Be the one who doesn't quit

In my head, my first book would take three months to write. I'm approaching Year No. 4. I have no promise it will get published, and -- if it does -- the odds are, I'll make less than $5,000 on it.

Why isn't this f*cking thing done yet? I keep asking myself. There's this part of me that wants to quit. And another part that wants to rush ahead -- to finish it no matter how sloppy and underdeveloped. The thing I don't want to do is keep investing hour after hour to make it better.

"The slowness with which productive change actually takes place does not play well in an impatient society," writes Gordon Livingstone in (his rather magical book full of wisdom after a career in psychiatry) Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart. "Where do we find the determination and patience required to achieve the things we want?"

I ask myself questions like that almost every time I sit down to write. How can I keep going? Shouldn't I be spending time with my family? Who's to say this book won't be terrible?

Working despite the questions is what separates a writer from someone who has an idea for a book. We all want to write (or sing or act or start a business), but we're too good at finding reasons not to.

"So much of our lives consists of broken promises to ourselves," Livingstone writes. "The things we long to do -- educate ourselves, become successful in our work, fall in love -- are goals shared by all. Nor are the means to achieve these things obscure. And yet we often do not do what is necessary to become the people we want to be."

We give in to anger, fear, and impatience.

This could all be bullshit in my head, but when I go to book conferences, I sense this brotherhood, this sisterhood among the published authors. There's a subtle recognition that -- ah, yes: here's another soul who's been through the fire and come out again. Here's someone who has stared down her fears, gulped and walked right past them.

Here's someone who didn't quit.