Why You Can't Finish Your Book

I’m pretty good at writing a book all the way to the end. I may not even have that many other talents as a writer besides ferocious tenacity. One of the biggest mistakes I notice in newer authors is that they can’t stop telling people their ideas. I’m here to tell you it’s a bad habit and I’m going to give four reasons why it needs to stop.

1. Your idea is good enough. One reason people want to tell me their idea for a book is that they want a writer to tell them that their idea is good. They want to be reassured that if they write their idea, they won’t waste their time. Here’s the truth about that. Everyone has a reasonably good idea for a book that would be interesting to a fairly wide audience. The problem doesn’t lie with the idea itself. The problem lies with you. If you’ve never written a book before, you’re likely incapable of doing your idea justice. As you write, it will look like glitter in the air and when you read it back later, it will have lost its glamor and you’ll recognize that your writing doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue the way the books you admire do. It’s because writing may seem like it’s easy when you’re reading it, but to reverse engineer a book can be a serious challenge. It can take a few attempts to nail down all the parts that are trying to get away from you, even if you are a gifted writer otherwise. On your first try, the end result might be disappointing. Thus, your beautiful idea will be butchered on the altar of practice. However, in sacrificing your idea, YOU will become something new and better. The sacrifice will not be in vain and there is an endless supply of good ideas waiting for you in the future. You’ll get better at generating good ideas the deeper you go. Thus, the idea you have now is good, but if you keep writing, the ideas you’ll have later on will be better.

2. Talking about writing you haven’t written yet will only make you sick of yourself. If you go around trying to get the opinion of a collection of people, there is someone who will hear your idea every time you tell it… you. If you tell it enough times, you will eventually lose interest in it because it’s something you know so well. When I prepare a manuscript for publication, I don’t know how many times I have to read through it before I stamp FINAL DRAFT on it. However, the editorial process has a process and I go through my manuscript no fewer than seven times. Have you ever read the same book seven times in a row? You should do everything in your power to make the final slog bearable.

3. You’re a writer, not a performer. There’s a really big difference in what happens inside you chemically when you perform for a crowd (or even a single person) compared to when you sit alone with a laptop who doesn’t smile, cheer, or offer any enthusiasm in response to whatever you’re writing. Obviously, writers don’t get to see the people who read their books while they are reading them and the whole concept of a book offers a bit of privacy to both the reader and to the writer. Thus, telling someone your idea for a book is an unhealthy practice all on its own. Forget about the listener stealing your idea (which is a fear many newer writers have), your enjoyment of the immediate feedback will make you a less confident writer and chip away at your motivation when you’re alone. In other words, stay on target. You’re trying to write a book.

4. Brains are stupid. I’m not sure your brain knows the difference between what you say and what you write. Both are forms of expression. Write something, say something, whatever. Your brain thinks you’re done because you expressed yourself, so it stops trying to express itself. This concept is best illustrated by a social phenomenon I have repeatedly witnessed. Someone tells me they are a writer. They are not at all interested in the fact that I am a writer and their highest goal for the evening is to pin me up against a wall at a party and spend a significant amount of time telling me their ideas. I used to allow this, mostly because I thought they’d let me share a few of my ideas in exchange. I never got the chance to say anything more than the fact that I was also working on a book. So they ate up the night with their idea performance. The next time I see them, I ask them how they’re doing writing their book. They turn pale. They haven’t worked on it. Sheepishly, they ask me if I’ve made any progress on my book. I reply that I've finished that book and I’m working on a new one. They’re still not interested in what I’m writing. They’ve actually entered a kind of open-eyed coma where they realize they already expressed themselves and they will never write the book they dreamed about.

Instead of chatting, I’m going to tell you what I do to generate my ideas. When I go to bed, I stretch out my arm and start telling a story. When I get to a new point, I move my hand down my arm. I usually fall asleep before I get to my elbow, but sometimes, I get further down. When I reach my fingertips (this will sometimes take months to achieve), the story is too complicated for me to tell it on my arm anymore and I know it’s time to write. Even still, sometimes stories are abandoned after I’ve written the first plot arch. A story grew inside my mind, grew on the length of my arm, dropped off the ends of my fingertips, and no one knew anything about it. I didn’t raise anyone’s expectations or contempt. No one is looking for that story and instead, when I talk about one of my books, it’s finished and this is what I say to anyone who is interested: “Would you like me to sign it?”