Writing 50,000 words in 31 days: The emotional journey of writing a book
I have a confession to make.
In spring 2018 my friend Matt Essam and I made the commitment to write and publish our book within the next twelve months.
The initial idea was pretty straight forward: to keep each other accountable and update each other via WhatsApp on our word count every month to make sure we get sh*t done.
Problem was, Matt’s words count came in, while mine, well, were nowhere to be found (sad face).
Life got in the way, I started feeling bad about it and as with all things that make me feel bad, I called it a day and shelved the idea entirely.
Of course Matt being Matt, published his book on the 7th April 2020 that went on to become a number one best-seller on Amazon, while I barely wrote a few chapters down as I was too busy binge watching Netflix.
Now you may not know this, but back in 2019 I had originally set off to write a book on how to better lead and manage millennials in the workplace.
I was tired of hearing so many people (I’m looking at you Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers) complain and moan about my generation and thinking that throwing a couple of bean bags, a fresh fruit bowl and freeyoga classes would fix all their problems and create a high performing culture (spoiler alert, it doesn’t).
I wanted to write THE book every millennial wished their managers would read to better understand and relate to them.
I was also planning on writing a follow up book for millennials that every manager wished their Millennials would read to understand the value of patience, hard work and that no matter how purposeful the work you’re doing is, you still need to do things you don’t like. I know, #truthbomb.
Let it be said, I had every intention on writing those books.
I mean I even hired a book coach for a full day on the 28th February 2020 in London to help me map out the table of contents (TOC) of my soon to be epic book.
This may come as a surprise, but I actually did go on to write 12,000+ words, which admittedly isn’t much, but isn’t nothing either.
Despite my flaky career as an author, my public speaking business was picking up.
I was getting booked more and more, scheduled to deliver keynotes overseas, and the direction of my business seemed pretty straight forward: Keep giving impactful talks on purpose, leadership and millennials, and write a book that would establish my authority in this space and position me as the go-to-person for leading millennials and finding meaning and purpose at work.
Simple, right?
2020 was on track to be my best year yet.
But then, Covid-19 happened…
My 2020 goals remind me of what Mike Tyson apparently told a reporter when asked if he was worried about Evander Holyfield’s game plan for his up coming fight, to which Tyson replied, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
I won’t bore you with all the details but let’s just say that in six days I saw my entire speaking business pipeline vanish before my eyes as my inbox filled up with emails from clients letting me know they were pulling the plug on the events I was booked and paid to speak at.
Oh, and they were asking for their deposits to be refunded (double sad face).
With a new born and a toddler at home as well as having a small part-time team of freelancers depending on me, this wasn’t the news I wanted to hear.
Naturally, as I scrambled to figure out a plan B to find new ways to serve my clients, pivot and salvage 2020, I started questioning everything about what I was building and why was I building it in the first place.
Did I really want to become the face for leading millennials in the workplace?
So much so that I didn’t know if I wanted to spend the next year or so focusing on writing a book I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write anymore. Let alone the next five or ten years of my life.
That’s when on the 19th March 2020, after a few messages exchanged over on Instagram on the challenge of writing a book, former guest on my podcast ‘The Unconventionalists’, Philip McKernan recommended I join a free live online course led by Tucker Max (4 x New York Times bestseller who sold 5 million copies of his books) who along with his team at Scribe Media, were trying to do their bit during Covid-19 to help everyone write a book during the global pandemic.
It was an intense and super helpful course, which then led Scribe to launch “Scribe Book School” a new initiative for those who wanted more guidance and needed the extra support to get their books published.
That’s why on the 12th April 2020, two years after failing at keeping accountable with my friend Matt, I joined the first cohort of the Scribe Writer’s Room led by Tucker Max, Emily Gindlespargerto and Hal Clifford to get some guidance and accountability to get my book (finally) published.
I thought surely if I throw more money at it the problem, it should all get fixed, right? Wrong.
Now at this point I should probably mention that back in 2013 I sort of put myself through the same painful process.
That’s right, I wrote my first book “It’s Not You, It’s Me” a modus operandi for unfulfilled professionals looking to do more meaningful work in 2013 and self-published it in 2014.
Because I like to make the most of any event, and let’s face it, I’m an attention whore, I organised my book launch on my 30th birthday, where I asked all my guests to come dressed up as what they wanted to be when they grow up.
It was wild.
(You can still get my first book on Amazon but to I’d rather give it to you for free here.)
The reason why I’m mentioning this, is that as you can imagine, I had already been through this emotional roller coster before.
But just as with making more baby humans, you forget just how painfully brutal it all is, at least that’s what Julie tells me.
‘I hate writing, I love having written.’ — Dorothy Parker
Despite understanding the theory and process behind writing a non-fiction book and self-publishing a book thanks to my first book and the online course I took, I still had roughly 8–10 different book ideas I wanted to potentially write.
The problem was, I didn’t know which one I should focus on first. So I was stuck in the starting blocks.
That’s when I jumped on a call on the 20th April 2020 with Hal Clifford — a senior editor at Scribe who edited David Goggin’s smash hit book “You Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds” — to get help on clarifying what book I should write first.
It quickly became clear during our conversation that the problem wasn’t so much the book idea, but rather the direction of the business I was now building and the lack of clarity on what that was.
That’s when Hal dropped a truth bomb on me:
“Until you know where your business is going, you won’t solve this question.”
There it was. The hard truth that I had been avoiding all along.
What was the business I was trying to build in the middle of a global pandemic?
The truth is, I didn’t have the answer.
So I did what I always do when I’m faced with something I’m ashamed to admit out loud and feel pretty horrible inside about. I ordered a Papa John’s pizza…
You see, one thing I’ve learned over the years from my own experience as well as interviewing hundreds of world-class guests on my podcast and coaching hundreds of entrepreneurs, founders and business leaders is that whenever we are avoiding something, it usually is a good sign that that is the very thing we need to focus our time and energy on.
In short, running away from problems is never a great long term strategy. No matter how much you’d like it to be.
As the months went by, despite feeling like a mess, I would still show up on the weekly Q&A calls with the Scribe’s editors team, ask random questions to make it sound like I was busy. But really, I was procrastinating AF.
As much as I hate to say this out loud, what pained me most was to see others in my cohort of budding authors report on the thousands of words they were getting down each day or week.
While they were finishing their first drafts I was once again, sitting on the sideline, sulking, and not doing anything about it.
But here’s the thing: I knew the book I really wanted to write.
I knew the book I NEEDED to write.
But I was afraid of it.
I could hear the book calling me to write it. Like a distant drum banging in the distance.
But like all good stories, at first, I refused the call.
Because just as any protagonist in any good story knows too well, I found myself facing the hardest question of all: Do I have what it takes to meet the call?
At first I tried ignoring it. I even tried to drown out the sound of my book calling me to sit my arse in the chair and write it by keeping myself busy with other trivial things.
Steven Pressfield wrote about this, what he calls, the resistance in his gut punching book, “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles”, which is well worth a read.
Turns out, the glorification of busyness is so much sexier than facing the hard truth of how we actually feel.
However, everything changed when I reminded myself that one day I’m going to die.
It suddenly hit me (well, reading “With The End in Mind: How To Live and Die Well” by Kathryn Mannix probably helped with the epiphany).
One day everything that I have in my heart, guts, soul and brain will go with me. Unless I start putting it down on paper or record it somehow that is.
Unlike when I wrote my first book back in 2013/2014, I’m a dad now. And I don’t want my kids to grow up with fear in their hearts and self-doubt in their minds as to what they can or cannot achieve.
Life is tough as it is. The last person I want to get in their way of reaching for their dreams is themselves.
I’ve seen too many talented people riddled with self-doubt who instead of putting themselves out there to help and serve more people, ended up playing small and going to their graves with their song unsung.
Say what you want, to me that’s the biggest tragedy.
Well, not on my watch.
That’s why I want to write the book that will solve impostor syndrome for entrepreneurs who know deep down they need to get out there, but hate the idea of putting themselves out there.
I want to write a book that will help you with the emotional journey of sharing your story and putting yourself out there more to raise your profile and build an authentic personal brand that people love, connect with and gravitate towards.
I want this book to be your companion, walking side by side with you as you wrestle and grapple with your relentless saboteurs, gremlins and inner critics that will do whatever they can to stop you on your tracks to impact others and stop being the best kept secret.
Because here’s the hard truth: you can have all the tools, how-to’s, tips and tricks in the world, if you don’t address the biggest fear you have internally with the idea of exposing yourself or becoming more visible in your industry, nothing else matters.
I want my book to help you get over yourself.
I want my book to help you be yourself no matter who is in front of you.
I want my book to help you be more authentic and engaging with your words and work so people pay attention to what you have to say, or sell.
I want my book to help you find the courage to share your story authentically to transform your business, heal the world and change your life.
There it was. I had found my WHY.
The crazy thing is, despite getting clarity on the book I wanted to write, and why I wanted to write it, I still wasn’t showing up.
I was still procrastinating, avoiding sitting my arse in the chair and 100% playing small.
The irony of me writing a book about overcoming impostor syndrome and getting water boarded by self-doubt myself and gagging on feelings on inadequacy, especially around who the hell do I think I am to write this book, is not lost on me.
(I’m also dyslexic which probably doesn’t help in the writing department, and why you’re probably noticed a few spelling mistakes or typos in this article…)
But then something else hit me like a ton of bricks.
I needed the permission to write a really shitty first draft. (Or what Anne Lamott calls, a ‘vomit draft’)
It was on Tuesday 22nd September 2020, while on a Q&A with published authors from the Scribe community, I heard Darius Mirshahzadeh (author of The Core Value Equation) say that what helped him the most was to just follow the process and know that it was OK for him to write a really shitty first draft.
It sounds silly, but that’s exactly what I needed to hear: that I have the permission to suck.
That it was OK for me to write something absolutely rubbish, in order to then go through another process to make it better. And eventually, hopefully, write the best book I possibly can.
As my friend and best-selling author Graham Allcott described it to me, “your first draft is like your raw materials, then you sculpt!”
Another way to think about it is to compare it to truffles.
Stick with me.
Truffles are one of the most sought after and luxurious mushrooms in the market. And yet, do you know where you find truffles?
In dirt.
That’s right, you’ve got to go through some nasty dirt to get to the gold you’re after. To the truffles.
And I think that’s a lesson for life in general.
“Life is like a box of truffles…”
With that new found liberating feeling, on Thursday 22nd October 2020 (admittedly almost a whole month after my “aha” moment) , I sat in my chair and started writing.
It took me over seven months to actually start writing.
What also helped a ton was to join my fellow “Avenger” David McQueen’s 7am Writer’s Club, an initiative I apparently sparked after mentioning the idea to him on our WhatsApp group.
As having a bunch of us write at the same time at a dedicated time made it easier to show up and just write.
But once I started and committed to the process, I have not missed a single day of writting.
That’s right, I have been writing every single day, be it for 10min or 1hr, and let me tell you, I’m shocked at how much I’ve been able to achieve over the last 31 days.
The thing is, I’m still very much in the middle of this whole battle with my own saboteurs and gremlins around my validity to write this book.
Honestly, despite knowing how many lives I’ve transformed and impacted through my words and work over the years (read some of the success impact stories here), every single time I sit down to write all I can hear are the thousand and one voices inside my head telling me just how everything I’m writing is rubbish, pointless and unoriginal.
They’re trying their very best to convince me that no one will care about my book and that I will just look like a fool should anyone read a single word.
And yet, despite feeling all of those things and wrestling with all those thoughts, I’m still making sitting down in the chair and writing a non-negotiable, every single day. No matter how I’m feeling.
Just like I make brushing my teeth twice a day a non-negotiable no matter how tired or how late (or early) it is. Or how I feel, I get it done.
I’m happy to tell you that as of today, I’ve written over 53,000 words of my vomit draft and I still have six chapters to go (and the conclusion and intro to write, but I’ll leave that for last).
And yes, it’s mostly rubbish but I’m OK with that. Because if I keep it at this rate I should have my vomit draft done by the end of November, and then I can really get to work.
Which would be a huge win.
Seth Godin wasn’t kidding when he said:
“Here’s the thing: the book that will most change your life is the book you write.”
Because this book is KICKING MY ASS! But I also know that I need to write it.
Knowing that one day it may change the course of your life because it made the difference between you playing small and you showing up to have a bigger impact on the world with your message and with your story, will mean the world to me.
It really will.
I wanted to share with you my journey so far because too many times we hear the polished version of the finished product, but very rarely do we hear the story of someone struggling while being in the trenches.
Well let me tell you, I am definitely in the trenches!
I will no doubt need your help in the coming weeks as I lean in to ask you what you’d like me to cover in the book, as I want to make sure it’s valuable and helpful to you too.
(If you’d like to help shape my new book and get access to behind the scenes of writing a non-fiction book, come and join my Book Team for free by clicking here.)
But for now, it’s time for me to finish this vomit draft, no matter how long it takes me.
Before I go, if for whatever reason you needed the permission to write something mediocre today, or record something that wasn’t perfect, or just give yourself the permission to suck in public, here it is. This is the sign you’ve been waiting for.
You need to get through dirt to get to the truffles, so what muck are you will to create today to get to your truffles tomorrow?
I can’t wait to hear in the comments below.
Mark
PS: This article contains affiliate links to products and services. Meaning I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. Thanks for your support 🙏
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Mark Leruste is the Founder and Host of The Unconventionalists podcast and is on a mission to help entrepreneurs make an impact on the world with their message. To find out more or follow his journey, go to www.markleruste.com.
