When starting a book, writers are often full of questions. Some of our questions are important ones—even essential. If we’re writing fiction, we need to know the characters, their back stories, their motivations. For memoir, we may need to do a ton of research. We always have to get a feel for the voice in which we will be writing. There are many, many questions to be asked and answered as we launch our work.
There are also certain questions that we simply should NOT be asking. These questions should not be part of the conversation, for two reasons: a) There is no answer to them, and b) They show that you are focusing on the wrong things.
Over 50? Get my free ebooklet, Calling Up the Writer Within: Writing at 50 & Beyond.
Here are three such questions.
1. How long will it take me to write this?
Unless you are a journalist writing under a deadline, the question of how long it is going to take to write your book is a moot point. You have no way of knowing how long a novel or memoir is going to take. There is no “correct” time. It took Donna Tarte 10 years to write her Pulitzer-prize winning The Goldfinch. It took Kazuo Ishiguro three months to write his Man Booker Prize- winning The Remains of the Day. I doubt either one could have predicted how long it was going to take them when they started. They just started.
How long does it take to write a book? It takes as long as it takes. Get to work.
2. Will my book get published?
This is another unanswerable question. Books that should be sure bets sometimes languish unpublished, and books that, for one reason or another, seem truly unpublishable sometimes end up on bestsellers lists.
The truth is, even editors at top publishing houses aren’t sure what’s going to sell and what isn’t—witness the number of bestsellers that were initially turned down by dozens of presses before being picked up. So, if the top professionals in the publishing business aren’t sure what to publish, how could you possibly know the future success of a book you haven’t written yet?
Get my free weekly strategies for writers.
3. How much work is this going to be?
Unlike the other questions, this one actually has an answer. How much work does it take to write a book? A LOT. If you are a serious writer and want to write the best work you can, be prepared for a huge amount of very challenging, very exhausting labor. It is also the most amazingly fulfilling work you’ll ever do, but it is not easy, ever.
If you are dwelling on these issues as you start your work, you might question your motivation. Do you really want to launch a project that a) is going to take an indeterminate amount of time; b) may or may not get published; and c) will be some of the hardest work you’ve ever done?
If your answer is “yes,” then pick up that pen. And congratulations: You have just become a writer.