The Real Reason You’ve Never Finished Writing That Novel (& Why You Should Stop Trying)
As a storyteller, one of the most intrinsic mediums you have is writing. This oftentimes under-appreciated skill impacts every portion of your life, from the news you hear, to the music and advertisements you listen to on the commute to work, to the movies you watch, to the shows that you see every day.
Storytelling is one of our longest-stretching human traditions. Before our ancestors were carving cuneiform or creating an alphabetical written language, they told stories; passed them down generation by generation around the campfires. And after they discovered the written word, the next big thing was getting it out to everyone.
The Gutenberg press changed the world for a reason, you know.
But beneath the weight of thousands of years of human history and storytelling, writing is unique in that you take what appears to be a simple concept — whether it’s meant to be heroic, lesson-teaching, inspiring, spine-tingling, or even comedic — and marries that concept to your knowledge of how to translate thoughts into words.
But there’s no denying that there are people who are more suited to writing and storytelling than others, and yet, because of the simplicity of the concept, A: I have an idea for a story! and B: I’m going to write it! — there’s a generalized belief that everyone can write.
Yes, you too can become a famous author by staring moodily into the middle distance at your computer and informing everyone you know that you’re writing a book!
But you’re going to have to do a little more than tell people about your story before you can go charging those $5 Starbucks coffees off as a business expense, you know.
You’ve probably seen a dozen or more of the quotations about telling the story that you want to tell, or demanding you pick up a pen and write! But there’s a reason that some people can tell a story that leaves you on the edge of your seat while some people can only tell a story that leaves you squirming in your seat.
Do you remember that scene in The Incredibles when Jack-Jack’s babysitter thinks she’s in for a simple, calm evening of watching an infant? Remember the look on her face the first time Jack-Jack lit on fire? Well, you are that sweet, naïve babysitter, and your book is Jack-Jack. You are simply not prepared for the fact that it’s all going to metaphorically explode in your face.
The simplistic appeal of writing belies a single, inexorable truth: Writing is hard, grueling work with little reward that will absolutely leave you in tears at some point. Or several.
The inspiring part of writing, however, is that unlike other hard-to-attain talents in this life, like perfect pitch or having the tuchus to wear leggings as pants, this is a skill that you can actually refine and develop — with practice. A whole lot of practice. A metric ton of practice. Practicing until you’ve been staring so hard at one word trying to figure out if it’s spelled right or not that it stops looking like a real word altogether and you contemplate the bizarre and suddenly enraging nature of silent consonants.
The realization of how much dedication it can take to become a decent writer can make you feel infinitesimally small and powerless, and this alone is enough to throw most newbie writers completely off the track of B: I’m going to write it!
Everyone loves the feeling of that story burning within them, but there are a lot of obstacles you’ll compete with when it comes to actually telling your story. Sometimes, it can feel like a Godzilla-sized shoe bearing down on your chest when you think of what everyone’s expectations of your writing will be, or how well your book will be received, or if someone’s going to tear it to pieces, this thing you spent weeks, months, or even years creating. And that feeling can leave you crippled with fear in the wake of everything-to-come.
And that’s why you haven’t written that novel, and frankly, that’s why you should stop trying to.
Because if you’re letting the fear of everything-to-come stop you, then you’re not actually writing your book. And if you’re not writing, you’ll never have an “everything-to-come” anyway, so why should you worry?
It doesn’t matter if you hate everything you’ve written, or worry that you’re not as good or prolific as other writers. Stop trying to write your novel. Stop being afraid of it. Stop telling yourself that you have to go back and fix this onnnnneeee thing before you can move on and then doing this 1000 times a day so that you feel frozen when it comes to putting anything new on the page. This cyclical logic will eventually make you a trope in your own story — the writer that never actually writes.
If you want to finish that novel, then you’re going to have to write it. No one can make you do that except for yourself. No one will force you, by threat of death or otherwise, to complete that story. No one can tell you to tuck away your fears and your obsessive self-editing and force you to put the words on the page.
That book is a battle between you and yourself, and you’re the only one who gets to determine the outcome.
In the words of Terry Pratchett, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
So give up “trying” to write your book. Sit down and write it. The story is already inside of you. All you have to do is tell it.
Merethe Walther is an award-winning author, writer, and editor out of Atlanta, GA who graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing. She is the author of Mercury in Retrograde, a contributor to Twisted Wonderland, and is due to release her next novel in May 2019. When not writing, she can be found with her husband and their rescue cat playing video games, watching anime, and reading books.
