“I want to write a book.”
As a Passion Mentor, this dream comes up frequently when I ask people what their big dream is. Or their plan for the next year. Or the next five. Or their legacy.
It always surprises me how long people have been carrying their dreams inside. I get it. I wanted to write a book when I was eleven. I sat down at my dad’s typewriter and pounded out my first story.
Then I procrastinated for many years.
The excuses bubbled up:
I’m not ready.
I don’t have enough experience.
I need to practice writing more.
I don’t know where to begin.
I don’t have time.
and the mother of them all:
Who am I to write a book?
That last one reminds me of Marianne Williamson’s famous quote: “We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.”
I spent a lot of years putting off writing a book for the mythical “Someday.” You know that day; the one when the moon and the planets all align and I could magically sit down and produce a book.
There’s a song by Billy Joel that haunted me throughout my college years, “James.” In the middle of my first year in graduate school, I wanted to quit. I just knew I was going down the wrong road. Three times, I came close to pulling the plug on my education. Three times, friends gave me every rational reason why I should stick it out.
And many times, a line from “James” ran through my head and blasting through the speakers in my apartment:
“When will you write your masterpiece?”
Someday.
And the song would repeat.
James…do you like your life,
Can you find release,
And will you ever change
Will you ever write your masterpiece.
Are you still in school
Living up to expectations…James…
You were so relied upon, everybody knows how hard you tried-
Hey…just look at what a job you’ve done,
Carrying the weight of family pride.
James…you’ve been well behaved,
You’ve been working so hard
But will you always stay
Someone else’s dream of who you are.
Do what’s good for you, or you’re not good for anybody…James.
I had come too far down a path to quit. There was no way I could make money from writing. I had already taken a journalism class and struggled my way through it. I couldn’t do interviews because no one knew I was hard of hearing and I wasn’t going to admit it. So I failed at being a poor imitation of a person who could hear.
Fast forward many, many years later…
I’m working on my 9th book.
What changed?
I started writing.
I wrote small articles. Blog posts. Magazine articles. Newspaper articles. Chicken Soup for the Soul.
When I finally decided to write my first book, I got up at five in the morning while holding down a more-than-full-time job, raising a family, caring for a dying parent, and volunteering for a non-profit.
So when people come to me for advice on how to begin living their dreams, there’s a process:
Identify your dream.
Write it down.
Begin.
If you don’t follow this process, you’ll likely drift through one day, then the next, then the next…until several years have gone by and your dreams are still sitting on the shelf. If you continually wait until the time “is right,” eventually you’re going to run out of time.
And that book you have inside of you, it will never be in your hands.
Put aside the excuses. Put aside the time constraints. Put aside the self-esteem hurdles.
Start writing. Anything. You can pound out a couple of words in ten-minute spurts if that’s all the time you have in the day.
You will encounter critics. It’s part of the process. I can still remember the scathing words of a well-meaning friend who tried to change my writing style. “You’re too casual. You write like you talk. It should be more formal.”
Writing like someone else is like putting on a too-tight coat and attempting to button it up. Let the authentic you shine through. James Patterson has some great advice: “Focus on the story, not the sentence.”
Here’s the thing: done is better than perfect. I have seen many first drafts of published authors who showed their first pieces of work in workshops. Three-ring binders. Stapled papers. Tiny books that grew into bestsellers during second editions.
Never forget, Stephen King’s first draft of “Carrie” went into the garbage. His wife fished out the papers and encouraged him to continue. Thirty rejections later, King received an offer of a $2,500 advance. The book was later sold for $400,000 and made into a movie.
Even great writers throw away drafts that they think are nothing but…garbage.
So, that dream you have of writing a book?
Start.
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