Six Things You Don’t Need To Write A Book

If you’ve dreamed of writing a book but you’ve never tried, then the prospect might seem daunting.  Could you really do it?  Do you have what it takes to put those words down on paper (or a screen) and produce a novel?  What do you need to be a writer? 

Well, we can start by talking about what you don’t need to success as an author.  Here are six things you don’t need before you begin your writing career.

1 A Creative Writing Degree

If your plans include a tertiary (university/college) degree and you want to write, then you could think that a degree in creative writing or fiction writing would be the perfect choice.  Think again.  Student debt is a serious burden, so if you’re planning on getting a degree, it’s best if you get a degree that really will help get a job.  And you don’t need a degree in creative writing to write well anyway!  Plenty of famous writers didn’t have degrees in creative writing.  JRR Tolkien didn’t.  CS Lewis didn’t.  Jane Austen didn’t.  Do a course in creative writing if you feel like it.  You may find it encouraging.  But it’s not essential.  What’s more, a degree in, say, geology might give you insights and specialist knowledge that you can include in your writing.

2 A Gap Year Or Sabbatical Year

In a couple of movies, I’ve seen the main characters taking a year off work so that they can write the book they’ve always wanted to write.  You might think that this is what’s holding you back from getting your novel finished… or started.  However, it’s unrealistic to take a year off from the work that pays the bills.  It’s probably not going to happen until you hit retirement age.  OK, there’s nothing wrong with starting writing once you’ve retired, but that’s a long, long time to put a dream of writing a book on hold if you are, say, in your twenties right now.  Instead, find a way to fit your writing around your work.  Even if you can only fit in ten minutes a day for writing, that’s better than no minutes a day. 

3 The Perfect Writing Studio Or Home Office

When I was a teenager, I thought that the perfect place to write would be a spot on a roof where I could look out at the sunset and the gardens.  In reality, the roof wasn’t accessible very often, so that remained a romantic daydream.  Your daydream perfect place to write might be a wood-panelled home library, a home office with all the tech or a cute little jasmine-covered gazebo out in the garden.  But you don’t need this perfect place to write.  If you can use a desktop, laptop or even pen and paper comfortably (have some respect for your spine and posture!), then you can write your novel there.  Just make sure that you’re free from distractions and/or the people you live with know not to disturb you when you’re writing (cats don’t count – they will always try to sit on the keyboard no matter what you do).

4 Special Software

Every time I turn around, there seems to be another platform or app that will help you organize your work and make you a better writer.  While these apps and platforms may be helpful for things like keeping track of your characters and locations, they aren’t essential.  Any program that will produce a document file (Microsoft Word is the obvious choice here) will do for the actual writing, whereas you can keep track of characters in any spreadsheet – or even an old-fashioned pen and paper notebook. 

5 Artificial Intelligence

If you are keen on writing, then you have what it takes to be a writer, and you’ll get there if you practice your skills.  In my opinion, using generative AI to produce content for you and calling it writing is like buying fast food and calling that cooking.  Yes, this means that you’ll have to puzzle over how to fix plot holes, edit and rewrite passages and other things yourself.  It’s not always easy.  But it’s more satisfying, and the end result is something unique that only you could do, as opposed to the generic mish-mash of what a machine spits out. 

And I’d better move on before I head off on a tangent to rant about AI.  The temptation is strong…

6 Alcohol

Hemingway was reputed to say “Write drunk; edit sober.”  I get what he means.  When you write that first draft, you need to shut up that inner critic, the self-doubt and the overthinking, and just let the words flow.  However, you don’t need alcohol to do this.  Try using music.  Do some creative warm-ups for your imagination.  Or tell yourself, “Just get the words down.  Fix it later in the edit.” 

And get writing.  Keep on writing.  Do it as often as you can.  Give yourself permission to be imperfect and write something awful as you learn your skills.  And keep on writing.  That’s what you need to write a book.

Keep on writing.  Do it as often as you can.  Give yourself permission to be imperfect and write something awful as you learn your skills.  And keep on writing.  That’s what you need to write a book.