So You Think You Can’t Write?

In my experience, most people say can’t when they mean won’t. When I tell people what I do, most say, “I can’t write a book.”

Maybe they don’t write well, never learned to type or are devoid of ideas. They might have a hectic home or work life.

If I was a betting man, I’d wager the problem is verb confusion. They think they can’t do write a book, when the reality is they won’t.

So you “can’t” type. Even hunters-and-peckers can write 31 words in an hour (barely half a word per minute), right?

Would you say you send e-mails about 31 words long every day? I do.

OK, writing 31 word e-mails once per hour 8 times a day produces almost 250 words — a double-spaced typewritten page.

Multiply that by 251 days (assuming you don’t e-mail on weekends). In a year, you have written 62,250 words. That’s a full-length novel — longer, in fact, than my second novel, The Revelation Gate.

Well, maybe that’s not your excuse. You can manage the typing, but those are e-mails and you can’t think of an interesting book topic.

Sure you can.

What type of movies do you like? I watch action, adventure, and larger-than-life fantasy. That’s what I write. Write what you know, or study what you like and write it. Everybody has a story to tell.

Your mindset could be blocking a potentially lucrative writing career.

Author Brian L. Thompson is the president of Great Nation Publishing and author of the Christian fiction thriller The Lost Testament, and The Revelation Gate. You can read more about Brian by visiting his author site.