There are many people out there who want to write a book, but sitting down and finishing one—never mind publishing one—is far harder than most imagine. When I began working on my first book, The Men’s Group: A Novel of Messy Friendships, I had no idea what I was getting into. I’d tried writing books before, but I never got very far before the motivation faded and, eventually, I stopped writing.
This time was different.
I stayed with The Men’s Group for more than ten years, through multiple drafts, rewrites, writer’s block, feedback that sent my co-author and I back to the drawing board, and countless moments when we thought we were finally done only to realize there was more work to do.
As I’ve reflected on the journey, I’ve realized that persistence probably isn’t the right word for what I did, at least not in the way we usually think about it.
Psychologists Hannah Moshontz and Rick Hoyle argue that our traditional understanding of persistence misses an important part of how we actually pursue long-term goals. “People do not start and finish goals in one uninterrupted episode,” they write. Instead, meaningful goals are often pursued episodically, which means that an important component of persistence is our ability to return to them after we’ve stopped.
That certainly describes my experience writing a novel. I didn’t sit down every morning for ten years and steadily move the book toward publication. There were periods when I wrote constantly and periods when I barely wrote at all. There were times when the book consumed my life and others when work, relationships, and everything else happening around me took precedence.
The important thing was that I kept returning.
As I’ve reflected on what helped me do that, I’ve noticed three strategies that allowed me to persevere for a decade to not only write and publish a book, but write and publish one that far exceeded my expectations.
Involve Other People
Every successful creative or business project I’ve worked on has involved more than just me. When I was nine years old, my dad and I spent every Sunday for two years writing a screenplay together. In high school, I asked my favorite teacher to work with me on an independent study, which became a novella sequel to The Odyssey. And with The Men’s Group, I worked with my friend and mentor, Nick Papadopoulos, from the very first day.
Nick approached me to write the book together. He’d wanted to write one about men’s groups for a long time but hadn’t found the right writing partner. Nick and I clicked right away when we started working on the book, even though neither of had written one before. We started by meeting every week and talking at a high level about what we wanted to write, then working chapter-by-chapter through the first draft. Every week, I’d tell Nick what chapter I’d be sending him and would feel the accountable pressure to follow through.
Over the years, our way of working on the book changed, but what didn’t change was the relational aspect of what we were creating. Even when I went on writing retreats to dive deep into the book, Nick was there on my shoulder—a reminder that what I was writing was for more than just me. I hadn’t only made a commitment to write a book; I’d made one to Nick.
Nick wasn’t the only person I involved in the process. I was in a writing group for four years, and Nick and I worked with three different editors during our decade with the novel. The writing group was an instrumental part of the journey, giving me feedback and helping me hone my craft as a writer, while our editors similarly enhanced each draft they worked on.
So, if you want to write something, find someone to involve in the journey. They could be a co-author, a writing coach, a writing group, a friend, or a family member who is willing to stay alongside you no matter how long the journey takes.
Find a North Star
Nick and I met when I hired him to be my coach, and our early work centered on discovering my Purpose (or North Star), so when we started working on the book together, we zeroed in on choosing a purpose for the project before writing a single word.
What we came up with carried us through the entire process: Make a difference.
The beautiful thing about a North Star or Purpose is that it can be fulfilled in a multitude of ways. Our first draft was all about making a difference by delivering as many transformational distinctions as we could. Each chapter was almost like an instructional guide—through fiction—on how to transform your life. Over the years, how we fulfilled our purpose of making a difference changed, and we eventually arrived at what felt like the appropriate way to make a difference with a novel.
Just like knowing that my writing was also about my relationship with Nick, keeping in mind that there were people out there who might someday read this book and see their lives a little differently drove me forward even when I didn’t want to go on. There were days when words didn’t flow, chapters didn’t work, and we got feedback that meant rewriting huge portions of the book. Whenever that happened—and it happened a lot over ten years—I would remind myself why I was writing this in the first place.
There were people out there waiting for this book, even if they didn’t know it yet.
So, before you even write anything, think about your North Star. Why are you writing this book? It should be something that lights you up and can keep your engine running even when you want to give up.
It’s also likely that your North Star will change over the years, and that’s okay. When I work with my coaching clients, I encourage them to be Directional, not Destinational. Point yourself in the direction of your North Star and allow it to evolve as you evolve.
If your book takes anywhere near as long as mine and Nick’s took us, it will evolve and you will evolve too.
Immerse Yourself
When I started working on the book with Nick, I had no idea what a men’s group was, so I joined the group he’d recently started for research purposes. Whenever I’d wanted to write long fiction before, I’d always shied away from diving into the research component of the project. I wanted to get to the writing and world-building—the fun stuff. The only other time, besides writing essays in college, that I bothered to do my research first was the independent study I wrote in high school. Unsurprisingly, that’s also one of the most committed projects I’ve ever worked on.
After jumping headfirst into the world of men’s groups and meeting with Nick every week to work on the book and dissect our real-life men’s group, I fell in love with group work. I began to explore becoming a coach myself, attended other groups, eventually got certified as a professional coach, and then went headfirst into learning as much as I could about coaching and other approaches to men’s work. My whole life became a research project to better understand all the components of our book: masculinity, father-son relationships, how men relate to women, what good coaching looks like, and how to navigate messy friendships.
I lived and breathed the themes of the book, and in this way, I was writing every moment of every day. I had insights about characters while walking in Central Park. I used the challenges I was facing in my relationships as jumping-off points for the challenges my characters faced. I brought in the coaching skills and tools I saw masters of my industry use to make the coaching in the book real and authentic.
But I didn’t just immerse myself in the content of the book; I immersed myself in the process of writing it.
For years, I had a block on my calendar from 8–10 a.m. every single day before work. I’d go away for weekends or a week at a time and fully immerse myself in writing from 3 p.m. until 3 a.m. When COVID hit and work stalled out, I’d start the day writing at my favorite coffee shop a few blocks away before coming home to take coaching calls. I made writing a priority in my life.
So, if you’ve involved other people and chosen your North Star, the next stage is to immerse yourself in the story you’re crafting. That means spending the tedious time researching. It means becoming a student of the world you’re building. And it also means creating the time and structure in your life to actually do the work, understanding that this is not just the beginning of the process but an ongoing part of the journey.
And here’s perhaps the most important thing I learned from spending ten years writing a novel: you cannot rush what you’re creating. You have to allow creation to take the time it needs to take, which is precisely why commitment becomes so important. Once the shine wears off and the initial motivation begins to fade, what you’re left with are the people you’ve involved, the North Star you’ve chosen, and however you’ve immersed yourself in the content and process.
Those are the things that helped me return again and again for ten years, until one day there was nothing left to return to.
The book was finished.
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