Ask Others, Trust Yourself by Elisa Balabram

A few months ago when I wrote about the process of editing the book, I shared that one of the chapters didn’t make the cut. Both my mentor and the book’s editor thought that it didn’t make sense to talk about setting boundaries in a book that teaches how to ask for help. In the end, I agreed with them and took the chapter out.

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I didn't think editing my own work would be as hard as it was. I spent a long time moving information around, deleting paragraphs, and trying to choose the best chapters' order. After a few months, it was time to hire a copy editor. A friend of mine posted on a few lists she belongs to, what I was looking for. I interviewed a few of the respondents by email or by phone, and chose one.

She was great and helped me a lot. In the end, one chapter was eliminated from the book (more on this later), and a couple of chapters became one. After the editor's review, I asked two friends with business expertise to read the book and give me feedback and their suggestions were very helpful.

If you have a book inside of you and don't know where to begin, or if you have started one but don't seem to be able to finish it, the first thing you need to do is to commit to it. Once you make a decision that this book is important to you, and you need to write it, then it is time to write an outline or storyline, and then start writing.

I was able to write most of “Ask Others, Trust Yourself”, after committing to work on it every morning, every day, even if it was only for 15 minutes. Take some time to reflect on the time you are the most creative, and discuss with your family or let them know, that you need a few minutes each day, to work on this project, and that you need their support.

It wasn't that difficult to come up with an outline for the book. But it wasn't easy to follow the outline, though! 😉 Once I started writing, I soon realized that I had to allow my creative mind to write without limiting it to the outline. After I wrote a big portion of the book, I started editing it and making it fit into the outline. I was advised by my editors to delete one of the chapters, and to modify the title of a few other chapters. It was a lot of work to edit it, and to move chapters around, but we were able to do it.

When I met with the first editor to get her comments and edits, she suggested that next time I write a book, I should write an outline before I start writing it. I told her that I had an outline; I just didn't follow it every time I wrote!