WHY IT IS HARD TO WRITE A BOOK

--also called Excuses For Unfinished Stories

Okay, I am good at writing,  honestly. And having spent my whole life, which isn't really that long,  granted,  but still, my whole life in fictional worlds of varying levels of realism,  my ability to think of stories is quite satisfactory to say the least. As a volunteer, I had once managed an entire class of second graders by spinning a yarn on the spot, making each of them a chateaus in a world of insects, much to the joy of the teacher. But do I have a book published in my name?  No! 

My first excuse is laziness.  I might have the best spry in my head,  but I am on the bed,  and there are no books or papers around to record my ideas in.  You can't possibly expect a person to get up and go all the way to her desk to grab some stationary on the of chance that this story might be the next *drumroll* Booker Prize nominee,  right?

And then there is social media.*sigh*  Sometimes I wonder if an alarm goes off when I start writing.  An alarm that blares Warning! Must divert writer! Warning! Distract the writer from her aim! Warning! Warning!  the second I begin my story.  There I will be,  writing the title of my work in neat calligraphy, with a determined and organised mind mapping of the storyline,  when my friends remember my existence and message me. And sometimes,  they have emergencies where I morally can't shoo them off with a candy. A bout of self-pity,  a case of exam fear,  a sudden emergence of the nobody-cares-about-me-not-even-my-bestfriend syndrome, or a call from my eternal love. Bottomline, by the time I am done,  my creative juices have coagulated or simply vaporised into nothing, dooming my story before it ever began. 

Of course,  sometimes my writing progresses beyond the first chapter.  It even goes till eighth, or rarely,  eighteenth. But sooner or later the train of thought dies.  I hit a wall,  and I am at loss as to how to carry forward with the story.  Or I lose track of all the characters, and half-easy through the story,  I realise that the character I am writing about had already been killed off few chapters and plot twists ago. Torn between deleting the chapters and claiming a miraculous recovery or escape,  I do the easiest thing.  I put the book away and let it gather dust. And get gnawed by rodents. Or disintegrate into nothing.  (What does happen to notebooks which are put aside for eternity? Papers today are biodegradable right?)

Then of course comes the lack of interest. By the time I reach the climax of my story,  I have already finalised the last few chapters down to the commas and exclamations in my head, and I simply can not bring myself to patiently write it down,  seeing as it is practically embedded in my memory.*yawn*. This is the main reason I discourage people from reading anything I write before I am done.  I might suddenly kill all the characters in a freak attack,  simply to be done with it,  while they are left wondering which inferno of Dante's is suitably bad enough for me. *shudders*

 Last, but not the least, is the fact that I love reading. I forget about anything I could be writing the second I come across a book I haven't read before,  and poof, threw is yet another book that will never get published. 

Any amateur writer can relate.  The reasons some people manage to publish their amazing books is that one, it is freaking awesome! , and two, they have the patience to see the story through.  Kudos to them.  Me? I will go grab another book and read it for now.