Your Book Has Already Written Itself

A white blast of light blinds you. You raise your head from your screen, ignoring the fact it bothered you in the middle of writing a good story. It’s a floating book, and it moves like a mouth. It speaks to you: “I am your book from the future”.

It might not be as absurd, but your book is closer to being written than you think.

Here’s why.

I have been working on a story talking about multi-creativity. It’s a topic I am passionate about since I am one myself and I believe the way productivity gurus and the world depict our modern-day society is wrong. But something weird happened as I started writing it.

There was so much to write!

The way I write my stories is usually by having an idea and letting my creativity dictate my hands what to do. I never think about the length of my stories, unless I am publishing to big publications. And even in that case, I never bloat my stories to fill a certain length.

I usually have a faint idea whether the story is a short one or a long one. The long ones usually being the few I publish for big publications like The Writing Cooperative. This one is a great example.

So what was so different about the story of multi-creativity?

It was a gut feeling. In today’s modern world we don’t pay too much attention to gut feelings, but having a few lucky streaks of listening to mine, I always give it a stage. And it was telling me that the amount of things I have to write about will never fit into a story.

At nearly 9,000 words in length book, my gut was right again.

But this isn’t a brag story. On the contrary, I believe that most of us already wrote a book without knowing it. How?

Your Book Has Already Written Itself

Your body of work is a translation of your point of view and beliefs. The stories depict different topics, but if you’re consistent, they usually have a large overarching idea behind them.

During the writing of the book, certain topics I had already written about came up. Of course, there is a difference between putting all your stories in a book and calling it a day. I had new ideas mixed in with old ideas, glued together to serve the main idea.

Writing this book I realized that most of my stories have a grand storyline I haven’t noticed before — multi-creativity. In a way, some of my book was already written so it was easier for me to draw inspiration. I understood how everything fit better.

I always had multiple interests. Dissatisfaction with my career, burnout, and life in general always made it hard for me to pick a direction. But with therapy and documenting my frustration here, I had the entire journey laid out already.

You might not see it yourself, but there is a book existing somewhere between the blank space of your stories. You just haven’t found it yet, or haven’t written enough for it to exist.

We all want to create the best stories out there, perfecting each coma. But remember, each story is just a chapter in the book you haven’t written yet. Each story is a stepping stone for the next one to become better.

Focus on the bigger image of your message. That’s how one day your stories will form chapters from a book that will already be half-written.

I call every article I make a story. Everything is a story. And a book isn’t different, it’s just a longer story.

Word Counting Your Book

If you already had a word count in mind before you started writing, you lost. That’s an invitation for adding air when none is needed. Word count means nothing.

When you start writing your book, think of the goal in mind. Lay the story and the ideas behind it in the best possible way and be as short as you can be about it. Nobody wants to read a 10,000-word topic that can be summarized in one sentence.

Explaining Your Message

I used to believe writing stories requires a lot of planning and thinking ahead. However, I rarely plan out my stories if at all. The only planning I’ve done in this story is writing the points I wish to discuss as headers.

And the rest?

I am letting my hands flow without thinking about it. In fact, this is how I write most of my stories. The best way to write anything is to let your mind roam free through your hands.

You’re letting your subconscious write for you, bypassing your conscious. I am still surprised to this day by the quotes, stories, and ideas that come out of this method. And it explains why people resonate with my writing.

And guess what? It’s more fun that way.

Instead of planning and then writing, do the opposite. Write. Then plan.

Think of a clay sculptor. He takes a piece of clay that looks like nothing and slowly shapes it away to become something of meaning. He doesn’t calculate the exact amount of clay he needs and how many rotations and hand movements are required to make a vase.

Writing is the same.

By letting your mind roam freely you’ll have a big blob of writing clay in front of you. Then all you have left is to chip away at it. Shape it. Reform it. Organize it.

Writing a book is exactly the same.

Your first draft should be free writing. The only outline and planning I’ve done with my book are the chapters and subchapters. But even those, changed after my first draft.

Planning isn’t a means to an end, it’s a direction to follow.

So sit down, write general chapter ideas, and don’t overthink it. Then write. Let your hands write without stopping to question what you’ve written or whether it conveys the message.

90% of your book is written this way. The rest is just moving things around, reshaping them, or emphasizing missing points.

My first draft was a mess. The second draft was organizing things around and removing unnecessary paragraphs. The third draft was reframing certain things and making sure that the book had a correct and understandable flow. The other drafts were small refinements of examples and words.

It’s just an example, not a blueprint, to emphasize that the book’s main point was written in draft 1. You’ll know it’s good when you read it and don’t feel like changing anything else.

Unlike stories though, a book should be closer to perfection, because it’s much bigger than just being a story. Your process may vary but give it as much time as you can.

Naming Your Book

I tend to overcomplicate and overthink things when I start something new. Everybody is guilty because we try to make something perfect from the first moment we start it.

But that’s wrong.

The entire point of life is to learn and evolve. Nothing we ever start will be perfect from day one. And the same goes for the name of your book.

We all have some ideas for a name.

Great. Write them down and forget about them until after you are done. And if you don’t have a name yet, it’s good as well because it will distract you less.

This is very important because by implementing the previous point, your mind will write the book for you. And because we are tapping into the deepest ends of ourselves, the idea might remain the same but its execution and performance may differ.

It means that by the end, the first name you picked for the book might not represent it well enough yet.

So how do you pick a name?

Join the entire world by using AI! These are probably the few instances I would use AI for, mainly ChatGPT. We all know how naming something can be hard and take eons until we come across a normal name.

ChatGPT and AI should be a guide and not trusted at the robot’s value (face value joke anybody?). I started with a certain prompt and guided ChatGPT until I got some good results in my opinion.

But don’t go asking friends and family yet.

Take the best examples you got, or even better, ones you’ve built after getting inspiration, and ask ChatGPT again. But this time, ask its opinion.

Which of those titles will perform the best according to your knowledge?

Your wording might be different but it should list the idea behind each title. It would help you understand better if it portrays your message or not. Some names looked cool but upon getting its opinion I realized I was off.

Bonus Tip

ChatGPT cannot draw for us, but you could use a similar prompt and ask it for a book cover that emphasizes the idea behind it. Mine will portray an Astronaut it wouldn’t have come up with in a million years, but it gave me an idea of how I can decorate the rest.

I picked “Cool Title”. How would you design a simplistic, eye catching yet inviting book header for it? I know you cant show a picture but I would love for you to describe the design

If you can’t design a book cover yourself, then I would recommend using a third party. A book cover is akin to a YouTube thumbnail. You could have the best book in the world, but nobody would buy it if the cover didn’t sell it.

Don’t half-ass this part.

Keep It A Secret

This is the most important tip here. Our brains are weird because telling someone we are writing a book has a similar effect as finishing it. But there’s more to that.

We are adding pressure and stress to ourselves. Imagine a clay sculpture shaping a vase while he has a crowd half cheering half complaining about his work. It’s the same with our writing, the crowd being the voices in your head.

I believe a book should be private until it’s out in the world.

I didn’t even tell my wife I was writing one because I honestly wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. I would have told her anyway, but it relieved the pressure of performing from my shoulders.

Let the book live in your head until you feel like the drafts are ready to be out there. You never know who might question you or what doubts your brain can add to people’s words.

A book is like a story but a hundred times more refined. Once it’s out you cannot pull it off people’s hands or Kindle’s. So your mindset is just as important as your writing.

Off To The Races

Buy my book with a discount until the end of the month on Smashwords. The coupon code is PPT2A

Available now at your favorite digital store!

and make sure to follow because I’ll be dropping another story, describing the process of how I published an e-book completely for free without using Amazon.

Your Book Has Already Written Itself was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.