On Considering Giving Back the Advance and Not Writing the Book
The past week or so has been a wild ride.
You can hear more in this 4-ish minute podcast episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
AND/OR: You can read the podcast episode transcript below.
(Yes. This is why I call this portion of the website A Writer’s Diary. Tada!)
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A Writer’s Diary with Charlotte Donlon Podcast Episode 32 Transcript:
Alright. It's time for some real talk, and I guess some background noise because my dryer is on right now.
I have quit writing my book at least three times over the past seven or eight days, and I say three times because I have texted Lauren Winner three times about quitting this book. I think the first text was something along the lines of, "I don't have to write books to be happy. I'm happy. I'm fulfilled. I love my work as a spiritual director for writers. I love my life. Do I have to write this book? I don't have to write this book."
And then my second text was something along the lines of, "I mean, I can give back the advance, right? I just give back the advance and end the contract and not write the book. Just because I'm under contract to write the book doesn't mean I have to write the book, right?"
And then my third text was something like, "It's just so much work, so much energy and time and attention, and I don't know if it's worth it." And again, I reiterated that I love my work as a spiritual director for writers, and just because I could write a decent book about spiritual direction for writers doesn't mean I have to write a book about spiritual direction for writers, right? Just because we're good at something or we could do something well, or mostly well, doesn't mean we have to do it.
And then I decided to just write the damn book. It's almost written. I mean, it's not written. I have 66,000 words that need to be massaged into real sentences and paragraphs and chapters, but I have so many words for this book already. I have my chapters. I love my chapters. I have the three parts of the book, which I love, which are amazing.
But I'm doing what I tell my children not to do, which is look at the whole thing all at once, which is:
all of the hours I've already put into this,
all of the hours I'm about to put into this,
all of the marketing
and the talking about it
and trying to convince people to buy it and read it,
and I'm thinking about all of that in one five-minute period of time,
and my body wants to shut down because no one was made to do all of that in five minutes.
That's work that's done over months and even a couple of years, so I'm doing the thing I've told my kids not to do, and I just need to take it one day at a time and go write the book.
And Lauren's advice, which is good advice, is go somewhere for three hours, write for an hour, do something else for an hour, and write for another hour, and then go home and do the other things you need to do at home.
I have time to write the book. I just get overwhelmed when I think about all of it, because I've done this before and I know what's involved and I know what it's going to take out of me, and it's a lot, and it's definitely not for the money. Even if this book sells well, I'm not going to make a lot of money.
We just don't do this for the money.
And as I've said before, maybe on Instagram or somewhere, if I were to quit writing this book and give back the advance and not write the book, I would then want to write about not writing the book.
It's just what I do. It's who I am. I write.
Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. She’s currently writing her next book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024(ish). Subscribe to Daily Nourishment here. Subscribe to Five Good Things here.