Nothing New Under the Sun

I used to be quite prolific in this space. I know that’s difficult to believe as you scroll down to find the most recent post is from February and the one before that is almost a year older and neither of them has a clever title like, “How to Write When You’ve Forgotten What Words Are,” or “How Can I Possibly Finish This Book When My Protagonist Is Smarter Than I Am?”, or “Six Places in Your House (Besides Under Your Desk) Where You Can Hide From Your Novel.”

It’s not that I don’t have anything to say about the writing life. (I have plenty.) It’s just that I don’t have anything NEW to say about it. You already know that writing a book is hard. You already know that your greatest barrier to writing is resistance (See also: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield). You also know that you’re not going to sell a million copies of your book, even if it’s the best book ever written. (I could be wrong about that one. Here’s hoping.)

I suppose I could use this space to remind you that the best way to improve as a writer is to write. A lot. And read. A lot. But that seems kinda basic and surely you know that already. I’ve talked in this space before about the importance of writing a book that you want to read. Not just because you’ll be reading it a hundred times, but because following your passion is more satisfying than chasing a trend.

Or maybe I could talk about how to decide whether you should pursue an agent and traditional publishing or buckle down and self-publish. If I wrote about that, I think I’d mention that while you may experience a uniquely satisfying sense of validation from getting an agent and, subsequently, a publishing deal, you may find equal (perhaps even more) satisfaction by doing the self-publishing thing. I’m sure I’d also talk a bit about how no matter which way you go, you’ll be tasked with learning how to market this child you brought into the world so other people can have the opportunity to fall in love with it as much as you have. (Or did. I mean, you’ve read this thing a hundred times, remember? It’s okay to be sick of it by now.)

None of that is new, though. And that makes it difficult to come back to this space and fill it with words. I don’t want to say the same old thing. I don’t want to be predictable or boring. This is the same dilemma I have when writing fiction. Maybe you’re familiar with this. You start writing what you believe is a great new thing, only to discover that not only isn’t it new, it may not even be good. When we set ourselves up with a commitment to write “the next great [FILL IN YOUR COUNTRY IN ADJECTIVE FORM HERE] novel,” we’re also setting ourselves up for constant reminders that we’re not original, that we don’t have the writing chops to do this, and that we were naive to think otherwise. That’s a lot of resistance to battle.

I’m about 10,000 words into my latest. It’s not the next great American novel. It’s not something so brilliant or innovative it’ll send shockwaves into the publishing world. And it’s not going to sell a million copies. (I could be wrong about that.)

But it’s mine. It sounds like me. And it’s the only thing I can write at the moment.

I’m okay with that.

Oh look. I just wrote a blog post.

Writing can be unpredictable like that.