Your Book Won't Get Written Unless You Write It

I agreed to get the full manuscript of my long-delayed chapter book (set in an after-school coding camp) to my long-suffering editor by June 1.

There was only one problem.

I had written barely any of it because - and this is the sadly crucial part - I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO WRITE.

Despite months of (admittedly somewhat slipshod) research, I still didn't have a firm grip on what kinds of things kids would do in a coding camp. Worse, I didn't have a firm grip on what my protagonist's character arc was going to be: how would she grow and change as a result of a month spent learning how to do coding? And what kinds of plot-generating events could transpire at the camp to make this happen?

These are very significant things not to know about a book one is supposed to be writing. And if I hadn't figured these out after months of fretting, moping, and whining, how on earth could I figure them out in a mere three weeks?

I am here to report that all is well. I figured out most of these things lickety-split.

How, you may ask?

BY ACTUALLY SITTING DOWN AND TRYING TO WRITE THE DARNED BOOK!

Yes, I learned yet again a lesson I've learned many times before. Although many people praise the power of subconscious creativity and the benefit of gaining perspective on a project by stepping away from it for a period of time (say, for the period right up until three weeks before it is due), and the secretive toil of kindly nocturnal elves, I have found that the only way I have ever gotten a book written - the ONLY way - is by sitting down and starting to write it.

Even though I don't know what to write.

Even though I have no idea how to figure out what to write.

Even though I've forgotten how I ever figured out how to write anything.

If I sit down to write - and commit to writing for a whole entire hour every single day - timed with my trusty hourglass - words start to appear on the page - words written by me. Characters say and think witty things. They make choices that precipitate predicaments. They react to other people's choices and other people's predicaments.

All from just picking up a pen and moving it across the page.

Best, I can then type up the pages and share them with my brilliant writing group who offer insights beyond anything I could ever have generated all by my lonesome before the first word was written. I can leave my meeting with them energized and inspired.

I CAN write a book set in a coding camp! I can! I can!

Five days into serious hour-a-day writing, I'm loving my book. These five hours have given me the best of all gifts from the writing fairies: momentum. When my boys were little, I would ask them, "What does Mommy like?" and they could spout the correct answer: "Progress!" Progress is now being made simply because I am now making it

Oh, darlings, if there is something you need to write, or want to write, or vaguely feel like writing, just sit down and write it. I am here to tell you it really truly won't get written otherwise.

Take it from me, who has just completed a most pleasing revised draft of Chapter Three....