3 questions to ask yourself before writing you book (Writer Mindset)

When I was about ten I wrote a terrible poem that made me cry as I wrote it. I put it under my pillow and took it out at night sometimes. Whenever I reread it, I cried without fail—and without knowing why. I couldn’t then, let alone now, tell you what it was about, nor why it had this effect, time after time.

When I write now, it often feels like I’m sitting in a room with a number of the people who are parts of me. They show themselves and speak to me. Sometimes they’re like fish in a deep pond and I only catch a glimpse before they submerge again. Other times, one sits down in front of me and speaks to me for hours. It feels like magic—I have entered the land of storybooks where such things are possible, only I am here in this world, finding that they are possible.

These are some of the instances in my life that have shown me why I write. The common theme at such times—times when I turn to writing as the only thing that I can think to do—is that it saves me from something.

It saves me from a feeling of total lack of control.

It saves me from fear and anxiety.

When I boil it right down, it saves me from myself: first by providing a means to exorcise the particular demon I’m suffering under; and second, by showing me things about myself or my situation that I couldn’t see beforehand.

In these moments of writing I do not wonder if the work might win a prize, or get published in a journal, or become part of a book one day (though those thoughts do plague me on and off in ways I find duly uncomfortable). In the moments mentioned above, I turned to it as I would a friend, and poured forth my anguish and worry; or I turned to it with a question I had in mind to ask myself, and let the process show me something that invariably made me feel better.

I found comfort and catharsis and meaning in these acts of writing, and a deep sense of perspective (not to mention achievement) at having done so. I found a direct way to communicate with my heart/mind/past—in a nutshell, with my self.

I’ve always turned to writing in the throes of intense emotion or worry.

Now my challenge becomes to write as a matter of habit, whether I have something that I feel I “need” to convey to the page or not.

Why do you write?

Not only is it a question we often forget to ask ourselves, but the answer brings solutions and resolutions of its own. If you know why you write, you are less likely to perceive vague feelings of failure in your practice. You are more likely to find fulfilment in the process. You will find goals much more achievable. And you will be able to come to your writing with a clear justification as to why you're taking time out from your family/chores/workday/downtime.

As I've said, I am compelled to write because it is my last line of defense in desperate states; I continue to write because it strengthens my relationship to myself, and because it has inadvertently become the craft I’ve built my life and livelihood around. My challenge, as I seek to evolve my writing practice, is to take that relationship and make it more consistent—less dependent on extremes, and more regular and habitual.

I’m interested in your why.

And I’m interested in the challenge that’s presented by that why.

Are you starting a book? Or have you already started on one? There are a few pre-writing questions you should ask yourself to get that writers mindset to begin writing your book. If you’ve already started on your book, it might be time to see how your flashback will look like.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself, as a writer, before writing your book.

Find your WHO

Finding yourself is the first step to a writers mindset. Find who YOU are, who YOU want to be, and who do YOU see yourself as in the future (after completing your writing project)

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Who am I right now?

o What are my passions?

o Where am I in achieving my goals?

o How far am I in my writing?

• Who do I see myself as in the future?

o What would I exceed in?

o How would my writing differ from my current style?

o Where would I bein achieving my goals (have I achieved them?)

Find your WHAT

The next step is finding your WHAT, aka, you passion. Find out what inspires you to keep going forward with this passion, find out what pushes you into completing your projects. Is it the fact that you can experience the bliss of completing your book, or the fact that you can finally publish it?

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• What inspires me the most?

• What pushes me forward?

• What makes me want top be better?

• What motivates me to continue on?

Find your WHY

The last step is finding your WHY, why do you want to invest your time and effort into your writing project? Why do you find it worth completing? Is it because it improves the skills I need for my career or because I want to impact somebody with my writing.

Here are a few questions:

• Why do I want to finish this book?

• Why do I want to invest myself in it?

• Why is it the most important project compared to the others?

• Why should I focus on this particular idea?

Remember what I asked in the beginning of the post, about finding out how your flashback will look like? It was not about a flashback in a story but YOUR flashback, what you see when you look back over your life. Have you achieved the answers to those questions yet?

I have fallen into routines, paths and situations - all very reactionary. It's like being pulled along with the current.

The idea of "What will your flashback look like?" comes from doing a self audit, especially as we get older. Looking back over our lives. Are we happy with where we ended up? Where we are now? Where we are going?

I recently read Seneca - On The Shortness Of Life (excellent and very small book))

Here are some parts from the book that resonated with me and brought about this "self audit", let me know if any of the resonate with you:

"People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy."

"Call to mind when you ever had a fixed purpose; how few days have passed as you had planned; when you were ever at your own disposal; when your face wore its natural expression; when your mind was undisturbed."

"You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you dont notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply...."

Your turn...

It's time I turn it to you, my dear readers...here's a few questions to ponder:

- What do you think your flashback will look like when you get into the twilight of your years?

- Where are you presently and how happy are you there?

- What is your biggest regret right now?