I’ve completed three chapters of my new novel and now I’m stuck. I haven’t touched it in several weeks. It’s just sitting there, storyline in limbo, characters in purgatory, waiting for me to dive back in and lead it to its destiny. Instead, I keep turning my back, pretending that it doesn’t exist or, ideally, that it will write itself.

I published six books in less than two years and I can tell you that Joseph Epstein could not have been more correct when he wrote, “It is a lot better to have written a book than to actually be writing one.” In life, the journey is often more important than the destination, but in writing it’s rarely as satisfying.

I should write a book.

That’s what I hear all the time. As I have previously detailed, writing is treated differently than other forms of art in that nearly everyone believes not only that they can author a book, but that they should. In the end, though, the vast majority do not.

Why? Because it’s so difficult.

Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Most people either don’t have the moxie to cut themselves or the determination to actually let it flow.

It is why most people believe they can write a book, but never will.

It is why I’m still stuck at the start of chapter four.

And it is why the Great American Novel is still in a first draft.