Chapter 1:
Be Honest With Your Goals
I once had a meeting with a man I’ll call Theo. Theo was a retired school teacher, living in a cabin in Wisconsin in the summers and spending his winters in Florida with his family.Â
Theo loved books. All books. History, mystery, and everything in between.Â
He also loved writing. For years, he had spent his summers writing novel after novel, all while drinking top shelf whiskey and watching the sun set over the lake.Â
“You should publish those books!” his wife and family told him for years. “What’s the point of doing all that writing if you aren’t going to publish your work?”
So he did. He took two of his manuscripts to a vanity press and published them. He was talked into a 1000 book print run for each book. He sent out an email when his books were available for purchase and sold a copy of each book to everyone he knew.Â
Then, he called me.Â
I’ll never forget the day we sat down to talk about marketing his books. He brought copies of both with him to our meeting. They had beautiful covers. I had read the back cover copy for both books, and they sounded amazing. The publisher he’d worked with had done an incredible job.Â
“Well,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee and pointing at his books like they were dirty plates on the table. “My kids keep telling me I need to sell these things. So how do I sell these things?”
If you know me from Evergreen Authors, you know that “how do I sell my book?” is not an easy question to answer. The answer really depends on your time, budget, and goals.Â
I had gone into that meeting with my marketing hat on, ready to teach him about SEO and ad strategy. But just from that first question from him, I knew I needed to have a different conversation altogether.Â
“Before I answer that question,” I told him. “I have a question for you. Do you want to sell these books?”
He looked at me like I was nuts. Of course he wanted to sell them. He had a basement full of books taking up space. His family and friends expected him to be a writer. Don’t writers sell books?
It didn’t take long for Theo to admit that he had no desire to create a marketing plan for his book. He wasn’t interested in Amazon, SEO, or doing book signings.Â
“Honestly, Roseanne,” he finally said to me. “I just want to write. I couldn’t care less about selling the books. Writing calms my mind. It’s just what I have always done ever since I was a kid. Writing stories is just part of who I am. I only published these books because I thought it would make my family happy.”
Theo’s story is more common than you might think. I have worked with many writers over the years who have expressed reluctance in one form or another about the publishing process. They feel like it’s something they have to work up the courage for; something they need to be talked into. They balk at the idea of having to edit and re-edit their work, choose between cover designs, and (most horribly) promote the book themselves.Â
Want to know something? They are right in their hesitation. Publishing a book is not for the faint of heart. There is work, there is time, there is investment. There is vulnerability that some people simply do not want to invite into their lives.Â
If I could have been at the dinner table with Theo and his family as they pressured him to publish his books, I would have told them this: “I know you all are coming from a good place. You love Theo and you want to encourage him. It’s wonderful that he has such a supportive family. But the truth is that he doesn't want to publish his books. The truth is that he doesn’t need money or accolades to feel successful. To him, the printed out manuscripts in his office are enough. Just having you all around him to read and enjoy his work is enough. He’s already a successful writer.”
Obviously, I’ve had the opposite sort of encounter as well. I have worked with many authors who come to me with years and years of anecdotes from their jobs, blog posts, and random ideas that they feel, since it took so much time to put them together, they simply must be consolidated in book form. They worry that they have wasted their time if they don’t “do something” with their writing. I have had plenty of hard conversations with people that there simply isn’t enough there for a book; that I know they put a lot of time and energy into these words, but as far as a completed manuscript goes, they are still many hours of work away from being ready for publication.Â
Both conversations are hard, but boil down to a fundamental truth: Not everything you write needs to be published.Â
Yes, I’m talking about your journal entries from your experiences in college.
Yes, I’m talking about the blog posts you wrote weekly for more than a decade.Â
Yes, I’m talking about the novels you wrote, the poetry you worked hard on, the memoir that tells every detail of your life story.Â
Don’t get me wrong. I want you to write all that stuff. I was an active blogger for many years while my kids were little and absolutely loved it. I had my blog entries printed and bound a few years ago so I could take down the blog from the internet but still have the entries to show my kids when they get older.Â
Could I have taken that blog and created a large platform around it? Could I have used my marketing know-how and monetized the site, published a lifestyle book, and created a whole branded experience around those writings?Â
Sure. Lots of mommy bloggers do that, and a few of them make a great living that way. But I didn’t want to do that. I had no desire to do that. That just wasn’t the path for me. That is okay!
Do you hear me, dear readers?Â
You can create something just for the sake of creating it. And that is okay!Â
As an aspiring writer myself, I have to admit that picking up Portable Magic: How to Write and Publish a Great Book was an easy choice. A handy guide on how to structure my time, my manuscript and actually publish it? Oh, yes please!
I wasn't disappointed. Cheng's unique voice and wry humour is refreshing and cuts through most of the internal monologue that is doubt, that most aspiring writers have. She's not one for sugar coating, and is perfectly happy to inform the reader that it's going to be incredibly hard work. She warns in the introduction that she will not be your cheerleader regaling you with hollow inspirational quotes. She doesn't even promise to make you believe in yourself - in fact she advocates the use of other resources for that.
With that in mind, she does tell you who and what this book is for. It's to get that budding writer within you to start to come out of its shell and enjoy the creative process that writing a book demands. It's not a case of just sitting down and bashing out words and hoping for the best; oh no. Cheng informs you that there is a lot of hard work to lay down before you get to that stage. But instead of allowing that awful feeling of overwhelm engulf you, let Cheng lead you gently down the meandering path you need to take. Find out about planning, about being honest with yourself about your goals; about outlining the entirety of the book in your own peculiar shorthand. She gives you valuable advice. She even gives amazing insight into publishing and marketing, never shying away from the reality of the hard work that is being a full-time writer.
In all, this is an excellent guide and insight into writing, publishing and everything in between. And should most definitely be in every aspiring (and some already successful) authors' library.
S. A.