I’d love to write a novel. I’ve heard that so many times. Heck, I’ve been saying it for twenty years. I’ve written several, most have ended up in the trash, disposed of before prying eyes could criticise. My own criticism sufficed to ensure that my dream of being a published author were doomed from the start.

The act of writing is a simple one. You sit down in front of pen and paper or laptop. I like it both ways — pen and paper for brainstorming and the laptop for getting the writing done — and you write. One word after another, then a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, until you type the end.

Simple enough but so difficult at the same time.

I said it was simple, but it sure as hell isn’t easy.

The best advice for getting the novel done, ‘Arse in chair and write,’ I think Stephen King may have said it, it’s been repeated by many since. It’s the truth though. Excuses are easy, we all have them. From full-time jobs to adventurous kids, a frenzied social life to a demanding family who don’t understand the concept that daydreaming of fictional characters plotting assassinations is actually a job or at least you hope it will become one when you sell a few hundred thousand books.

It took me three plus years to finish Lethal Disposal. I could probably keep working on it. The problem is when is it good enough? When is a novel actually finished? There are so many what ifs, so many variables that can be altered that before you know you’ve changed the entire story multiple times. Lethal Disposal changed twice. If you find an inconsistency, I apologise in advance, but there shouldn’t be any.

Typing The End is a liberating experience. Not the The End once you’ve completed the first draft but The End once the book has gone through your own edit several times and then again by a professional editor, and then finally once more by you. By this stage you’ve read it so many times that you are completely and utterly over it. You know it inside out and cannot spot the little errors that still crowd your manuscript. A proofreader before you click publish is a wise move.

You’re done. Your baby goes out into the world. Then you start again. Characters take a life of their own, plots evolve in your mind at the most inconvenient times of day, you reach for your notebook, jot down notes quickly in hope of not forgetting. It’s so easy to forget. Keep that notebook close by, always.

Why haven’t you written yours? No time? Bullshit. We all have the same twenty-four hours in a day. We just choose to use them differently. Most of Lethal Disposal was written on the train ride to and from work, in between catching up on the latest episodes of Scandal, The Vampire Diaries, and Revenge, and trying to study financial planning.

It got done. I made the time. Now it is up to you to make the time in your schedule. Finish the book. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Perfection is overrated anyway. Finish it, let others read it. You can improve with the second one, and write an even better third one. But don’t wait until it’s too late.

Many people dream of writing a novel. Few actually go out and do it, finish it and publish it. Nike says it best, ‘Just do it.”

So, why haven’t you finished your novel yet?