Delusion is Required to Write a Book

You don’t “start writing a book.”

You experience a brief but catastrophic psychological event.

At first it sounds reasonable:

“I’ve had an idea.”

Cute.

Then suddenly you’re Googling:

“How many words are in a novel”

“Can a person survive on iced coffee and narrative tension”

“What does it mean if all my characters accidentally have the same personality”

Writers love to say things like:

“I’m working on a manuscript.”

No. You’re sitting in bed at 1:14 am whispering:

“What if chapter three opens with rain.”

Starting a book requires an unbelievable level of self confidence.

You genuinely have to believe:

“Yes. The world needs another 97,000 words from me specifically.”

You also become deeply attached to sentences that are objectively terrible.

You reread them like:

“Oh my goodness. That’s stunning.”

The sentence:

“She walked into the room and sighed.”

Every writer has a period where they think they’re secretly a genius.

This period lasts anywhere from eleven minutes to six years.

Then comes the emotional cycle:

• this book will change literature

• this book is unreadable

• this book will change literature

• maybe I should become a florist

• this book will change literature

The most dangerous moment is telling someone you’re writing a book.

Because now they ask questions.

“What’s it about?”

You immediately forget every single thought you’ve ever had.

“It’s sort of about… people.”

And somehow every writer believes they’ll be the exception.

They think:

• I’ll calmly draft every day.

• I’ll maintain structure.

• I’ll not spiral because a side character feels “emotionally dishonest.”

Meanwhile chapter one has been rewritten thirty four times.

Writing a book is deeply humiliating.

You spend months inventing fake people and then get offended when they refuse to behave correctly.

A character you created yesterday suddenly has “their own agenda.”

Sir!

You invented him on Tuesday.

But the greatest delusion of all is believing the finished book will feel satisfying.

It won’t.

The second you type “The End,” your brain immediately says:

“Interesting. Anyway here’s another idea.”

Which is exactly why writers keep doing this to themselves.

Absolutely unwell behaviour. But I love it.