Do I Lack the Discipline to Write a Book?

Or is this just a story I tell myself about myself?

One of the themes I’ll keep hammering home in Page Fright is this: Know yourself as a writer. Learn what you’re afraid of, what you’re good at, what you’d like to be better at, what time of day you do your best writing, what time of day is realistic for you to write, what most motivates you, what de-motivates you, which genre comes more naturally to you and which is a challenge you’d like to undertake, what conditions make it more comfortable for you to share your work, etc., etc.

The reason I feel so strongly about self-awareness is I think a lot of creative people, including or even especially writers, don’t always stop to think about what actually works best for them rather than what they think should work.

Nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to our perceptions of whether or not we have the discipline and stick-to-itiveness to achieve our writing goals.

I’m a great example of this. For years I told myself I lacked the discipline to write a book. That is, until I wrote one.

I’d been writing columns no longer than 500 – 1,200 words and occasional features of 2,000 words. Much of my writing life was spent thinking up ideas and sometimes interviewing people, but the actual amount of time with my butt planted in a chair was maybe three or four hours now and then, not five, six, seven hours a day, many days, over the course of several months. No way could I do that!

And so I held back from moving forth with the idea for my book What’s Your Creative Type? for years, worried that only short-form writing suited me, or that I only suited it. I felt embarrassed by this “weakness” and I was mad at myself – how could I let something as basic as a lack of self-discipline get in the way of achieving a life-long dream and sharing an original, and hopefully useful, creativity model? This wasn’t some deep-seated neurosis that would be difficult to combat. It was just distractibility, the propensity to get easily bored, the loneliness of doing work I saw as solo rather than collaborative. It was also an excuse that was less “triggering” than my deeper fears about writing.

Fortunately, my frustration with myself also ultimately motivated me. I wanted to write a book for many reasons, but one of them was simply to prove to myself that I could.

I’m not going to lie—keeping my butt planted wasn’t easy. In fact, believe it or not, it was the most difficult aspect of writing my book. All…that…sitting. I’d pop up out of my chair or off the couch at any excuse—I simply had to investigate what my Beagle, Milo, was barking at (knowing full well it was probably just a leaf floating by the window). The mail would fall through the slot to the floor with a thud, and I’d immediately inspect the catalogues and bills. I’d make more coffee or get a snack or satisfy a sudden urge to pee (all that coffee), etc.

And you know what? All this up and down, up and down worked pretty well for me. It didn’t fit my mental picture of what being disciplined should look like. It wasn’t a graceful or necessarily admirable creative process, but it kept me going. It wasn’t just a way of taking a break, it was also a way of engaging in movement, which I intuitively knew I needed to do.

Some famous authors go way beyond my simple calisthenics and adopt a rigorous physical regimen to achieve the mental strength required to write a book. When Haruki Murakami is working on a novel, he runs over 10 miles or swims for nearly a mile (or does both) every afternoon, after a morning of writing that begins at 4 a.m. He says, “to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.”

Kurt Vonnegut would likewise swim for a half hour and do push-ups and sit-ups throughout the day.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote that her compulsive running habit is “not as a respite for the intensity of writing but as a function of writing.” 

They each discovered a means to achieve the necessary discipline for writing, but that’s not to say that it’s easy at first. The stationary nature of writing is just one of the challenges we face. The tool most of us use—our laptops—allows constant access to perhaps the greatest and most addictive distractions: the internet, social media, and our emails and messages. The keyboard on a laptop isn’t exactly inspiring to creativity the way mixing paints or mindlessly strumming on a guitar can be. For many of us, typing on a keyboard is already something we do for our jobs, and so it’s not a break from that activity but, instead, a continuation of it. Also, writing a novel or memoir is not a quick-turnaround art form; long-form writing generally requires tons of revising, too, which requires additional discipline.

But maybe, as in my case, the narrative you have in your mind about your abilities or habits is misguided, and you’re underestimating yourself. Maybe it’s based on other experiences in which you believe you lacked self-discipline. Maybe it’s an excuse to avoid writing for fear of rejection or not being good enough or any of the other hundreds of self-defeating thoughts we tell ourselves.

I’ve learned that what we’ve convinced ourselves is impossible when it comes to writing may actually be quite doable. Lacking—or appearing to lack—discipline does not have to be fatal to a book project. I’m not a therapist (and don’t even play one on TV!), but I recognize the difference between issues where talk therapy is best and those where a cognitive-behavioral approach is all that’s needed.

To me, this distinction is similar to tackling writing fears: some are tougher to manage and may require a deep dive into your thoughts and anxieties, but I believe when it  comes to achieving greater discipline, you easily have it within your power to figure out a way forward.

Do you want to write a long article or book but fear you lack the discipline? Or have you written one and discovered you actually *are* disciplined? I’d love if you wrote a little about your experience in the comments below. And please feel free to reply to each other’s comments. Thanks – your continued engagement with this newsletter is so wonderful!!