3 Reasons Your Book is Stuck

Your book is stuck.

You've tried to write it, multiple times. Maybe even got through a few thousand words, once or twice. But here you are again.

If I were a betting man, I'd lay odds you attempted what 99.9% of all writers, amateurs or professional, do all the time.

They tried to write an entire chapter in one sitting. In one fell swoop.

Bad idea - and to make it worse, we've been warned about the folly of this approach for thousands of years, and we've ignored the wisdom.

Have you ever stared straight into the pages of an instruction manual ... but for some reason, no matter how clearly it's written, you missed a step?

Or do you sometimes have to sheepishly admit, "The answer was right there, staring me in the face, and I couldn't see it?"

Don't feel embarrassed if the answer's "Yes." It happens to all of us. I only share this because my eyes suddenly opened to something that stared me in the face for years.

Sooner or later, you have to come to grips with it - creative work gets done properly when the creator(s) take intermittent rests.

Now, don't shoot the messenger; I learned this approach from reading my Bible, which says:

"And there was evening, and there was morning - the second day."

This refrain occurs six times in the earliest pages of the Book of Genesis, marking the intermissions between God's creative flurries and the nighttimes in between.

He's telling us, "I created the heavens and the earth. Then I paused. Then I created the oceans and dry land. Then I paused. Then I created fish and birds. Then I paused."

And so on. It's basic instruction: to do creative work, you need intermissions.

If it's true for the original Creator ... it's probably true for all the little creators he created.

Why Intermissions?

As I explained in this recent post, this passage isn't much use if you read it as lofty, poetic imagery. That's not how it's intended.

When I read the Bible, I assume certain things. One assumption is, "It's written there because it's important. Why it's important is what we need to figure out."

You can also make this inference by inverting it, and asking, "Why is the Bible silent about 'XYZ'?"

Answer: it's silent because there's no need to mention it. The readers are trusted as intelligent, sentient beings, capable of figuring it out.

Just like how we can be trusted, after several rounds of getting nowhere, to say things like:

"Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity." - Albert Einstein

We need to take intermissions because, although it's somewhat obvious we should take them ... we're more inclined to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

Your book is stuck (most likely) because it hasn't occurred to you to change how you do what you're doing.

The Way of the Creator

In a recent video I shared, I discussed three things most writers forget: who they're writing to, what message they're trying to send, and what action they want their audience to take.

In another interesting observation ... the Bible does not address its message to the animal or plant kingdoms.

God did not bark a certain instruction manual to dogs, or neigh it to horses, or encode it in the oxygen trees ingest.

Those measures aren't necessary. Animals and plants do exactly what they're supposed to do, 365 days per year.

There was only one audience God really wanted to reach: the one that retained the freedom to make up their own minds.

So he didn't spend an inordinate amount of time explaining things that don't matter, to audiences that don't understand, or care.

He was also selective on what he did talk about, to the audience he wanted to reach.

Many people view the Bible as a historical account. If that's true, there's an awful lot of history left out of its pages!

It's also got a lot of "historical" info that - let's face it - to 21st Century Western minds, seems utterly irrelevant.

What difference could it possibly make to my life to know the names and relationships of people I'm not related to, who've been dead for thousands of years?

Why should I have such detailed understanding of how an ancient society behaved, living in a modern democratic republic?

It turned out, as I learned to study Biblical Hebrew, that there's plenty of good reason to know these things.

This author knows his audience well, so he doesn't just "come out and say it."

He challenges us to dig deep to understand it, and writes it in a code few people understand. He "weeds out" the casual readers, so that its substance hides in plain sight.

God is also consistently on message. Some people think the call to "Repent" began with John the Baptist in the time of Jesus. But it goes way further back than that.

To the very first accounts of Cain and Abel, it turns out.

The central message of the Bible could be phrased: "Stop thinking how you think, and behaving how you behave. There is a way far greater and more rewarding than this."

The Bible does not deviate from that message, from Genesis to Revelation. It is consistent.

And, as providence would have it, the message of the Bible is also its call-to-action.

When you read it, you can be sure of this: your thoughts and behaviors are being stretched, challenged and confronted.

Even if it's simply a challenge to rethink how you interpret the passage you read ... you are never simply reading a bedtime story, as with a child.

There's no such thing, in my opinion, as a "passive" reading of the Bible.

Circling back to your book, this means that it should send a consistent message, to its intended audience, stirring them to respond.

It sounds simple enough ... but if that were true, you probably wouldn't have got stuck.

Whether you're in the initial stages of your project, a few chapters in or even halfway through - I have some basic tools to share, to help you kickstart your writing.

And if you'd like help, Author Coaching is my specialty. Feel free to reach out here on LinkedIn, or schedule an intro call on my calendar.