Are You All Talk and No Action?

This article is about the tendency of a lot of aspiring authors to talk about writing a lot but not actually write. If you suspect that’s something you do, then here’s how to turn talk into action.

Why I’m Writing This

Picture this: I’m in a café, chatting with a friend. “I’ve got this great idea for a novel,” they say, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. They tell me the idea. It’s pretty good. I give them some advice about how to how to get started on a story. They seem enthusiastic. I look forward to reading their novel.

Fast forward months, even years. No novel materialises.

This happens all the time. People tell me they’d like to write a novel, or even that they’ve started work on a novel. Few of them ever seem to finish, though. It’s disappointing, and I wondered why it happens so much, so I decided to investigate.

When I ask them what happened, the things they say are usually one of four common stories.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

“I’m too busy.”

Ah, the old classics are the best.

“I’m too tired after work.” or “I’m too busy.” are stories we tell ourselves. Now I’m not saying you’re not tired after work, or aren’t busy, but almost all authors have day jobs and responsibilities. There’s always going to be things happening and competing pressures in everyone’s life. Believe me, I’ve done everything I can to clear my own schedule and there are still plenty of non-writing things I have to do. It’s inevitable. There’s never a “perfect” time when everything else disappears and you can sit down and write.

I’ll make some suggestions for about how to make time for writing later, but for now let’s just note that you’re always going to have to fit your writing in around something.

“I just didn’t feel inspired.”

This is what I call the Amadeus Myth. The Amadeus Myth is much beloved by the media. It tells us that writing is all about genius and inspiration, and once that mythical inspiration descends from the heavens, we’ll just write that masterpiece, probably in a thirty-second montage with a soundtrack of upbeat music.

I mean, do you really think that’s how published authors write?

If you’re waiting for your muse to descend from the heavens, you’ll probably be waiting forever. Published authors don’t wait for inspiration—they sit down and write.

“I don’t have a good enough idea.” is a similar story. Some people believe they need a completely original, brilliant idea before they can even start writing. This is a myth I talked about in Why Great Ideas are Worth Nothing.

“It wasn’t as good as I hoped, so I gave up.”

This is a very common one. One of the most pernicious problems writers have is overcoming self-doubt.

We have an idea for a story, and it’s great, so we start writing it. And then our perfectionist internal critic tells us it’s not good enough. We decide the story will never be good enough, because we’re not talented enough. We think our friends will laugh at us. And so the story never gets written at all.

This kind of thinking causes a mental block called perfectionism-paralysis, and there is a solution, which I’ll explain later.

“Someone criticised it and I gave up.”

This is like the previous reason, except the criticism wasn’t internal, it was external. A reaction to negative feedback paralyses some writers.

Like perfectionism-paralysis, this comes back to being outcome-focused: caring so much about what might, perhaps, happen after we’ve written the story that we end up never actually writing it.

Talk isn’t Cheap

People say talk is cheap, but for a writer failing to turn talk into action costs. The longer we put off writing, the more daunting it becomes, and the easier it gets to give up completely.

But consider this: if you don’t stop being all talk and no action, then one day you’ll be looking back at your life and then the story you’ll tell yourself will have to be:

I wish I’d written a book.

Do you want that to be your story?

How to Turn Talk into Action

So how do we break this vicious circle? Here are some strategies that work:

Set Realistic Goals

Don’t aim to write a bestseller in a month, or even a chapter a day. Here are a couple of more realistic suggestions:

• Write 500 words a day.
• Spend one hour a day writing.

If you write 500 words a day, that’s over 180,000 words a year, or two novels a year. Okay, you’ll probably need to edit your book and do other things to get your book published, so let’s compromise and say you’ll easily be able to publish a novel a year if you write 500 words a day. How would that be?

Oh, those goals are too much? That’s fine. How about:

• Write 100 words a day.
• Spend fifteen minutes a day writing.

There. Can you spare fifteen minutes a day from your busy schedule?

If you write 100 words a day, that’s over 36,000 a year, or a 70,000-word novel every two years, which would be pretty good, wouldn’t it?

The point is to start small, but commit to your goal.

Enjoy Writing for Itself

I talked earlier about the dangers of outcome focussed thinking: worrying about what might happen after you write your story so much you never even finish it—which when you think about it is ridiculous. There’s a better way of thinking that helps you avoid that problem and it’s to just enjoy the process instead of worrying about the future.

Here’s a Steve Jobs quote that shows that enjoying the work in itself is the key to success:

This is what’s called process-focused thinking: committing to doing the best we can, deciding to just get on with it and have fun writing without considering the future. Don’t look back. Don’t look forward. Just be in the moment, enjoying writing.

Because, you know, writing in itself is a rewarding activity. That’s not to say it’s easy, because it isn’t, but that’s part of what makes it rewarding. Embrace the challenge of finding the right word, of creating an exciting scene or crafting a great plot twist. Like any puzzle, the reward is solving it.

Another way to enjoy your writing is to write the kind of story you enjoy. Don’t write something because you think that’s what you ‘ought to’ write. Once you give yourself permission to write something you enjoy, it’s much more fun.

Similarly, skip to writing the parts of your story that you enjoy writing. Write those and the rest will follow. You might not even need the less enjoyable sections. If they don’t excite you, they probably won’t excite anyone else, so why have them?

Find a Writing Time

The reality is you don’t find time to write; you make time to write. I know several writers whose main writing time is during their daily commute, for example.

Carve out a specific time and place for writing, even if it’s fifteen minutes. Treat it as an appointment. Put it in your diary.

Some good times are:

• As soon as you wake up.
• During your lunch-break at work.
• During your commute.
• Whenever you’re waiting for things/people.
• As soon as you get home from work.
• While a meal is cooking.
• Before sitting down to watch television at night.
• Last thing at night.

A good way of sticking to your writing time is to use the Pomodoro Technique.

Something to consider if you have limited spare time is using your iPhone for writing. It’s a good way of getting ideas down when it’s not possible to get your laptop out. Alternatively, a pen and notebook is a good way of capturing that great idea for a scene you just had.

Join a Writing Group

Another great way of turning talk into action is to join a writing group.

I think this is the most important advice that I can give to any aspiring writer. I’ve written extensively about how great writing groups are and how all aspiring writers should join one (see Why you should join a writing group). Two of the main reasons are that a writing group encourages you to write, and that writing group meetings provide a deadline to get a version of the story ready. A writing critique group can also help you have a constructive attitude to having your writing critiqued, and to deal with criticism as an author. All these things help you turn talk into action.

Conclusion: Turn Talk into Action

So, how about, after you finish reading this article, you write one sentence? Then write another. Don’t stare at the sentences and start hating yourself. Just write. Enjoy it.

If you have to think of the future, think about how that time when you’ll hold your completed book in your hands. It will be enormously satisfying. Even finishing the first draft will be a huge achievement, worthy of celebrating. Both will be proof of your creativity and, just as important, your determination. No one will be able to say you’re all talk and no action once you’ve actually written the book you said you were going to write, can they?

And who knows? If you finish the story, you might even sell it. Every published author you admire was once an aspiring author. The only difference is they stopped talking about writing and actually wrote.

So, are you ready to turn talk into action? Well, let’s go then!

How to Turn Talk into Action: Things to Do

• Schedule your writing time.
  • Choose a specific time and place for writing.
  • Add it to your calendar as a recurring appointment.
• Set an achievable daily goal.
  • Commit to writing a number of words (or for an amount of time) each day.
  • Start with 100 words or 15 minutes each day.
  • If you meet your goal for a month, set a new goal, but keep it achievable.
  • Make a tracker to tick off each day you achieved your goal.
• Identify the story you tell yourself about why you don’t write.
  • Write a counter-story, a story about how you can write.
• Join a writing group.
• Reward yourself.
  • Decide on a reward for each week of consistent writing.
  • Choose bigger rewards for milestones like finishing each chapter and completing your first draft.
  • Choose rewards that genuinely motivate you.
• Remember, the key is to start small and build consistency.

Need Help?

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