Stop Believing This Lie If You Want To Become A Bestselling Author

The people making fast progress stopped believing it long ago.

A writer with a notebook and laptop. Photo by Kampus Production from Pexels.

I was making breakfast one morning when I put on a podcast interview with a New York Times bestselling author. About halfway through, the host asked a question I’d probably heard a hundred times before.

“What advice would you give to writers?”

I remember looking up for a second because I thought... maybe this would be different.

I don’t know.

Maybe this would finally be the interview where someone said something I’d never heard before. Or maybe it wasn’t even a habit. Maybe there was just... some way of thinking that explained why some writers kept producing books year after year while everyone else seemed to spend more time talking about writing than actually doing it.

“Write every day, read more, and finish what you start.”

I remember thinking, “that can’t be it.”

Surely… not?