Stop Waiting to Write your Book

I've always been a go-getter. If I want to do something, I'll do my best to do it. I'll set goals and deadlines. I'll focus on it for hours and plan everything out down to the final detail. I'm quite the perfectionist when it comes to most things, but perfectionism is something I've had to learn to let go of when writing.

I know not everyone is a go-getter. Some people overthink things. They struggle with meeting deadlines, staying organized, or just starting a project in the first place. They aren't good at creating habits. They get stressed easily and procrastinate. They worry what others will think about their work.

When it comes to writing a book, everyone has at least one weakness. Mine is perfectionism. Yours might be one of the things listed above or something completely unique to you.

This thing, whatever it may be, can hold writers back, and while most of the pros out way the cons, this area of struggle can overpower all of the good things that come out of your work and all of the qualities you excel at.

When we allow this struggle to overpower us, we're giving it control. We stop writing. We hold ourselves back from writing. We degrade the value of our work because we aren't good enough at a certain thing.

We let that weakness take over.

If you want to write a book, you have to overcome your weaknesses. This doesn't mean they will go away forever. There will be times when they come crawling back. The trick to writing is not squashing these weaknesses, it's learning to look past them and learning how to deal with them in a way that works from you.

Say you're not confident in your writing. Confidence is your weakness, it's the thing you struggle with. To build your confidence, you may do different exercises where you forbid yourself from reading over your work and just write. You let whatever words want to flow, flow. But you don't let that insecurity go away completely.

Each weakness corresponds with a strength and together those two create a balance. If you’re insecure in your writing ability, you should try to grow your confidence as a writer, but you don’t want to let go of all insecurity. Without insecurity, without you questioning yourself every now and then, you’re going to lose your sense of humility.

Confidence can very quickly turn to arrogance. If you’re over-confident, you can lose the, “I will always be learning new ways to improve my writing,” mindset. You will lose your ability to learn and to be open to new knowledge in your work. You won’t be empathetic towards less experienced writers because you will have forgotten what it like when you first started. You won’t take criticism well. You won’t be able to improve your writing because you will be blinded by your arrogance.

If you struggle with perfectionism like I do, you need to realize that you are not always in control. Life as a writer is jam packed sometimes. Some days you won’t have time to write. When outlining, your characters might want the story to go in a different direction and you have to give up control to explore this new path.

You need both the strength and weakness to create a balanced and maintainable writing life. You have to overcome the fear or else you’ll regret never putting pen to paper, but you have to have the weakness to keep you grounded and humble.

Start writing today. That doesn’t mean you have to break out your laptop and write 10,000 words. It means you have to take the first step. Look up how to outline a story, come up with characters, or draw a map of your world.

Stop waiting to write your book. Stop saying, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” because tomorrow isn’t predictable or promised. Don’t let your weaknesses overtake you. Just try writing, and if you don’t like it, stop! Your characters are waiting.

Set your story in motion.

The beginning is the hardest part.

Thank you for reading this blog post! if you want to chat about books and writing, DM me on Instagram @writer_alexandra_lee .

It’s been a pleasure writing for you and until next time—stay weird and stay writing. - Lexi