If you want some really solid advice about how to write a book, this could be one of the most important articles you read. I’m about to dispel a myth just about everyone has, but would do better without. It could be the one thing that’s holding you back from writing your book, so I’m particularly delighted to remove it from your path.
We all have (or used to have) the same vision of the book writer. A tortured soul, a lonely individual. An entity abandoned by both friends and family and not bothered by the loss of either. A person who lives for one goal, one experience, that today will be the day the muse of book-writing inspiration rests upon a shoulder and whispers literary gems into a waiting ear.
Inspiration, however, is highly overrated and if you’re waiting for those sentences of gold to come floating through the window and land upon your page, you’re going to be waiting a very long time.
In fact, if you’re waiting for inspiration, you might as well pack up your paper and pursuits right now and get a job driving a truck.
If you want to turn yourself into a writing machine, however, the best way to do that is to dump the idea of inspiration and take a look at how the real world operates.
If you’ve ever filled out a job application, now where on that page will you find anything about how frequently or fervently inspiration visits you. Inspiration is not required. It’s not even expected
Does a plumber wait for inspiration before she can fix a pipe? Does a doctor flee from the operating room, saying, “I’m just not inspired enough to do that bowel resection today.”
Of course not. They do it. It’s their job, their career. Yesterday may have been lousy. The problems of the world and their mortgage payment may be upon them. But it doesn’t matter. They both have the job of fixing the pipe.
Time for a little unabashed, self promotion: If you haven’t asked for my Free CD, “How to Write a Book On Anything in 14 Days Guaranteed!” then you’re just plain nuts! It’s free, no charge, but you can bet this $100 CD will be carrying that price tag very shortly. How do you get it? Just email me at Free CD, Please, or CD_please@writeabooknow.com and make sure you include your name, your mailing address and your telephone number in the email. Now, back to the article…
So it is with the writer. Your job, and stop thinking of it as a hobby or a nice past time, is to write. You already know how many words you’ve got to create and you already know in which direction you’re headed, so just get on with it. Inspiration has nothing to do with it.
In fact, inspiration—or your beliefs about inspiration—could actually be holding you back.
I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard one of my students tell me that they either can’t write unless they’re inspired, or that their inspired writing is so much better than the writing they produce when they’re uninspired.
To them I give a simple test. Take some of your best inspired writing. The stuff you’re really proud of, and put it into a drawer.
Now, go to a desk and write something, anything. It doesn’t matter. Pretend you’re inspired, or don’t pretend at all. Just give me a few paragraphs about the first thing that comes into your mind.
Now put that into the same drawer.
Come back to both of them in a month’s time.
Unless you’ve identified them, you won’t be able to tell which one was written while you were inspired and which was written without any inspiration at all.
You don’t write better when you’re inspired. You just think you do. It’s an illusion. So it’s time to put this huge blockage out of your mind, and remove it from the path of your success.
Writers write. Every day. Whether they’re feeling inspired or not. Waiting for inspiration is just an excuse. Now, unfortunately I’ve taken some of the luster off of the process. I apologize for that. But in the long run it will make you a better writer.
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Cheers,
Steve Manning