How to NOT write a book in 37 easy steps.
5 min readAug 3, 2016
- Tell yourself you’re going to write a book.
- Go do anything but write a book for 2–20 years. Yes, I’m being serious.
- Finally commit to writing a book by telling others you’re going to write a book.
- When asked how the book is coming, use any of the following excuses because you haven’t started: “I’m still in the planning phases.” “I’m working through some really interesting character development.” “I’ve been concepting for a while now and have some really good story arcs.”
- Then finally, one day, you write something.
- The next day, you throw it away.
- Then you write something better.
- And then you wonder how you ever thought you could be a writer.
- Finally, you write a short story.
- Then you get up the courage to tell someone that you wrote a short story.
- After asking to see your short story, you go re-read your short story and proclaim that it’s not ready. It needs more revisions.
- Instead of making those revisions you instead go binge watch a combined total of 47 seasons of those shows your friends and coworkers are always talking about. That’s productive, right?
- Then you decide you need to read more because reading and writing should be equal. You can’t be a good writer unless you read more. So you go read four different books, none of them even related to the genre of your own short story, and at least three of them are romance novels because, you know what, that’s just what you needed right now.
- Finally, you crack open that short story again and think, this isn’t so bad. A couple tweaks here and there and you believe you could pull the trigger. You could get this out into the world. Maybe. Yeah, maybe.
- In a moment of courage, you put it on the internet. You don’t tell anybody about it. You just see if anyone notices. No one notices.
- You finally work up the courage to link to it on Facebook.
- You see the stats of people reading it and realize, yeah, it’s just your friends and family. Which is good, but also not that satisfying. Wasn’t the story compelling enough to draw in strangers?
- You think to yourself, that wasn’t THAT scary and that you could probably do it again. So you do. You write another short story in a moment of quirkiness and post it for the world to see, and link to it from Facebook.
- This is easy, you think. I should have done this so long ago.
- Then you realize you’ve gotten an email from a friend that states, “Did you base your character, Jennifer, after me? There seem to be a lot of similarities between us. We both have brown hair, our names start with ‘J’ and we both dislike dogs. What gives? Did I do something to offend you? Why would you write about me and not even have the decency to talk to me face-to-face?” You read that dumbfoundedly as you know that it was never your intention to make a character parallel to her and you respond to her and let her know that wasn’t your intent…but you’re now secretly paranoid that she won’t believe you.
- You start another short story and spend so much time trying to make sure no characters have names, personalities or traits that even closely resemble your 200 close friends and family that you stop just after the first sentence and give up.
- You tell yourself you’re just taking some time off to reflect.
- You channel your creativity into knitting baby blankets for friends and watching HGTV with your hubby for the next three years.
- One day, you decide you’ve had enough. You’re not going to live your life in fear of what others think. You are going to write that mother f’ing book and no one is going to stop you. It could be the stupidest thing you’ve written, but it WILL GET WRITTEN.
- You tell your hubby you’re going to write a book. He’ll give you his fakey supportive smile and you’ll banish his skepticism with a stern, “No really, I am!”
- Determined to make it work, you’ll create a very detailed writing plan for how you’ll get in all of the 100,000 words you want to write…much like you’d train for an event.
- You’ll follow the writing plan diligently for a few weeks. You got this!
- You’ll fall off the writing wagon…that amount of words is not sustainable. No mere mortal can do this work (but you know they do and you wonder if you’re just not cut out for this).
- You’ll find the determination and do a power surge of writing…writing well over your allocated amount to catch up for the weeks when you weren’t writing. You forgo family activities and social events and even responsibilities around the home. You are focused and determined! You got this!
- At the end of a couple grueling months, you finally hit that final word count. Success! You hit 100,000 words! Have a concrete mixer from Culver’s to celebrate.
- Immediately after finishing your first draft, claim you need some time to “let it breathe” before you go into the editing process.
- Let the thoughts of doubt creep in the longer and longer you go without writing or editing. What was that first draft? What were you thinking? Are you planning on polishing a turd or is it better to start over with something worthwhile? You let a few months go by before opening up the first draft to peak at the mess you created.
- Start vague attempts at editing and get sidetracked by projects that are actually easier than editing — like searching for a new job, selling a house and then renovating a completely new house. During this time, you can tell others that you have a first draft but that you’re just busy with other things and that you’ll get back to it eventually (a bold-faced lie because the thought of continuing on with that draft makes you sick to your stomach).
- Start a blog about a topic you care passionately about. It’s writing, right?
- Abandon blog after a month even though you spent about $200 securing the domain and hosting fees because you REALLY wanted that custom website look. Yes…you’re an idiot.
- After a year and a half of no progress on your first draft, proclaim that you feel like you learned a lot with that process, and you’re okay letting it go in order to start fresh and new. But you’re not actually ready to start writing fiction, yet.
- Finally, you’re ready. You tell yourself you’re going to write a book. Then you’ll repeat all the steps listed here ad nauseam until your family and friends can only ever elicit an eye roll when you tell them your plans to write a book. Success!