The Top 3 Ways You Sabotage Your Book

How many of you get up in the morning thinking of new ways you can sabotage your book?

What about when you meet your friends for a cup of coffee or a drink—do you discuss how you can make sure your book will never see the light of day?

Or, no. I bet it’s more like this: you revel in how easy the writing life is and how much you enjoy sitting in front of a blank page on a regular basis with the task of creating something interesting, entertaining, informative, inspiring, or just plain coherent. Yes, that’s it.

What’s that, you say? That’s not you at all? Then how can you explain the following bad habits you get into? Yes, I’m looking at you, kid. If you’ve ever thought about writing a book, this is you.

You may not realize how you are sabotaging your book

After all, you have great intentions. You want to write the best, most interesting, highest-grossing, greatest business-building, fanbase-to-rival-J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter kind of book. And yet, and yet…

Some acts of sabotage are blatant (hours spent on Facebook or cleaning your toilet—every day). Some are more subtle. The top three ways that you sabotage your book are:

1. Expecting perfection.
2. Talking too much about your book.
3. Pretending you don’t need to work on it every day.

Expecting perfection for every word you write

First drafts suck. There’s no way around it. Sure, you may have a great paragraph here and there, maybe even a stretch of three or four. But the draft itself has glaring flaws. Flaws so neon-bright that you need sunglasses for the simple act of looking at your manuscript. You stare at those flaws the way kids look at Christmas toy displays in shop windows: endless, motionless fascination, alternating with tantrums.

This is the best way to never finish your book.

A first draft is a FIRST DRAFT. When you compare your first draft to the published works of [insert your favorite bestseller/author millionaire here], you are comparing fig leaves to the Empire State Building. Stop. The Empire State Building looked like a hot mess when they first started building it—a hole in the ground, for goodness’ sake.

Accept the process and realize that you are starting with a hole in the ground, but that every day, as you build it, it’ll get better. Accept your book for what it is—a work in progress.

Talking too much about your book (and not writing it)

I can already hear the protests. “We we were told we should start marketing it before we finish writing!” “But I want to get my friends’ advice/support!” “But I’m so excited about it and want to share!”

Yes, I understand you. And yes, you should be talking about your book—in the right way.

Fiction writers may be more familiar with this warning than nonfiction writers. After all, craft books galore warn about this, including On Writing (yes, I’m talking about Stephen King again; there’s a reason). The more often you talk about your book, and the more specific detail you cover, with more people, repeatedly, the more you dissipate your creative energy and drain out the inherent drive you have to write that book. The more you talk about it, the less need you will feel to put it down on paper. You’ve already done part of what a book does: share your information and your passion with others. Stop this madness.

Nonfiction writers can also fall into this trap. You talk about your book and all your useful information diverts into informational one-on-ones, speech prep, and asides. Where, in fact, is your book?

You don’t need to be sworn to secrecy about your book. Let your colleagues know you’re writing it, and ask for advice. But keep it short—make it a teaser trailer. Don’t spill the beans on the complete plot. Those great ideas you keep having—write them down. Save them for the manuscript.

Pretending you don’t need to work on your book every day*

Trust me, the more breaks you take while writing, the harder it will be for you to write. That lost time is more than just the week you decided to binge-watch full seasons of The Walking Dead or livestream the heavyweight bout (and all the undercards). You lose more time than what you see on your calendar when you take breaks from your book. Each break means that much more time getting back up to speed on what in the heck you were doing before you stopped writing.

In some way, you need to work on your book every day. Keep it top of mind. Put together an outline. Brainstorm examples or case studies or character back story. Spend a day recording your thoughts verbally instead of writing them down, or record yourself reading parts of an earlier chapter, and listen to how it sounds. Make notes.

You want your readers to pay careful attention, don’t you? Well, so should you.

*It is good and healthy to take one day off every week. I even accept “every day” as Monday-Friday. But don’t skip more than a weekend’s worth of time with your book.

The bottom line

Are you guilty of any of these sabotaging traps? My bet is you are. If you need to, write them on a sticky note and paste wherever you work on your book. Yes, you can do multiple stickies. Stop the sabotage, and write that book.

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If you’re really into self-sabotage and want to break the habit, working with a coach might be for you.

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