How many times have you read online that “everyone has at least one book in them”? Honestly. Probably more times than you dare to admit. I know it’s plastered all over writing blogs like no tomorrow. I just stumbled across an article on Quartz that says precisely the opposite. Finally.
Only in the digital age would this be a reality. Can you imagine Hemingway telling some random guy in the street that everyone has at least one book in them? Or Jane Austen? Bradbury? Agatha Christie? I can’t. Because it’s ridiculous.
What’s worse is this mindset is embraced by so many people who really have no reason to write a book. Not talking about quality here, I’m talking about people who have never had an interest in writing until discovering this notion online that everyone with Microsoft Word should be writing a book.
I wrote one. But it had nothing to do with anyone besides myself and my reading. I had no idea this was something people blog about when I first started my writing. Four years later and writing another book couldn’t be further from my mind. My entire focus is on my career. My actual career. I’m fortunate to work for a company with nearly endless opportunity. I plan on taking full advantage of it.
Johnny Reads 
I appreciate this– especially as a person who has many books inside and, actually, outside as well. Why am I thinking about the old joke about how dark the insides of a dog are? Writing a book, like painting a picture or engaging in any of the arts, needs a certain bloody-mindedness to take thought to completion, and if you don’t naturally have that insane drive, you have no need to punish yourself by spending the time, sweat, and suffering to make these things. The satisfaction of doing any good job well, is a precious thing– the sense that without writing a book or creating great art, a person is incomplete– is foolish. Thank heavens we are such a variable and interesting batch of individuals, full of possibilities, not needing to toe some arbitrary line.
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