It’s often said, in one of the more glib truisms of the age, that everyone has a book in them.
Somehow, writing a book and seeing it published and available on the shelf seems to be one of those fundamental drivers of the human psyche. Maslow should have added another level to his hierarchy of needs, one immediately above the apex of the triangle: write a book. Self-actualisation taken to its logical conclusion.
To all of those people who want to write a book, my advice to all of you, without exception, is: don’t.
Step away from the laptop. Shut it down and open it up again. Let sleeping MacBooks lie. If the temptation to write overcomes you, rather phone a friend. Go to a movie. Clean out the fridge. Anything, absolutely anything, but spending time producing something that will never bring you anything but heartache and a gnawing sense of underachievement that will haunt you until your dying day.
Let’s say you ignore my advice and get down to writing anyway. You have an idea for a book in your head, and you feel compelled to get it on to paper. Furthermore, you don’t just talk about writing a book, you actually get down to it. You will then choose hunching over a keyboard over meeting with friends. You’ll be in a bad mood because the next chapter isn’t coming together the way you had planned in your head and you take it out on the people you meet for drinks at the Jolly. Your weekends of carefree leisure will become a distant memory. Every moment in which you are doing nothing is another moment in which you could be writing, but aren’t.
Writing is the loneliest thing in the world. The chances of success are minimal. And once you do decide to write, that somehow writing is a part of who you are, you will never again be able to walk into a bookstore without feeling like a complete and utter failure.
Let’s say that the loneliness of the long-distance writer doesn’t prompt you to throw in the towel. You persist in this thankless task.
Even if you do complete your manuscript, there’s every chance it might be totally crap and nobody will ever publish it.
Even if you do find a publisher, they’ll assign you an editor who will make changes that you hate.
Even if the manuscript is typeset and reaches book form, it won’t be marketed properly.
Even if your book is released, nobody will review it and so nobody will know about it.
Even if you have a book signing, nobody will show up and you’ll sit there with a terrible echoing hollow in the space once occupied by your sense of self.
Even if your book does get reviewed, and it is on the shelf, people won’t buy it, because people in South Africa don’t buy books, especially not books by South Africans.
Even if you do find your book on the shelf — finally — and watch as somebody looks at it and says, “I know the author!” and you offer to sign a copy for them, you will notice that when they get to the cashier, they won’t have a copy of your book with them, and you’ll stand there in awkward silence and pretend that everything is OK, even though you know you have wasted another year of your life writing something that nobody will read.
Let’s face it, your chances of writing an international best seller are somewhat less than the statistical likelihood of Robert Mugabe announcing his retirement and devoting himself henceforth to the organisation of cake sales to raise funds for the BNP. Success happens to other people. (If you lower your expectations and go local, remember that publishing for the South African market can only ever be a hobby. You can only do it if you have a day job; if I add up all the royalties I’ve earned for five books over the years, it amounts to less than two months’ net salary. From an economic point of view, writing makes no sense at all.)
So, if you want to write, don’t. Let it go. Realise that alluring though the idea might seem, it is not worth it. Trust me on this one. The only reason I do it is that it is a compulsion and I can’t help myself. I am quite literally addicted to writing, and I do it even though I know it is bad for me. If I had any real choice in the matter, I’d have long since taken up extreme knitting instead.
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