I hope you didn’t come here looking for answers.
There isn’t a secret trick.
You just have to do it.
Writing a book is mostly long stretches of despair and monotony, interspersed with flashes of brilliance. It’s those moments that make writing worthwhile, when you feel you could take on the world with that one perfect sentence, the one that fell fully formed from the heavens.
Don’t wait until you feel inspired, because you’ll never write a book.
Sit in your chair and open up your laptop, or a notebook, whatever works for you. Write a few words. Frown at them. They won’t be right.
Delete them. You can do better.
Write a few more words; a sentence, maybe a couple of paragraphs.
This is better. This could be something.
Get to the end of the page and realise you don’t know what comes next.
Stare at the blank page (digital or print) for a long time. Get used to this feeling. There will be a lot of blank pages in your future.
Go to bed in a huff with yourself.
As soon as your head hits the pillow, the words will begin to flow. You’ll craft them in your mind. And. They. Will. Be. Perfect.
Maybe you should get up and find a notebook, what if you forget them? No, you’ll definitely remember this in the morning (spoiler: you won’t). At least, you will, sort of. You’ll remember the gist and the general direction, but you’ll never recapture the magic you felt writing in your head at 1am.
Do yourself a favour: write them down while they’re there. Then sleep. Sleep is your friend.
But not Netflix, no, Netflix is not your friend. It’s a glorious, magical time suck that will steal hours of your life that could be spent writing. There’s always one more episode, one more show. It’s for research, you’re learning about narrative and story structure and character arcs.
Learning’s all very well, but eventually you have to put it into practice.
Can you call yourself a writer if you never really write?
You will anyway, but it will feel wrong. The word aspiring will always be attached. You’ll wear your dreams tattooed on your skin, exposed, for others to stare at, question and crush.
But sometimes you’ll meet someone who understands, someone who will talk to you for hours about your story, or mostly listen. They’ll offer advice and feedback and share your insecurities. And they won’t try to steal your ideas, so don’t waste time worrying about that.
I told you there wasn’t a secret.
Sit in your chair and write. Feel every word that bleeds out through your fingertips, because that’s how you know they’re good.
One word at a time.
Slowly, with despair and brilliance and everything in between.
That’s how you write a book.