I had to get disciplined. Even though I blogged about witchcraft for 12 years and had a great platform, I hadn’t written a book yet or even had an essay in a witchcraft book. Time to get tough with myself.
A couple half started works in progress on advanced occult topics sat in my folders. There was a reason I hadn’t finished them yet. I didn’t know how to. Why? Because I hadn’t written an easier magic book first.
Just as with any new skill, you need to start with the basics. For writing a book, of course, you have to be able to write, but this series assumes that like me you are a seasoned witch blogger and know how to write. As a blogger maybe you only know how to write very short articles, but long writings start out as short ones, right?!
Book writing involves key skills that a blogger does not entirely require: outlining, explaining occult jargon, avoiding distractions, keeping to a narrow set of topics, anticipating questions and concerns rather than relying on community interaction, and following a long logical progression.
A witchcraft blogger can write about whatever occult, pagan, magic, or mystical thing they want from day to day or hour to hour. They can even go personal and political if they like. A book is a much more grounded and centered form.
Within your archive of blog posts you very well could have the skeleton of a book with which to add in the muscle, fat, connective tissue and eventually cover in skin, hair and clothes. Yeah, even maybe an appendix.
I assembled my 50 page rough draft in a month. Then I spent another month expanding my witchcraft manuscript to a full length first draft. In this blog series I will share my four week strategy to putting together your rough draft witchcraft book manuscript.