If you don’t care about it, don’t write about it

By Dennis Mellersh

In your efforts to learn how to write a book, there is a lesson to be learned from the advice most experts today give about starting any creative project: if you aren’t passionate about the project; if you don’t care about what the project represents, then don’t spend effort on it. Because it will not likely succeed.

Expanding on that thought, there is a saying, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” From the standpoint of writing a book, we could modify this and say “Write about something you enjoy, something you care about, something you are passionate about, and the creativity will follow.”

Although the act of writing a book is creative and satisfying enough to perhaps be its own reward, most of us would like to know that there is a potential audience for our book’s contents, and that this audience would hopefully pay money to purchase our book, read it and be happy that they spent the money and effort on doing so.

In terms of the types of books in both content and genre  that people can choose to read today, the choices are so vast  that no-one in the book-reading public will be satisfied by a less than a passionate writing effort by the book’s author.

The Internet with its almost limitless information offerings in virtually every niche area of interest means that people can be choosy about the information they decide to spend time on.

The days of simply cranking out a book, having it published, and then publicized by a gate-keeper publishing company, and then reaping royalties are over. With all of the social media and inter-connectivity available today through the Internet, insincere or hack book-writing efforts are quickly perceived and accordingly dismissed.

The writer Anais Nin puts the subject of passion in writing this way: “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.”