10 'Reasons' You Haven't Started Your Book

I have been an expert procrastinator. I have let ideas pass me by, making all kinds of excuses to avoid doing them. Humans are ingenious – including at finding ways to stop ourselves doing the scary thing that we deep down want to do.

Here are 10 of my favourite ingenious ways that people stop themselves writing books, and the reasons you should ignore them.

1. I don’t have the time.

No one has time to write a whole book today. But you have some time. How about 12 minutes? Set a timer, write while the timer is going. Stop when it stops. That’s enough for today. It’s what I call The 12-Minute Method. It’s how I wrote my books. One 12-minute session at a time. You have time for that.

2. No one will be interested.

If you care enough to write a book, it’s probably because books have changed you. Take a moment to think about the book that has changed you the most. How many people would need to be changed in that same way by your book for it to be worth it? I think the answer is always one. And one person will be interested.

3. There are too many books on this subject already.

Almost NO books were the first written in their subject or genre. The more books in a genre, the more popular it is, the more readers there are.

4. I need inspiration.

Here’s the thing: inspiration is all around us, but it’s when we make a start that we let the inspiration in. Start writing, and let inspiration find you.

5. I’ll never finish it.

One of my favourite quotes comes from the French poet, Paul Valéry: ‘In the eyes of those who anxiously seek perfection, a work is never truly completed, [it is] abandoned.’ Don’t aim to finish your book – just write enough so you can abandon it.

6. I don’t know if this is a good idea.

You can’t. Not until the book’s finished. Even great authors write mediocre books sometimes.

7. I have too many ideas.

Some writers would kill for this. Just ask yourself: which am I most interested in today? And start it.

8. I don’t know how to do X (where X is some part of the publishing process).

Everyone in publishing will tell you the most important job is to finish the book. Worry about everything else later.

9. I keep getting distracted.

One of the most important attributes of being productive is humility. Humility to admit that you’ll get distracted unless you do something ridiculous. So turn off the internet, put your phone in a cupboard, go to an empty room, draw the curtains... And write.

10. Who am I to write a book?

Here’s the thing. You aren’t yet. Only by writing one will become someone who can write a book. And there is more joy and meaning in the becoming than you can imagine. So start.

All the ‘reasons’ above are just your mind’s way of keeping you safe, and stopping you from doing the thing you want to do. Because doing it is scary – you might fail, which is scary. And you might succeed, which is sometimes scarier.

So you need courage: to act in the face of fear. To start. It’ll be worth it.

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This article was originally written for the Jericho Writers newsletter, and shared there in April 2023. Jericho Writers is an amazing resource, supporting thousands of writers to make successes of their books and providing wise, smart, up-to-date information on how to navigate the publishing industry.

Buy the 12-Minute Method books here: https://geni.us/12minutemethodseries