Has Anyone Here Written Or Published A Book?

[DocWatts]

Over the past few months, I've been diving into the early stages of writing a book on philosophy (which is partly why I haven't been of the forums much as of late).

If anyone here has either written or published a book, I'd be highly curious to hear what your experiences of that were like. What sort of challenges did you run into along the way? How did you go about getting feedback on your ideas? How long did you spend writing the book, what portion of that was spent on research vs editing vs actual writing? If your book was published, what that experience like? If you could go back and give your earlier self tips when you were first starting off, what would those be?

Edited June 10, 2023 by DocWatts

[Vibroverse]

I may also write a book someday about philosophy and spirituality, but i don't have a published book yet. What do you wanna write about more specifically? 

 

[DocWatts]

16 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

I may also write a book someday about philosophy and spirituality, but i don't have a published book yet. What do you wanna write about more specifically? 

Specifically, the book I'm writing is a sort of 'Field Guide' to Construct Awareness. In particularly, the book aims to make epistemology and ontology accessible for non-specialists. To that end, I'm going out of my way to avoid relying on philosophical jargon, and making use of orienting metaphors to tie the themes of the book to easily relatable scenarios that one encounters in their everyday life. The book is grounded in a phenomenological approach rather than diving into abstract metaphysical theory. My working thesis is that self awareness to how the mind constructs its lived Reality can help us cultivate a healthier relationship with the beliefs and pet theories that we use to make sense of Reality. And that the core of doing so ultimately involves interrogating the emotional attachments we form to our beliefs.

I've been researching the the idea for this book over the past 2-3 years, and have the basic outline of the book worked out. Right now I'm in the early stages of actually writing it, a process that I'm estimating will probably be a 2 to 4 year endeavor.

Edited June 10, 2023 by DocWatts

[Vibroverse]

10 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Specifically, the book I'm writing is a sort of 'Field Guide' to Construct Awareness. In particularly, the book aims to make epistemology and ontology accessible for non-specialists. To that end, I'm going out of my way to avoid relying on philosophical jargon, and making use of orienting metaphors to tie the themes of the book to easily relatable scenarios that one encounters in their everyday life. My working thesis is that self awareness to how the mind constructs its lived Reality can help us cultivate a healthier relationship with the beliefs and pet theories that we use to make sense of Reality. And that the core of doing so ultimately involves interrogating the emotional attachments we form to our beliefs.

I've been researching the the idea for this book over the past 2-3 years, and have the basic outline of the book worked out. Right now I'm in the early stages of actually writing it, a process that I'm estimating will probably be a 2 to 4 year endeavor.

Cool, that would probably be a book i would like to read, and i will basically write about similar themes to yours also. 

 

[DocWatts]

48 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

Cool, that would probably be a book i would like to read, and i will basically write about similar themes to yours also. 

Right on! If you do end up writing a book I'd also be interested.

[Vibroverse]

Yeah man. To be honest, i want it to write itself where, in a sense, it becomes a self writing like some sort of a channeling from the divine. Talking about nondoing through my experience of nondoing, in a sense, if it kinda makes sense to you ? 

 

[UnlovingGod]

I did not write any books, but two screenplays for movies about 90 pages, with the option of publishing them, but I'm not completly satisfied with my screenplays, so I'm still trying to hold on, as I've got a guarantee, to publish whatever I want, whenever I want.

Don't get too much caught on tips prolific writers give you. Writing is a very personal relationship you cultivate with yourself, as your writing is the direct manifestation of your thoughts and uncouncioussness. No one can give you real tips on how to write, which word melody you want to use etc. Big authors and screenplaywriters have massive egos through their authority and want to perserve this authority by giving you the only right ways to write.

As for structure, you can take some insights from authors, as this is more a meta thing and not something in the domain of the relative.

You'll get writing blockades, big frustrations etc. Learn to deal with it, because the most important aspect is to finish at least one book, even if it's just 50 pages, so that you learn how to finish this thing and know how to start the next time. If you want to get serious, you'll need to write the book at least three times. So that you get enough experience.

Writing was at least for me, one of the most frustrating and satisfying things I did. So it's a painful journey. I compare the experience with for example getting serious with speedrunning games.

[Carl-Richard]

I had an idea for a book last year when I started having insights about the relationships between health, fulfillment, happiness, meaning and being, but then I discovered that these ideas have been known for millennia (e.g. "eudaimonia"). I did end up touching on some of it in a very limited fashion in my bachelor thesis though ("what is the relationship between mindfulness, physical activity and intrinsic motivation?"), which was of course a rather dry quantitative research approach rather than an authentically inspired literary approach, but it was interesting nonetheless, and I learned that there are growing areas of scientific research exploring these questions as well. I hope to explore some of these topics in the future, whether it will be adding to existing scientific research or writing a book.

[DocWatts]

13 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I had an idea for a book last year when I started having insights about the relationships between health, fulfillment, happiness, meaning and being, but then I discovered that these ideas have been known for millennia (e.g. "eudaimonia"). I did end up touching on some of it in a very limited fashion in my bachelor thesis though ("what is the relationship between mindfulness, physical activity and intrinsic motivation?"), which was of course a rather dry quantitative research approach rather than an authentically inspired literary approach, but it was interesting nonetheless, and I learned that there are growing areas of scientific research exploring these questions as well. I hope to explore some of these topics in the future, whether it will be adding to existing scientific research or writing a book.

Yeah that's interesting. It seems that for my book, so far it's shaping out so that %80 of the book is a synthesis and making accessible of ideas and systems I've been researching, and perhaps %20 my own thoughts.

Part of my own motivation is take make a case as to why learning phenomenology and epistemology can actually be relevant in a person's life, and to do so I'm writing the book in a somewhat informal style. Since I really want the book to be engaging rather than dry. As someone who reads lots and lots of philosophy, I kind of hate how most philosophy books are written (in that they're primarily written for other academics).

Edited June 11, 2023 by DocWatts