I have been talking about my book-writing journey with my email list for a few months now. I wanted to write a post to explain why I am writing my Nordic Lifestyle book.

When taking some podcasting courses and had a one-on-one call with my podcast coach Karly Nimmo a few years ago. She said to me, and I can still hear her words in my ears, ‘There is a book in your podcast Susanna.‘  I agreed.

But until that point, I had not been able to get the book idea to materialize and actually write the book. Did I start writing the Nordic Lifestyle book that I was dreaming? No.

I shelved my thoughts and her comments but I returned to them every now and then but I did not start writing. What I did instead I started learning.

I started listening to podcasts about self-publishing like Self Publishing Show, Creative Penn Podcast. Followed indie authors in social media, joined email lists of my favorite authors and started learning – what does it mean to be an author.

Learning to Write a Non-Fiction Book

Writing is not that hard, is it? You just start typing. Wrong. More I was learning more I started to realize that it is not as easy as writing this blog post to you. I had to do research about Nordic Lifestyle, as much I know I needed to learn more. When listening back to my old podcasts,  I read my old blogs to summarise what was usable material and who I could quote on the book. It was lots of work.

I also had to understand how my book would impact people, where would it sit in the publishing world, in the different online platforms, would I make hard copy soft copy, ebook, audio book etc. What about traditional publishing? Could I pitch the book to a traditional publisher?

Taking a creative writing course was the last thing I did. I knew that I was stalling for not starting the writing piece. When I as about to start writing and then covid hit. I was left homeschooling my two kids and I felt that my creative well was empty and I had no time to write.

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Procrastinating was a real-time suck and I was stalling with my dream to become an author. I was letting everything around me be more important than the dream of putting my Nordic Lifestyle book out there.

During the homeschooling, I knew that I had to start. So I did. One day I felt I was ready and after homeschooling was done for the day, I started writing. It was amazing how much you get done when you really want to.

I was writing like obsessed. The first draft had 7000 words, then 14 000 words, and then 20 000. My draft was growing day by day. The feeling was a relief as well as the excitement of all the things that I was writing.

Then I stalled. I got to 24 000 words and I stopped. I could not move the needle. Feeling stuck and not knowing what to do.

I reached out to a friend who was writing a book as well. She gave me details of Kris Emery who I had a call to get some clarity about what the book would look like. Even during the call, I was able to put my book in perspective. Look at it objectively and start looking at the bigger picture that I had forgotten while I had been writing. I was too concerned about the little things without looking at how to group things under headings on the book.

I felt re-energized and I finished the book draft in record time.

What Does Writing a Book Give to You?

So I had finished the draft and started editing the book. I literally printed the draft and took a pen and started changing things around. The text always looks different when you have printed it out I discovered.

Examining my thoughts about the subject was interesting. I had written a book about Nordic Lifestyle. A subject that I have always talked about in my podcast and in my blog. I was feeling elated that I was able to use my own life as an example and talk about topics that my podcast had never actually covered.

Once I had submitted my first draft to my editor I was going to take a breather and just increase my knowledge about how to launch a book.

While talking about the launch. Why was I writing this book? There are many books about Nordic Lifestyle? Yes.

But there is no book like the book I have written. About my thoughts about the Nordic Lifestyle, and how you can have it no matter where you lived. I wanted to share my thoughts about gender equality, truths about Vikings, the nordic design, happiness.

What were the Nordic countries anyway? You always heard people talking about Scandinavia and Nordic countries like they were the same things. No, they were not.

I wanted to educate people about my culture, history, what it is to live in Nordic countries, and why they were the happiest countries in the world. I am biased as I come from Finland but I wanted to showcase what life is about in north most corners of Europe.

Well, the book is nearly out, and I could not be happier about it. If you want to know more, join my email list and get the first copy when it out. Learn more about me here.