Books | Youseph Tanha

Happy New Years

I had a pretty amazing 2011 and I hope you did too. I would like to spend this blog post reviewing some of the amazing things that I have gotten to do and experienced over the last three hundred and sixty five days.

I Lost 30 Pounds!

2011 started off with a book, ‘The 4 Hour Body‘. This book had a huge impact on me. Because of this book I have lost thirty pounds and I have kept it off! This is amazing to me because my weight is something I have struggled with my whole life. Now, I don’t feel like I am struggling anymore. I feel like I have it all under control.

I Got Married!

As far as importance goes, my marriage should be the first thing on my list. But I have decided to do my 2011 list in chronological order rather than importance.

In April, I got married to my beautiful wife Hannah, and I can’t think of another person I would rather spend the rest of my life with. After being together for seven years we had an amazing wedding with our family and friends. We can’t thank everyone enough for showing up and supporting us on our special day. But please know we are thankful and grateful for each and every single one of you.

I Wrote My First Book

In 2011, I wrote ‘All That Matters’, my first book. I wrote it and self-published it all in the same year. Its now available on Amazon.com and Barns & Noble. From start to finish creating this book was an amazing process that I have learned so much from. I am eagerly working on my second book which I hope to have out soon.

My Most popular Blog Post

In 2011 I wrote a blog post entitled ‘Ikea Comic Book Photo Frame Hack‘ which has become the most popular post on my blog. Its pretty impressive that something I wrote on how to display comic books cheaply has become the most popular post on my whole blog in less than a year.

2012

2011 was an amazing year with memories I will carry with me forever. I have nothing but great hopes and dreams for 2012 and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy days to follow my little blog. I hope you have found it entertaining, if not useful. I wish you all lots of luck and happiness for the new year.

Writing A First Draft

When I sit down to write the first draft of a book, I like to create a document for each chapter. So in whatever wordprocessor you choose, start by creating a new document and save it as ‘Chapter 1’. Then using the the outline you created earlier, copy the outline for chapter 1 and paste it into your new ‘Chapter 1’ document.

Lots of people have their own ideas and techniques on writing. I just like to write using the outline as my guide. The key word there being ‘guide’. While you are writing chapter 1 your thoughts and writing may go in a whole other direction. Some aspect of the story may grow out of your typing organically. That is perfectly fine and I encourage you to follow that flow. I find that a lot of my writing is till very organic and spawns lots of ideas. But by the end of it, I have touched on all of my outlined points. If something I have written was not a specified in my outlined point and it turns out to be really good I will add it to my outline should I ever need to reference the chapter I put it in.

Remember that your first draft should just be used to get your ideas out. To write the story. The first draft for me is more of a brain dump. Ernest Hemingway said “The first draft of anything is shit”, and that is how I treat it. Not until the second draft do I scrutinize over everything letter, word, and comma.

As far as words are concerned and how they should be used, I will not waste your time. The truth is that far greater writers than I have written wonderful books on how words should be used. I encourage you to seek out at least one of these books and read it before you start writing your first book. My personal favorit is ‘On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft’ by Steven King.

Writing A Time Travel Book

About a month after I released ‘All That Matters‘ on the Amazon Kindle and the Barns & Noble Nook, I started working on a second book. A fictional story about time travel.

I get so excited just talking about it because I really think it is an amazing story that everyone is going to enjoy. Anytime I am asked what my second book is about, and I tell the person “time travel”, their face’s light up and tell me they can’t wait for it to be release so they can read it. Receiving this kind of enthusiasm only motivates me more to finish this book as soon as I can.

When the idea to tell a time travel story came to me, I started by drafting out a 21 chapter outline. This does not mean that the final book is going to be 21 chapters. It could go over, or it could be under. Thats just a result of the organic process of writing.

At the same time I started the outline for this book, I also started a character list to jot down names and descriptions of all the characters on to. Again, another organic process for me that is constantly evolving and reshaping its self in new and exciting ways.

When I started writing ‘All That Matters’ it was in the beginning of 2011. I had few distractions in my life and was very much focused on completing the book. As I am writing my second book in this later half of 2011 and on into 2012, I am faced with more distractions and obstacles then I had with my first book. Holidays have been one thing that have been a distraction for me. My day job is another. So to say I have been busy would be an understatement.

All this outside pressure from work and the holidays has resulted in a very loose first draft of my book. Looser than I would like to have. What this means is that I am going to have to take a little more care, time, and effort when I take on the second draft of this story. But once the second draft is done it will be sent off to my editor.

I am the kind of person who likes to post to Twitter and Google+ how many words I have written each day. I like the idea of telling the world how many words I have written because it keeps me motivated and accountable. Its a practice I have not been doing everyday because I don’t get to write as much as I want to everyday. I write everyday, but its mostly just a couple of hundred words. Not the thousand plus words I like to write.

By an extension this blog is also helping me remain motivated. By talking about what I am writing and what I want to write I feel like I am being held accountable to finish this book. Anything I can use to help my motivation is a good thing.

‘Book Vacation’ Reviews ‘All That Matters’

The ‘Book Vacation‘ blog just did a very nice review of ‘All That Matters‘. Here are some of the highlights:

Tanha certainly has a way with words, and All That Matters is a beautiful story.
I especially enjoyed this reversal of devotion in that it is the male lead character who bends over backwards for the girl.
I wasn’t expecting it, and it did change my feelings for some of the characters, though, in reality, it is to be completely expected, and I can actually say that this novel truly couldn’t have ended any other way, even though I may not be happy about it.

Check out the full review here at ‘Book Vacation’.

Being Compared To Nicholas Sparks

Something I am seeing in a lot of the reviews about my book ‘All That Matters‘ is that I am being compared to the author, Nicholas Sparks. That is such an honor to me. I have one book published so far and people are already comparing me to a highly successful and amazing author such as Sparks. I am flattered and humbled by this.

I am a fan of Nicholas Sparks and have read many of his books over the years. One of his first books I read was ‘A Walk To Remember‘ which had major and positive impact on my life.

Sparks’s writing style is fluid and keeps the story moving along. This is something I have found to be an influence my own writings.

Savannah recently made this comparison between myself and Sparks on her ‘Books With Bite‘ blog when she reviewed ‘All That Matters‘. Here are a few things she had to say:

What I liked most about this book is the struggle, the fight for love that is once there, but for some reason fades away.
I adore the characters in this book.
I struggled towards the end with hiding my tears…

You can read Savannah’s full review on her blog, ‘Books With Bite‘.