It seems to me that the most important quality for writing books is persistence. I've met talented writers who never started their first book, or wrote a great book and then gave up in the editing stages. As I said in my first post, writing a book is a marathon, and it's important to find ways to keep yourself going, Especially when you've been at it for years (as I have!) and people around you are frankly sceptical that you will finish it.
I find the following thoughts help motivate me to keep writing:
- people with worse illnesses than mine have finished books and published them so I can too
- I've written books before and I know it's a just a matter of putting a regular effort in and not giving up
- my book could really help people suffering from depression - it might make a real difference to someone's life
- I would love to travel to book festivals and talk about my book.
The worst enemy of persistence is of course procrastination. It's obviously not rational to avoid work on your book if you want to finish it, but it's an all too human response. Last year I went back to work on this book after some months of not writing. Getting back to work was thoroughly enjoyable. When I asked myself 'why did I stop writing for so long?' the answer that came back was 'because I was frustrated with not making fast enough progress!' Now when I'm tempted to procrastinate, I say to myself 'not working on the book is not going to get it finished any faster - however slow progress seems, it happens by working regularly'.
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