For many of us life gets in the way of us writing our books.  Very few of us have the luxury of being able to block out the regular hours to write every day.  Or even take a few days, weeks or months of totally selfish time just to write.

Sometimes also we begin a project, we have done all our research and created all the personas to make sure everything is in readiness.  We begin the book and hit a wall.

This is not the same as writer’s block but every path seems to be a false path and you just cannot get the book moving.  You can try writing a different chapter, the last chapter, or something else but it’s like when the car runs out of fuel.  No amount of pushing or cranking will get it going again until you add the fuel.

You are not alone.I have just completed reading Stephen King’s Under the Dome.  Another surperb story which had me reading it whenever I had time and finally sitting down to just finish it.

I’ll review the book in the forum later but the author’s note at the end was an absolute eye opener.  Remember that Stephen King is a prolific writer churning out these 800 – 900 page tomes at the rate of 1 per year under his name and others under other names.

Quoting from those notes “I first tried to write ‘Under the Dome’ in 1976 and crept away from it with my tail between my legs after two weeks’ work that amounted to about seventy-five pages.  That manuscript was long lost on the day in 2007 when I sat down to start again, but I remembered the opening section – ‘The Airplane and the Woodchuck’ – well enough to re-create it almost exactly.”

Stephen goes on to explain that he thought that he didn’t know enough about the conditions under the dome to do justice to the story, he ‘was terrified of screwing it up’ and so he stopped.

It’s not writer’s block because he went on to write many other books in the interim but he was unable to continue with that story.

The message here for me and you is that just because you feel unable to complete a book shouldn’t stop you writing a different book.

Don’t give up because one path blocks you.

Now I know you want to write serious novels but sometimes you need to just write so why not write a How to book?  Yeah I know it’s beneath you but it’s probably better than writing labels for fruit jars.  Yeah someone writes those.

In my post “What Type of Books Sell Best Online” I talk about writing How to books and why they are relatively easy to create and sell.  People online are mostly searching for information, how do you use the internet?  Why do you think others are different?

If you find the information you are seeking at a price which seems reasonable you would probably would buy it wouldn’t you?  I would, and do.  If it was you who had created the book or provided the information then I would buy it from you.

OK, perhaps you don’t like that idea so what about writing for someone else?  Another post “How to write a book without writing a single word” is about using a Ghost Writer to write your book.  On the other side of that is the Ghost Writer, that could be you.  You can get paid to write a book for someone else, they’ll provide you with all the information and research and possibly even a draft of a book for re-writing.

You are a writer, you could do this if you so choose. 

So what is it you are attempting to achieve with your writing?  There are a number of reasons to write.  Some people want fame, some want wealth, some want to tell their story and some just love to write.  What do want?  Why do you write?  I write because I think I have things to share and I believe that I have a unique way of explaining complex things in ways others can understand.

What is your skill?  Is the book you want to write a best seller or an academic masterpiece?  Best seller or Best written is a post which explores this concept.

Tell me what you want to achieve?