Many people talk about wanting to write a book “someday.” Anyone who has written a novel knows the enormous effort involved. Here are seven reasons to persevere:
1. Achieve a goal that makes others attainable
You will accomplish something few people ever will.
Writing a book is hard, but when you persevere you learn how to take your dreams and turn them into reality.
A big accomplishment like writing a book makes other big goals more achievable. Once you know you can write a book, what’s stopping you from conquering the rest of your ambitions?
2. Develop useful skills for life
Writing a book helps you develop time management, self-motivation, planning and goal-setting, besides better writing skills.
You need time management in order to carve out the hours in your already-busy life to write the book.
You need self-motivation to keep going when you are discouraged and there is little outside motivation.
You require planning in order to organise your ideas into a plot and chapters. Goal-setting helps you see how much work you need to do, and how often, to reach your final goal.
These are all amazing traits. People spend lifetimes struggling to develop them; they read books, attend seminars and more.
If you’re struggling with these elements of writing, working with an experienced writing coach is a good way to stay on track and accountable.
3. Embark on a journey of self-discovery
In writing a book, you’ll discover a great deal about yourself.
Writing is often therapeutic even if the writing that you do is not about you at all.
First, you learn a lot about how persistent you can be and your strengths and weaknesses in handling long-term goals.
Doing any kind of creative work reveals a great deal more about us to ourselves. In writing a book, you may – like your characters – confront some of your own deepest fears and desires.
Writing a book could open you up to a part of yourself you may have been neglecting. Or reveal a side of yourself you weren’t even aware of.
The more you know about yourself, the more authentic a life you can lead, and that will definitely make you a champion.
4. Gain confidence in your abilities
When you finish a draft, you’ll demonstrate to yourself and others that you can do anything when you put your mind to it.
As you practice your craft and get better at putting a story together, your confidence will grow. Many aspiring authors have less confidence during the early stages, but like any skill story craft takes time to hone.
5. Join the ranks of interesting storytellers
You will be working in a great tradition. People have been telling stories for as long as we have been human.
In writing a book, you are making yourself a part of that tradition. It doesn’t even matter whether you send your book out to publishers and land a huge deal, publish through a modest small press, self-publish or put the novel away in a drawer once you are finished with it.
You have made yourself a part of that storytelling tradition, an achievement worth celebrating in itself.
6. Solve satisfying puzzles of your own making
When you’ve written a book, you will have conquered a great intellectual challenge.
Writing a book isn’t just about the heart; it’s about the head as well. Great writers have come from every sort of educational background, and it certainly is not necessary to have any sort of formal education in order to write amazing or intricate books.
However, writing books strengthens those intellectual muscles in every way.
You’ll be dealing with big-picture issues like your overall plot, story arc, and structure and character development as well as smaller issues such as improving your grammar and your vocabulary.
You’ll learn to appreciate the language you’ve been using all your life in a way you never have before.
Even if your novel is set in a time and place that is very familiar to you, you’ll hone your research skills whether it is teaching yourself what a dangling modifier is and how to avoid it, or mapping the streets of your protagonist’s home town.
7. Create positive changes
You might just change your life. Whether through increased self-knowledge or literary super-stardom, you won’t be the same person on the other side of finishing a book.
Anyone who sets out to write a book has no real way of knowing if they have what it takes to go the distance. Yet a combination of having a story to tell, disciplined work and getting support when you need it makes all the difference. Get feedback from an experienced writing coach now.
