IF YOU’RE AFRAID YOUR BOOK IS SHIT

I know what you've been up to. (I’ve been there, too)

I know how the momentum of the year has plummeted and as we are about to hit the summer solstice, that trailblazing version of you that was going to write that book this year, once and for all, is hiding under the bed, sweating from the heat.

Maybe this hiding takes the form of scarfing chocolate, or checking out that new show everyone is excited about instead of sitting down to write after dinner, like you promised yourself you would.

You may have even started writing and gotten a good momentum going only to hit a brick wall when this beautiful thought popped up:

"My book is shit."

Oh, man. This is a dark hour. The hope that was trumpeting and the light that had come on to say "I might actually be a writer" gets slammed back into the darkness with this one.

I know, because I have thought this thought myself. This week even. Have I written 500 words every day like Scott Carney once suggested on the podcast? Hell, no. I’ve done it once.

I talk to writers all the time who have made it through to publication time after time and this belief, “my book is shit”, never goes away. You know what that tells me?

Thinking that your book is shit is not a reason to stop writing it.

That's why we call them shitty first drafts. You get to write this draft as horribly as you want to. In fact, you should write it horribly. Because then you've gotten past the biggest hurdle there is: the blank page.

I like reading something inspiring in the morning to get me going. I don't get to it every single day, but sometimes, I read something that feels like it has been waiting for me for ages.

Recently, I read an entry from Caitlin Matthews' The Celtic Spirit. It begins with this Welsh saying:

"The plow must go five times over the site of a wood before it can become a field."

Matthews goes on to talk about that point when you feel like you've been working so hard on something, yet you barely see any signs of progress. She then says that now is a good time to prepare the ground for your projects for the coming year.

I love this because it got me thinking about how you prepare the ground for planting. Remember what you do?

Mulch. Mulching to provide nutrients to the soil is necessary if you want anything to grow. You see where I'm going here?

Your shitty draft is the mulch for what will grow your book.

So keep going. Keep writing shitty line after shitty line and when that nasty critic perks up and makes a comment about the quality of your work just turn to it and say, "I'm mulching."