Your dream book may be the very thing keeping you from writing the real one.
The most dangerous version of your book may be the beautiful one in your head.
The book in your head is like a snow globe. You can hold it up and see the whole world inside it. And when you shake it, the whole thing sparkles.
But just like that snow globe, that version of your book does nothing but sit inside the glass on your desk where no one can see it but you.
The real book requires you to break open that pretty little snow globe, then get to work putting it back together piece by piece.
By the end of this post, you’ll understand what it really takes to get your snow globe out of your head and onto the page.
Why Your Dream Book Feels So Good in Your Head
If your book is still unfinished, it probably means one very important thing: It has become emotionally important to you. It gives you something.
When you think about the book, you may feel hope or a little emotional lift that says, “This could be something really great.”
And you might imagine the finished version and the cover and the reader who loves it and the feeling of finally being able to say, “I did it. I’m an author.”
For a while, that hope or that vision can be useful. Every book begins as something only you can see. You need that private vision before the actual work can take shape.
But at some point, the book has to leave that private place.
And that’s where things get harder because the book in your head gives you the feeling of endless possibility.
What the Real Book Asks of You
The real book, on the other hand, asks you to make decisions.
It asks you to sit with a chapter that feels flat or the scene that’s not really working or the character who suddenly won’t behave the way you planned.
It asks you to keep going on the days when the whole thing feels a lot less like magic and a lot more like drudgery.
And that change can feel surprisingly painful.
Your brain loves the dream because the dream gives you that emotional reward right away with no effort. You can picture the finished book and feel close to it without having to solve anything. You can carry it around all day in your head and still believe it without doing a stitch of work on it.
The draft is different.
The draft makes you deal with the actual shape of the thing. It means you have to get in there and start creating. And creating is messy and often difficult and frustrating. Suddenly, things aren’t as fun as they might have looked from the outside.
When Procrastination Comes In
That’s why procrastination can get so sneaky with writers.
Sometimes you’re avoiding the work because the work is hard.
But sometimes you’re also trying to keep hold of that feeling that the dream gives you. You want the book to stay full of possibility just a little longer because once you start making it real, it has to become specific.
It has to become this chapter, this scene, this ending, this version.
And what if you make the wrong decision? What if you can’t make the dream in your head come true?
That’s where the brain pulls back and says, “No, let’s just keep dreaming. That’s more fun.”
But of course, as long as you stick to dreaming, you’ll never finish your book. You’ll never know what it’s like to have that dream come true.
So, let’s go through the reasons why your brain loves hanging on to this dream version of your book because this isn’t all your fault.
Your brain’s working against you here.
1) Your Dream Book Gives You a Reward Right Away
The first reason your brain wants to hang on to the dream version of your book is that the dream gives you a reward right away.
The real book usually doesn’t.
And I know that sounds a little strange because writing can feel wonderful sometimes. There are those days when everything goes right and you get up from the chair thinking, “Yes, this is why I do this.”
But a lot of the time, especially once you’re past the shiny beginning, writing feels like sitting down with a problem that you don’t know how to solve yet.
You thought the scene was going to work and then it just sat there. Or you thought the character’s motivation made sense, and then halfway through the chapter, you realize something’s off.
That is the real book.
The dream book is a lot easier on your brain.
With the dream book, you can picture the finished thing and get the emotional payoff now. You can imagine the cover and the reader who loves it, and you can imagine what it will feel like to finally put that finished copy on your shelf.
Your brain likes that because it gets a little taste of the reward without having to go through the hard part first.
Thinking about the book can make you feel better right now.
How Working on the Book is Different from Dreaming About It
Working on the book, on the other hand, may make you feel awkward and uncertain and irritated and frustrated or suddenly aware of everything you still have to learn.
So your brain does the very human thing it always does: It drifts toward the version that feels better.
So, what do you do to start making this dream book real?
You have to start moving some of the reward back onto the page. You want to give your brain something to feel good about now.
For example, at the end of the writing session, ask yourself, “How did I move forward today? Even by a little?”
You extract anything positive you can get from your writing session that you can focus on, and you give your brain a reward for that. Then your brain starts associating the real work with the relief, the satisfaction, and the forward motion you want.
In summary: celebrate a lot more often, and build rewards into your writing process, and your brain will cooperate a lot more.
2) Your Dream Book Starts Carrying Too Much of You
The second reason your brain may want to hang on to the dream version of your book is that the book has started carrying too much of who you are.
And this can happen really easily.
You start out with an idea. Maybe it’s a story you’ve wanted to tell for years. Or it’s the book that came to you during a hard season of your life. Maybe it feels connected to your purpose or some part of you that’s been waiting a long time to finally come forward.
So, of course, it matters to you.
But somewhere along the way, the book can stop feeling like a project and start feeling like a test.
So now the question is no longer, “Can I solve this scene?” or “Can I finish this draft?”
It becomes, “What does this book prove about me?” And that’s a much heavier question.
Because if the book stays in your head, it can still prove that you’re talented and brilliant and have something meaningful to say.
But once you start making the book real, your brain knows the test has begun.
Now the book might disappoint you. Or it might show you where your skills need more work. Or it can make you face the gap between the writer you hoped you were and the writer you’re still becoming.
And that can feel threatening.
The Self-Worth Theory
There’s a theory in psychology called self-worth theory. And the basic idea is that when people tie their worth too tightly to their performance on something, they may start protecting themselves from situations where failure could seem to prove something painful about them.
In that kind of situation, avoiding the work can feel safer than trying hard and risking the possibility that the result will still fall short.
And this makes perfect sense when it comes to working on our books. Because if finishing the book feels like it’ll answer some huge question about whether we’re really talented or not, if we’re smart or not, or if we can do this or not, then the brain may pull back.
So, what do we do?
The best thing is to take some of that identity weight off the book. This one book is not your whole identity.
You are not the person just trying to finish this one project. You are a whole human being. You may be a mother, a father, a daughter, a son, a sister, a brother, a friend, a teacher, a caregiver, a professional, a person with a home and a history and a life outside of this manuscript.
You have gifts that don’t begin and end with these pages. And even as a writer, this one book is not the whole story.
Writers grow by writing. They get better by finishing one story and then the next and the next. One book teaches you something. The next book teaches you something else. The book after that teaches you something you could not have understood from the first one.
That’s how you build a writing life.
Put Less Pressure on the Book
So when you put all your identity into this one book, you make the book too heavy to carry.
Now it has to prove that you’re talented, that you have a future in writing, that you’re worthwhile, that you’re serious, and that you have a right to call yourself a writer all at the same time.
No wonder your brain wants to keep it safely inside the snow globe!
So try changing the question. Instead of asking, “What does this book prove about me?” ask, “What is this book asking me to learn next?”
That can help lower the threat that your brain feels.
Then remember that this one book does not have to prove your whole future. You can write another book after that and another one. Just write this book and then move on.
3) Your Dream Book Still Feels Inspired
The third reason your brain may want to hang on to the dream version of your book is that the dream still feels inspired.
The real book might not.
This is one of those things that can really mess with you as a writer because in the beginning, the book may feel like it came with its own little battery pack. You think about it in the shower. You get ideas when you’re driving. A scene pops into your mind right before you fall asleep, and suddenly you’re reaching for your phone because you have to write it down before you lose it.
That part can feel magical.
So when the book starts feeling a little harder later on, it’s very easy to think something has gone wrong.
But that’s not usually what’s happening.
What may be happening instead is that the newness has worn off. And your brain loves newness.
Researchers have found that novelty activates parts of the brain connected with motivation and reward. New things wake the brain up. It can give you that little push of energy that makes a project feel exciting before the hard work gets started.
But when the work does get more difficult, and it always does, you may find that your brain is a lot less excited about working on this book now. Which may be why it’s still unfinished.
So what do you do?
Allow Your Feelings About the Book to Change
You stop expecting the book to keep feeling the way it felt at the beginning.
We have to understand that the feeling will change as the book moves from dream to draft. Some days it may still feel exciting, but other days it might feel completely ordinary or even frustrating.
But that ordinary or frustrated feeling does not automatically mean something’s wrong. It may simply mean the book has moved into the building stage.
So instead of asking, “Do I still feel inspired?” you want to ask, “All right, what does commitment look like today?”
To finish a book, you have to be committed to it.
It’s kind of like getting married. You’re there through the good and the bad all the way until you write the end.
Your Dream Book Needs a Construction Site
So how can you move this dream of your book into reality?
Stop approaching your book like it’s supposed to be beautiful every time you look at it. That’s just the snow globe mindset, and that’s what can keep your book unfinished.
Instead, before you sit down to work on it, imagine that you’re walking onto a construction site.
Seriously, put your imaginary hard hat on.
In fact, if you want to go all in on this mindset, I’ve linked a toy construction hard hat you can get on Amazon here.
So you put your hard hat on and you walk onto the construction site. It’s going to give you a whole different feeling.
What do you see? The floor’s a mess and there’s dust everywhere and half the wall is missing.
And now ask yourself, “What kind of work does the book need from me today?”
Maybe it’s demolition day. Something has to come out. Or it’s a framing day, and you need to work on structure. Or it’s a writing day, and you need to connect a few scenes.
That one shift in mindset, from staring at your perfect story in the snow globe with sparkles in it to getting to work on a construction site, can change the whole feeling around your book.
Because when you understand you’re on a construction site, you expect the mess and you just get to work.
And that’s what helps you move from dreaming about the book to actually finishing it.
*For more help getting past procrastination, check out my award-winning book, Escape the Writer’s Web.