"This Way Out" is a hugely personal story to me as it incorporates some of my own lived experiences as a gay, nonwhite Muslim man. (And if you want to write a "Gone Girl"-esque thriller, then go for it!) It can be demoralizing, particularly for authors of color, to see the same types of books - "Gone Girl"-esque thrillers, for example - dominate The New York Times bestseller list, but that shouldn't deter you from writing the book that is in your heart. My advice is to write the book you want to write, not the book that you think you should write. While promoting "This Way Out," a lot of people have asked how I came up with the idea for my book and remarked something along the lines of, "I'd love to write a book but I don't know what I would write about." Make sure you budget time each and every day, whatever time that may be. I found that I was less productive during the daytime and easily distracted by household chores and my dog, so early mornings and after dinner worked really well. You may need to experiment with writing at different times of the day to figure out what works for you. I blocked out a couple of hours each morning, around 7 a.m., and another two hours each evening, at around 8 p.m., for uninterrupted writing. If you have a day job, that can be hard but think about setting some time aside early in the morning before work if you're a morning person, or in the evening if you're a night owl.įor me, it was a combination of both. I made sure I sat at my desk each day and did some writing. After all, I considered it an investment in myself, and to get the best possible outcome - a published book! - I needed to put in the effort. I treated writing the book as if it was my job. I was super disciplined about my writing time over the 30 days I wrote "This Way Out." ![]() So, you're ready to start writing your book. Finish that show or gardening project, and go into your 30-day writing challenge focused and ready. Get all the distractions out of your system before you sit down to write. ![]() I'd binged all of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" and "Vikings," and my brain was yearning for more stimulation. I had reached Netflix saturation point by the time I began writing. So, I set myself a 30-day deadline to write the whole manuscript, including rewriting the few chapters I had already written a year before.īut before that, I needed to be in the right frame of mind. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. This time, I was determined not to abandon the book again. I returned to the story a year later when London, much like the rest of the world, was locked down due to the coronavirus pandemic. The idea for "This Way Out" first came to me in 2019, and while I wrote two or three very rough chapters at the time, I quickly abandoned the novel amid my day job and a mammoth Netflix queue. ![]() Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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