I’ve been talking about writing with a lot of people lately. Maybe one of them sounds like you.

One person said he was trying to land upon a new hobby. Over the years, this person has written gorgeous social media posts and when I’ve said, dang, you can write, he has expressed a desire to write fiction. In our conversation, I asked whether writing might be the hobby and he said that, just the day before, he had been imagining a scene at the start of a story.

A second person had found herself looking for a good book to read, realizing exactly what kind of book that was, and struggling to find it. One day she said to herself: Maybe I need to write that book to put it out into the world. She has started writing it.

A third writer recently had her first novel published, a novel I edited. To my knowledge, this book is fiction but it closely connects with this author’s life experience, following the principle of Write What You Know. We were chatting because she wants to write more but doesn’t feel she has another obvious story to tell.

Then I had a conversation with a writer whose book I edited last year, a book hasn’t found a publisher yet. This person said that the rejections and the continued desire and effort to put the book out into the world have been among the hardest things they’ve faced in their life.

Finally I talked with an elderly friend who isn’t a fan of contemporary books and who said that clearly everyone and their brother spent Covid lockdowns writing a book.

To which I say more power to them. All of them.

I don’t believe the adage that “everyone has a book in them,” but I do want to encourage people who want to write to write.

The problem is that’s easier said than done.

In her book A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf famously said, “It is necessary to have five hundred a year and a room with a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry.” 

But the challenges are more than material ones. For most of us, it comes down to motivation. A book is built one word upon another just as a house is built brick by brick but rarely will anyone hire you to write a book as they will a house. In fact, as Woolf says, here’s what’s more likely to happen:

 “The work of genius is almost always a feat of prodigious difficulty. Everything is against the likelihood that it will come from the writer’s mind whole and entire. Generally material circumstances are against it. Dogs will bark, people will interrupt, money must be made, health will break down. Further, accentuating all these difficulties and making them harder to bear is the world’s notorious indifference. It does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories. It does not need them.” (Woolf adds that, for women writers, hostility is sometimes added to indifference.)

There are market realities we can’t control. The odds of getting a traditional publisher, I’ve been told, are about the same as being a starting quarterback in the NFL or opening on Broadway. We can’t control for market vagaries: maybe a book doesn’t sell because vampire fiction is so 2015. Or because small stories are so 2027. Or because we don’t have 1M followers on our podcast or aren’t already a household name. I believe the cream does rise to the top but often publishing is a question of writing the right book on the right topic at the right time. Not long ago I saw someone say of any kind of art, if you can do something else, do it because rejection comes with the territory. (I once had a hard-won publishing contract fall through because the publisher died.)

That hostility and indifference can also be internal. When I first began writing fiction, there was a voice inside my head (well, there were many voices of characters but I’m talking about a different kind of voice.) This voice said: Who do you think you are? Maybe this stinks. Maybe it’s garbage.

So the question is: why should we write? Why should any of the people I’ve been talking with write?

Let me start with how I answered that voice in my head. Maybe that’s all true, I replied to that voice, but at least it’s a better use of my time than watching television. I still think that’s the case although I’d now substitute doomscrolling for tv.

Telling stories is good for writers. I have heard it said (fine, by my husband) that writers are happier when they are writing. I recently watched a documentary in which an artist talked about his angst about his lack of commercial success. He said the only time he didn’t feel that way was when he was actually making art. The writer I talked with who was feeling discouraged is on this path too – rather than sitting around waiting for her book to sell, she’s embarked on a whole new writing project.

Some people also have stories we need to tell. I am thrilled for my client who turned her fascinating life experiences into a fascinating novel. I’m not a big bucket list person but this seems like something that’s worth doing – if you have a story you want to tell, make time to tell it. Many people have ideas of stories they’d like to have told.  I’m also so glad the person looking for a book she wanted to read has decided to write the story herself. I hope the hobby-searching friend makes the time to write the story he wants to tell.

My own goal is to put something beautiful into the world, to write stories that help readers connect with themselves, others, God and nature. I hope that people come away from reading my books feeling enriched, that life in all its complexity is still hopeful. I often recall what the writer James Michener said, that stories need to be published, but publication can mean reading them aloud at a nursing home or giving copies to friends and family.

I’m curious which of these writers you identify with most: the one considering writing? the one starting to write the book they’d like to read? the one who has written what they fear might be their one and only book? the one whose book hasn’t found a home. Or maybe you’re a writer who is finding your way.

I’m also wondering what motivates you: what’s your why? And how do you deal with the internal and external challenges that make your “work of genius”…”a feat of prodigious difficulty”?

This summer I’m going to address these challenges. I don’t want to be the voice of the barking dog or the health breakdown or the money worries or the world’s indifference. I want to help you tell the story you want to tell. I’m going to include some practical how to get writing strategies I’ve shared with many writers, ones I use in my own writing. So help me to help you: send me your challenges. And check back here.