Finally, we come to the last part of the advice I give to new writers and this too is one that gets generally ignored to their own detriment.
The simple fact is, a book you never finish is a book that you failed at. You can edit anything but an empty page. This is a problem for a lot of people and a lesson that most need to take to heart. So never give up, never surrender and get your ass back to work.
It would seem to be the easiest of my suggestions but it turns out to be the most difficult. Many people want immediate success, often without any hard work or time commitment and that’s just not how anything worthwhile comes about. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about running a marathon or learning to play baseball, nobody just wakes up one morning and decides to immediately become an expert. Reality doesn’t work that way, especially when you’re talking about something as inherently difficult as writing.
I’ve said this before, that writing is one of the most difficult things you can ever attempt to do well. It isn’t a group activity. It is something that you inherently sit down and try to do on your own. Nobody is going to ride you around on their shoulders so that you get motivated. All motivation comes from within. It isn’t something that you can constantly run past other people, your ideas ultimately have to come from within your own head and you need to decide how to best put the puzzle pieces together. There are very many ways to lose and only a few ways to win. That’s just reality. Deal with it.
Yet the only way to get better at it is to work at it consistently. There are no shortcuts and there are no secrets. It’s all hard work all the way down. People also have to remember that, unfortunately, just because you decide that you want to do it, that doesn’t mean you will ever achieve success. Not everyone is cut out to be a writer, especially if you’re aiming for publication. Just because you can dump your unedited pile of garbage on Amazon, that doesn’t mean you should. The vast majority of things that show up online should never be put out for public consumption. Unfortunately, we live in a society where there is very little shame and that’s really what has fueled millions of garbage books that nobody ever sees again. You actually have to get good at this.
Far too many people are lazy and want immediate gratification though, which is why online writer forums are stuffed full of people who want to “have written”, they just don’t want to write. They want the recognition of having written a good book without putting in the effort of learning how to write one. If you’ve taken any of my other suggestions to heart, then you’ll know that’s an unrealistic expectation, but most people, especially young people it seems, don’t know how to come to grips with reality.
This isn’t something you can learn to do over a weekend. It might take you a couple of years to write your first book and invariably, it’s going to be terrible. First books always are. So you stash that away in your trunk and write another one. And another one. And another one. You learn how do get better little by little with every book you write. You learn how to edit, you learn how to plot, you learn how stories go together and eventually, if you stick with it long enough and learn the lessons that you need to learn, you might come up with something that’s worth considering publishing. Maybe. If you’re good enough. That doesn’t mean it will be published, it means you can try. But while you’re trying, keep writing because if this book doesn’t get picked up, maybe the next one will. Or the one after that. Writing is a never-ending process if you want to be successful. If you give up, you’ve just wasted your time. Don’t give up.
