Nine weeks after the first day of the second new year

A startup is serious business. It’s different, isn’t it, when you don’t just think of yourself as a free spirit, a writer who writes when the muse cooperates, who embraces the freedom of putting a word here and there only when inspiration comes, finishing a book whenever. It’s different when you think of yourself as a business that needs to grow and develop through the years, and provide a line of finished, viable products. It keeps your feet on the ground, makes you treat yourself and what you do with due seriousness.

Here, of course, Author is assuming that you’ve chosen to be a writer not because you happen to have seen the success of others (yes, seemingly instant at times), and you think that this is your way to be famous and make easy money. She is assuming you’re here because you love to write, writing is a life-long career for you, and you are willing to put in the work. If you’re planning to take the easy way, then forget it. But if you’re ready to get serious, then you're in the right place.

People who found startups are prepared to work hard, do what is needed to reach their goals. They know it will take a lot of time, a lot of effort, and are willing to do what it takes. Serious writers are no different. Writing takes time. Especially with your first books, because there is a major learning process involved. For instance, you need to know how to write in a way that is clear not only to you but to your readers—and to do that, you first need to understand what in your writing might not be that clear, which means learning to view it not through your eyes, your mind that has created the story, but through a reader’s eyes. You need to know at least a bit how to edit, this will improve your writing and give you a better idea of what your editor does, allowing more fruitful discussions of your work. You need to have an idea about grammar, too, it’s essential for your writing.
You will find yourself making countless revisions, going over your words countless times. Constantly searching for just the right word, revising a paragraph a dozen times, replacing whole chapters, perhaps starting anew. You will find yourself doing the same task again and again, until you get the outcome to be just the way you want it. You will find yourself making decisions, many of them, along the way, small and big ones alike, that have to do with anything from a word, to the whole content, to how, eventually, you will publish, publicize, market. And when that’s all done, you will do it all over again, with your next book.

Writing a book is not just about writing the story. That’s only a draft. It’s what you do with this draft that will take the bulk of your time, Author’s posts of last year were certainly a reflection of that. As you learn, experience, write more books, your work, those steps you take to complete a book, will become more efficient. But while you learn, your work will be slow. The beginning of anything we do takes time. No matter how talented you are, learning to produce a good book, and actually producing it, will take time.

The problem with time is, it could grate on your nerves, make you impatient, increase your anxiety. Especially with your first or second or third book, when you don’t know yet if you’re any good, if your books will succeed, if readers will want them. Day will follow day, week will follow week, and don’t have the illusion that month will not follow month. Come on, you will think, I need to finish this book already. I want to finish this book already, I want to see it out there. That’s normal, thinking this way. But never forget that if you’re doing your work, not just procrastinating, not just finding excuses not to do, if you’re actually working hard those days, weeks, months, then you’re doing things right. You’re building a solid basis on which you will continue to build in the years ahead, evolving as a writer, improving your work, giving your readers good books to which you can look back with pride and ahead with anticipation.

As a writer, you owe it to your readers to do your best. Give them your best. You can be counted among serious writers, or be dismissed as a writer whose work is of such a low quality it is obvious no real work and time have been put into it. You can work on developing ideas that will make your work original, or clone the work of others, use their ideas, follow them instead of standing on your own. You can write books that are rich in content, or put out books that make readers wonder why they have spent their precious free time on your book while you haven’t bothered to put time into writing it properly—and be assured that they will not likely pick up another one of your books again. You can leave your readers wanting more, searching for your next book, or leave them feeling empty. What kind of a writer do you want to be?

A good book requires work. It requires thought, research, concentration. It requires debates between you and yourself. It requires moments in which you doubt yourself—these moments make you look at your work again, check it, make it better if you reach the conclusion that that is what it needs. It requires moments in which you can think of nothing but the story—because it pulls you in in such a way that you feel you must find just the right words to put that same feeling across to your readers. It requires moments in which you stop at a sentence thinking, wow, I wrote this—your readers will be affected by those words, too. Put everything you have into your books, and so will they.

If you were in any other kind of startup, you would be working hard to develop your product and make it available to your customers. You would have that responsibility toward them. As a writer, you have that same responsibility toward your readers. And just remember: when a startup fails because its product has failed, its founder can try to develop a new one, a different product. You have one startup, and essentially one product only—your books. You need to do your best to bring out the best you can in yourself. It’s okay to learn, it’s okay if your first book is not as good as your fourth. Other products improve with time, too. They change as their developer learns, too. But you don’t have another startup to go to, this is it, this is yours, and you need to do your best. Your readers will feel it.

We writers are here to give our readers something that not many others can. We have the ability to give them much-needed moments of enjoyment, a reprieve from a life that is too often heavy on their shoulders, an escape into a story they can lose themselves in. It is our responsibility to do our best with this ability. For them, and for us.

No tip today. No need for it. Just remember this.