Writing a Book is Like Jumping into the Abyss

When people feel their professional life has reached its peak—often around their fifties—they also feel their accumulated experience is too valuable to lose. They want to preserve it in a kind of time capsule. And so, they decide to write a book.

For many, this urge is so compelling that they follow through. They spend years wrestling with the blank page or hire a ghostwriter to do the heavy lifting. Then comes the grand moment of the book launch—a sparkling cocktail event surrounded by friends, champagne flutes in hand, where copies are handed out and the cycle is complete. They are no longer just another person; they are now an author.

I love this romantic approach to writing. But when you approach the craft more professionally, the reality shifts entirely. Writing a book is like throwing yourself into the abyss—it’s like telling your parents you’re abandoning your engineering career to pursue music, ignoring the grim statistics that for every one success story, fifty thousand end up washing glasses in some dingy bar.

That’s the brutal truth of writing. You can work for years believing you’re a genius, only to crash into the steel-reinforced wall of reality: selling seventy-five copies, if you’re lucky. The only thing harder than finding success as a writer might be achieving it as a concert pianist. But it’s not impossible.

In the end, with a bit of talent, perseverance, and the support of friends who truly believe in you—if you can endure writing three good books that go unnoticed before the fourth finally gains traction—you’ll find your audience.

It doesn’t carry the romance of the professional who ends their career with a book launch amidst clinking champagne glasses. But it’s the raw reality of a craft pursued only by those who were born to do it—and for nothing else.

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