1. MY EDITOR IS A SADIST

I called my editor a sadist only for shock value. Actually, he’s an engaging, gentle fellow who likes dogs. But he’s also a demanding, meticulous taskmaster, much smarter than me. After a month reviewing my manuscript, he produced 60 PAGES of notes, single spaced, outlining my deficiencies as a writer and a human being. He didn’t say, “put a comma here, and choose a different word there.” It was more like, “the entire structure of your manuscript sucks, and here are the 5000 things you must do in the re-write.” I highly recommend him.

2. PEOPLE KEEP ASKING ME WHEN MY BOOK WILL BE FINISHED

It takes a lot of time to answer the same question, several times per day. I wish my mum would stop calling.

3. WORD COUNT

My book is a memoir, and the book industry has decided memoirs by non-famous people (me, so far) must be 80,000 to 90,000 words to sell. No one in the industry talks about the number of pages…my book would fit on one page if the type was really, really tiny. A 90,000 word book will be about 275 to 300 pages, depending.

My first draft was 140,000 words. I cut it to 120,000 words before I gave it to my editor, knowing it would be cut further. My editor told me to cut about 40,000 more words because they were either crap or the stories didn’t fit my narrative arc (I didn’t know I had a narrative arc). That got me down to 80,000, but my editor also said I had to fill in all the missing parts to make the story flow. That got me back up to 130,000. I’ve been cutting for the last three months, almost there with 102,000 words.

See why it’s taken so long? I’ve already written two books’ worth of words.

4. PERIODS OF DEPRESSION

Everything I read on publishing tells me it’s impossible to get published, that most writers starve. Except the Chicken Soup For the Soul series has sold 500 MILLION copies. That’s not even literature, just a set of worn stories and platitudes collected by the “author.” Understand the depression now?

5. SOCIAL MEDIA

Time spent on Twitter, Facebook and designing and feeding my website is time spent not writing. However, every agent and publisher will enquire about my social platform, my “personal brand.” As my wife says, “Billy, I think social media is cheesier than you want to be.”

6. WILLIAM

I share my given name with the greatest writer in the history of the English language. That’s a lot of pressure.

7. TOO MANY CUTE BARISTAS AT DELANY’S COFFEE SHOP

8. ADVERBS ARE NOT MY FRIEND

Writing guides have established that adverbs are for lazy writers (so I must be lazy). I shouldn’t use, “walk slowly,” but rather “saunter.” I should substitute “sprint” for “run quickly.” I spend a great deal of time searching for more descriptive verbs. I’ve cut thousands of sneaky adverbs since reading the writers’ bible, “On Writing” by Stephen King.

And the main reason my book isn’t finished yet:

9. CAT VIDEOS