Milestone #1: The Time of Many Starts

Do you have book notes scattered in random notebooks all over your house? 

Plans or post-its stuffed in drawers, or piled up where you’ll get to them ‘one day’? 

Or multiple folders with book snippets in them on your devices, where you’ve started your book over and over and over again but haven’t progressed? 

If you’ve had a persistent book idea for years and years – maybe even decades – and haven’t written it yet? 

CONGRATULATIONS!! 

You’ve reached your first author milestone. (I bet you had no idea!) 

I can’t even tell you how many of my clients say that they’ve had their idea for years, and that they always thought they’d write a book ‘one day’, but just haven’t. (Spoiler: it’s 99.9%.) 

I think I’ve had perhaps two clients ever who have gone from idea to finished book without spending years and years in between the two. 

What’s bad about this? 

Well, first: the obvious: if you’re spending time in between the idea and actually writing your book, then the people who really, really need your writing are going without. You’re keeping it from them by keeping it from being done and out in the world. And that sucks, because not only are you stuck, but you’re keeping others stuck too. 

Secondly: you’re teaching yourself that stuck is where you live. You’re so used to thinking about your book and how you’ll write it ‘one day’ that when it comes to writing it, you don’t know how to do that anymore. The longer you spend in this stage, the more you train your brain to believe it’s the state you want to stay in. 

What’s good about this? 

Your idea has persistence: Your idea has stuck around, often for years (decades?), with very little attention from you. It has survived on the very smallest of bits of attention, often going months without any forward movement from you, except for what you’ve thought about doing in your head. Imagine what you could do with it if you gave it time and attention? 

Knowledge is power. Once you know you’re doing this, you can do something about it. 

Your one simple task

Find every scrap of paper/notebook etc if you use physical media and get them in one place. If digital, get them all into one folder so everything you’ve done so far is in one spot. 

Gaze at the evidence of your persistent inspiration. If you weren’t meant to write this book, that idea would have faded and been replaced by a new one. 

Get used to the idea that you’re meant to write this book. It’s your soul’s calling, and part of your greater purpose for being here on this planet, living this life. 

You are the one who’s been gifted this inspiration. 

You are the one who still has it after all this time. 

You are the one to write it. 

Next: Milestone #2, The Novice Stage: writing is fun!