It took Tom Clancy more than 11 years to write Hunt for Red October. He once said about writing and his research:

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”

Other authors have work hard to find the time to write; Grisham would get up early to write, Hemingway would often drink. Jackie Collins offered a simpler solution:

“If you want to be a writer – stop talking about it and sit down and write!”

I specialise in political thrillers, writing about the exotic mystery of Australian politics and its art of power and persuasion, and the quirky folks who wish to lead, or perhaps mislead, the electorate.

Deceit is my first work of fiction and will be released in July 2018 as episode one of the Democracy Trilogy. In the genre of the House of Cards it focuses on whether the truth can overcome political power.

A short synopsis is –

A plane crash begins a sequence of events which leads corrupt Prime Minister Andrew Gerrard, to rush through legislation designed to secure his ill-gotten gains after a long political career. Stalwart – and soon to be retired – Clerk of the Commonwealth Parliament, Gordon O’Brien reluctantly sets out to foil the Prime Minister’s plan with the help of investigative journalist.

Learnings along the way

What I learned during this writing and publishing process is that whilst we may have good intentions, it can be painstakingly hard to achieve a goal we set ourselves. Writing Deceit was a significant challenge for me – yet not unique.

Time Control

The biggest challenge was time, which no doubt we all suffer managing, no matter what we do. But if we balanced our lives with more planning, rather than relying on spontaneity, then I am sure we could achieve more – it worked for me once I started planning my writing day. Procrastination is always close by and is often fed by spontaneity.

Writing improves as you read more, it does for me. That is the same notion with everything though, isn’t it? If you read for just 15 minutes a day, you could read a book in two weeks, that’s 26 books a year. How much more learned would you be and your capability greatly improved if you read 26 books a year – just from 15 minutes a day?

So, read more.

Trust

Trust is the bedrock of leadership. When people trust you, they feel their interests are safe in your hands and they have confidence in your vision, ability, judgement, drive and determination to see things through. What I learned from writing Deceit was to trust myself and my capability, but then trust others by allowing them to judge, amend and improve my work.

They say we all have at least one book in us, and I suspect this cliché is very true. The challenge comes for many of us, me included, in getting it out onto paper. Once out, it needs rewriting and editing many times before a publisher will agree to bring it to life. This is the great challenge for many within in the arts, especially writers – to have your work critiqued by others. But there are many different publishing models these days and the 27 rejections JK Rowling faced doesn’t have to be your experience.

I hope if you think you want to write that book, then I encourage you to give it a go. It’ll be hard but then something worth doing always is, isn’t it? Who knows, you may become a bestseller.