Why You Can't Write a Book

Most of us have been there. We have an interesting idea, a decent chunk of motivation and excitement, as well as the time to finally start our own story. Yet, we fail.

Every. Single. Time.

To make one thing crystal clear, this is totally normal. It happened to myself, my writer friends, and definitely many other aspiring writers out there. The first steps at writing your own book are easy. The harder part comes afterward.

When we start writing a story, there are often many things that get in the way of our inspiration. This might be the lack of preparation due to not thinking about the development of the plot or missing creativity that makes writing tedious and hard.

Simple things that ruin your book.

Often, we focus on one particular element or scene we especially want to write while completely ignoring the rest. Sometimes, we start writing blindly without thinking about little details or aspects of world and character development and traits, making our story bland and flawed. Yet, none of these are what shake our determination to write.

If there is one aspect that makes writing a long story or book a real challenge, it is consistency.

Writing consistently for a longer amount of time is hard. Terrifyingly so. For me, this was something that stopped me from succeeding for over two years. It always took me no more than a couple of chapters before my determination wavered, cutting off my path.

At first, I lost interest for a few days before coming back and quitting everything shortly after. Other times, I got a different idea that I wanted to write more, making me throw away my current progress. However, mostly I just didn’t like what I wrote.

The plot, the characters, the world, the style. Nothing felt good enough, which brings us to another aspect that lets most writers fail.

Perfectionism.

We care too much about what we write to the point where we stop going forward. Continuous re-editing and changing of descriptions, paragraphs and chapters create an endless circle until we can’t take it anymore.

Still, even if the two aspects before are handled through acts of discipline, there is one trait in human nature we can hardly control.

Impatience.

We always want to be rewarded for our work. Be it readers, support or monetization. Unfortunately, writing a book is one of the hardest ways to accomplish this. Even after hours of planning and writing, there is no guarantee people care about your story. In short, it is a long desert road without any water source in sight. You have to provide everything on your own.

Consistency, Perfectionism, and Impatience.

These are the three hurdles you need to cross to finally be on the way to your first completed story. You need to write periodically with the right motivation, be decisive with your writing and don’t expect to get anything out of it soon.

Write for yourself, not for others!

This article was also published on my Medium