Why Most People Never Write Their Book. Everyone has time to write a book. I’ve personally written over 130 in seven years, many of them while I had a full time pastor job.

To be transparent, at least a dozen of them were pretty short. But still…

So why can’t you write one?

What’s the difference between you and me?

NOTHING!

Except this one thing…

I don’t have to decide what to write about, and I don’t have to decide IF I should write.

I have to write because someone already paid me to.

And they told me what to write about.

Now it’s just sitting down and having fun.

[To be clear. The rough draft is fun. The editing to get it perfect is discipline. A nightmare actually, but one I happily accept because I get to do this for a living.]

Uncertainty

You have it. You aren’t sure you should write a book. You don’t know if anyone will want it, need it, or care at all about it. You don’t know if you heard God correctly. You have self doubt.

Let me help you with this one. You only need one thing to be certain about writing a book. You want to. That is, you have the desire.

No one else can tell you what you should be doing. God can, but do you know how He speaks to us most often? Through our desires.

I don’t mean our hedonistic sinful desires.

I mean simply our values. Which become our wants. Tapping into your wants is a great way to discover God’s plan for you.

Pray this: “Lord, I submit my mind and heart to you. Make me want what you want me to want.”

This is how I ended up leaving my opera career to become a pastor. Do you want to write? Then you get to write.

If you are uncertain about your ability to write, join the club. What you are uncertain about is something you can grow in. This is tremendous good news!

Not only that, but if you have a good and true message, and an editor (like me!), you can make a great book, even if you have never put a sentence together before.

Now that we’ve dealt with uncertainty…

Time

You don’t think you have time to write a book, because you heard about a famous author who wrote 10 hours a day. Most of us don’t do that.

Most books I write take me 30 minutes a day on average. Sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 90, but on average, 30 minutes.

Do you watch TV, scroll your phone, or any other waste of time for 30 minutes each day?

If so, the time problem is solved.

Content

You aren’t sure your story hasn’t already been told (It has, but it doesn’t matter). No one has shared the message you are going to share in the way you are going to share it to the people you are going to share it with.

No one will back up the truth with your lived experiences and insights.

Maybe you don’t know how your book should conclude. Do you want to figure it out? Then write. You don’t know what you know until you start writing. Writing accesses a region of the mind that sitting and thinking or talking does not.

Write your way into writing; you’ll find the truth and the message you were made to tell.

What would bless me greatly is if you would let me help you with this in the gentlest low-commitment way.

For my paid sub community, we are doing Zoom meetings Monday nights from 7-8:30 CST, and Tuesdays from 11-12:30 CST every week beginning in August.

My goal is to demystify the book-writing process for as many people as possible. The only thing you have to do is be at one of those, and the way to do that is to upgrade to a $7 per month subscription.

Jeff

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