If there’s a thousand ways to do something, there’s a thousand ways to do it right. And a thousand ways to muck it up. And the truth is — you’ll never find the process that works for you, without stumbling through a few of those.
In On Writing Well, by William Zinsser, he writes about “the tyranny of the final product.” This “tyranny” is the pressure that reigns over you as you try to create. It’s the expectation that you will produce something, that in the end, after all this effort, you will have a product.
Something marketable. Something worth selling.
Well, that can kind of take some of the fun out of writing, can’t it? And it can certainly raise the stakes. What are you doing all this for, if not to have some product at the end? If not to have produced something of value and use to the world?
But the steps that a writer must go through to produce that product. Ah, therein lies the journey.
It’s said that “Ordinary people focus on the outcome; extraordinary people focus on the process.”
Producing the book is one thing — you can get it done, come hell or high water, no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you have to pour into it. But, why should it take blood, sweat, and tears? Might there not be an easier way?
The outcome of the book can be achieved, and you can pat yourself on the back once you achieve it, but might you not achieve it more easily? Isn’t there a better process, an easier way?
Well, of course, there probably is. You might have to spend some time finding it.