The Most High Stakes Way To Write Your Book (Don't Make This Mistake)

There are hundreds of ways for a writer to write their book.

Some writers plot out their novels on the back of receipts and spare pieces of paper that they amass in a pile for when they finally need them while others keep notebooks filled with every thought their character has ever had in their non-existent life. 

When I get the idea for a new story I make a new document in my word processor labeled with its working title and NOTES with everything that I'm thinking about, maybe a few plot points or a starting paragraph and I give it this dedicated space to live, to grow until it comes the time to help it along its life where I bring all the bits and pieces together in another document with the same title followed by whichever step in the revision process it is such as first draft, revision, beta feedback revision, and eventually final text. 

My version of writing may drive some other writers out there crazy with my need to keep the different versions of my words, but I personally like to see the process from that very first hint of the idea through all the stages of its life. 

No matter which of the hundreds of ways you choose to write your novel there is only one way of those hundreds - that's wrong. 

But if it doesn't matter how I write my novel, how can there be a wrong way?

There's a way to write your novel that puts the stakes too high that the chances of success and completing your novel almost become nonexistent. 

The only high-stakes way to write your novel is to rely solely on inspiration.

A writer who writes only when they are inspired may only sit down to write once or twice a year because those are the days that they feel inspired. 

I'm sorry to tell you that most writers start novels because they are inspired - but it's dedication and perseverance that finish them. Inspiration is usually long gone in another country by the time the final touches are being placed on their novel. 

Being inspired to write a novel is one of the best things to happen to a writer. They get a glimmer of an idea and then it's off to the races! 

They sit at their computer for hours on end typing up all the wonderful ideas that are flowing through their head. They may even finish writing off that very first chapter. 

And then they never come back to finish it. 

The novel idea lies abandoned. 

Growing dust and slowly fading out of the writer's mind until the day when inspiration strikes them - only the idea that they will be inspired to write about will be something completely new and shiny and it must be written down right this minute. 

And the cycle repeats. 

Start your novel when you're inspired.

 But don't sit around and wait for inspiration to finish it. 

Go get to writing. 

Your novel is growing cold. 

With love, 

B.K. xo xo

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