Nothing Prepares You For The Loneliness Of Writing Your First Book
I’ve been a writer for my entire adult life, but nothing compares to the isolation that comes with a manuscript.
I’ve been writing for pretty much all my adult life. Every day. Publishing multiple articles a week, on average, for a decade. My family has watched me retreat to my office for hours or days at a time (like I’m doing right now), crank out something I hope makes sense, and ideally emerge with words close to being ready to publish. There’s a loneliness to that kind of life; I have to shoo away kids and tell my wife I’ll catch her later. However, it’s all been pretty manageable from an emotional and time-consumption standpoint.
But over the past year, I’ve been working on a book (*plug* The Movement Made Us dropping soon!) and it’s by far the loneliest I’ve ever been as a writer. This has been an unexpected development. Most of the time I’ve been writing this book has been during a pandemic that has caused my family and me to be isolated in a house together for months. I’ve spent more hours with them this year than any other time in our lives. And yet, I’m in an unusually lonely space while knee-deep in this massive undertaking. Authors have written about the loneliness of writing a book, but it’s impossible to truly…
