hey friends, if you are new here, i’m micayla jean and i am the founder of write a book 101, my signature 6 month book writing container for the person whose always known they were going to write a book but just hasn’t known where to start.

so, we just ran into each other on the sidewalk or at a coffee shop and we’ve started chatting and you’ve just told me that you’ve always known you were going to write a book. in fact, you were MEANT to write a book. you’ve felt it in your heart of hearts since you were a kid. or maybe this is a new feeling, because maybe you’ve lived a wild life, maybe you’ve gone through something that wildly transformed the trajectory of your life. maybe you simply know your story could help other people.

one of the ways in which i know how to best serve the collective is by helping people not only write and share their experiences but also to HEAL through witnessing, writing and sharing their own life stories.

it’s easy to romanticize writing a book. you know, sitting at the perfect wooden desk in the quaintest cabin, in the most scenic woodland forest, with a rambling river and hooting owls landing on trees right outside the window. it’s easy to hear the kettle steaming as you pour yourself the loveliest cup of tea and put pen to paper, and the words flow as easily as spreading room temperature butter on crispy hot toast.

i’ve actually HAD all of this, and i can promise you it’s not the secret key to writing a book.

i began writing my first memoir in 2018.

there’s a table at the whole foods in sedona, arizona where i sat almost everyday and read and edited this book. i was living in my van at the time, and frequented this whole foods for the superb wifi, hot bar, water-fountain and bathroom.

it was at that table i decided not to publish the book.

why?

I get it, writing a book sometimes feels like a battle between the part of you that KNOWS you were born for this and the part of you that just wants to be done and hold the book in your hand.

You can see it, feel it and you know it’s going to happen. But the HOW feels like a question you’ll never have an answer to.

Full transparency: you aren’t meant to know the exact pathway forward. But you must start writing.

If you are writing a memoir or a book that in someway uses your life’s story as a foundation, this prompt will be really helpful.

When we are writing a book book, especially a memoir, there is a timeline to to our life. There are seasons we have lived. Sometimes they last years or just months, but we can often find a solid theme to these seasons. And a good place to start in order to begin creating a structure (the bones if you will!) to our book, is by creating some organization to the “timeline”.

Start here, with this one prompt and see where it takes you:

So you’ve always had that little tug inside of you, and it has been a little reminder all throughout your life that says you’re meant to write a book. 

I get it. I am you. My name is Micayla Jean and I’ve always known I was going to write books. Since I was a kid on my closet floor writing “dear diary…”

Six years ago I published my first book. Four years ago I published my second book. Three years ago I created Write a Book 101, which is essentially Book Writing for Dummies (but I couldn’t still that tag line! AND I don’t think you’re a dummy).