Stop Talking and Write Already!
In the last two weeks, I’ve met with not one, not two, but THREE different people who have been talking and talking about their books.
In fact, they’ve each been talking about their book since 2006.
2006.
That’s a DECADE, people.
A decade of thinking about a book… but not writing it.
A decade of researching a book… but not writing it.
A decade of talking about a book… but not writing it.
These three people have one thing in common:
They’ve each spent the last ten years of their life stuck in inaction.
Now just so we’re clear, not one of these people has told me, “Kim, I spent the last ten years, the last three thousand, six hundred, five days spending five minutes a day writing the book.”
To a man, they each have less than ten pages actually written.
Less than ten pages!
If all they did was follow my advice about micro goals, they could have ten pages written in less than two weeks. And in the six weeks left in 2016, each of them could go on to write 21 more pages if they were only writing half a page a day.
I totally understand that some projects have a longer percolation period than others. I’ve been percolating on a project of my own since January. Turning over the idea, jotting down notes, wondering how it fits into the larger scope of my business…
But there’s a big difference between eleven months and ten years.
If you’ve got a project that you’ve been thinking about, researching, talking about but writing on – at least 3 days a week – then you need to just STOP IT.
Stop being in the “dreaming time”.
Stop being a wanna be.
Stop talking about it.
Stop. Cold turkey.
And then, I want you to take some time over this “Turkey Day Weekend” and do one thing:
Made a decision.
Are you going to write the book?
Or not?
EITHER decision is okay. Neither makes you a bad person, a lousy writer, or a failure. But MAKE that decision. Decide and then move with that decision.
If you’re choosing to write the book, then by Monday, I want you to apply for a Writing Adventure Discovery Session. Because you’ve made the decision to invest in your book – a real investment of your time, energy, and creativity. And that means that you need to make the matching decision of chatting with an expert about it.
If you’re choosing to let this book go, then let it go. Close the door on the project and MOVE ON. You can’t tell people that you’re writing a book (because, let’s face it, you’re not actually writing a book). Redirect that energy into a project you actually will do: plant a garden, take a trip, paint the bathroom, learn to knit, organize your sock drawer.
And don’t worry, I’ll be joining you in the decision-making process myself – about that project that I’ve been puttering at for 11 months. Because that is MORE than long enough to “think” about it. If I had already made the decision – in or out – that project would be DONE by now.
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