So you want to write a book? Prepare to ruin your life

“Writing a book is essentially hearing voices and imagining things to the point you can’t function.”

I pitched an article to Fashion Journal called ‘So you want to write a book’ and I went about writing the thing, before I realised that I have nothing to say on the subject.

I’ve written three books. My parents are journalists. I got a double-major in English Literature and Creative Writing at Melbourne University. English was my best subject at high school. When I was eighteen, a psychic told me I was going to be a writer and a director. But I’ve hated every minute of being told how to write. I’ve resented every teacher, writer and author, for trying to explain the inexplicable to me.

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‘Show don’t tell’, ‘kill your darlings’, ‘write everyday’, ‘find your voice’, ‘know the rules and then break them’, ‘know your audience’, ‘read’, ‘drink’, ‘don’t drink’, ‘adopt a cat’. What crap. But I get why writers try to tell other people how to write now. Writing this article helped me to work it out: because they’re desperate. 

Writers are desperate to make sense of things. Writers are desperate to be heard. Writers are desperate to, on the one hand, escape, and on the other, to belong. Writers are desperate to see and to be seen. Writers are desperate for recognition, cash, and respect.

At the time of writing, I’m six months pregnant, I’m chowing down on 90 per cent dark chocolate, I’m yelling at the cat because it’s not mealtime yet – oh, wait, yes it is – I’ve been crying for three days, I’m hardly communicating with my family, I’m doing endless tarot readings, and my partner said my original attempt at this article was, and I quote, ‘kinda cringe’ and ‘kinda full of shit’, and he was right.

I literally had the sentence, ‘so here are five things to consider when sitting down to tackle your much needed magnus opus’ in there. I’m so sorry.

I just wanted to be an authority on something. In the midst of the insecurity-laden pandemonium that my life as a writer has become, I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing through telling you what to do. 

But the truth is that writing a book is essentially hearing voices and imagining things to the point you can’t function and then, you have to build your life around that lack of functionality. 

It took me two years to write my first book, A Room Called Earth. It took me four years to write my second, The Knowing, and a month to write my third, love, honour, and obey, which is coming out next year. Books are some of my finest accomplishments but I’m a mess as a result of dedicating myself to them. I even started three other books, in-between these books, got over 30,000 words in, and scrapped them. I’ve never had a steady income. I never know what’s coming next. 

I mean, shit, I need your help. 

A couple of years ago, after months of meetings, negotiations and periods of silence, it looked like a Netflix deal for the TV adaptation of A Room Called Earth was going to happen – we’d bought the organic champagne to celebrate and everything – and it fell through. Then, a possible Binge deal fell through. Then, the meeting with Stan never happened. Prior to that, there was Covid, and the strikes in Hollywood. A friend asked me how I was making ends meet, and how I was getting through it all, and I said by praying. Writing and praying. 

Faith, and an irrepressible desire for growth, creation and revelation, are what keep me going through the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I’ve always wanted to understand things, to find patterns, and to fulfil my potential, even if it means uncertainty, eating cabbage, and too many trips to the local shaman. 

I used to rail against the idea of the artist being forced to ‘eat out of a can’. I thought it was a preposterous presumption about what the pursuit of beauty, story, and meaning entailed. It seemed like a way to deter people from a life path that would challenge and invigorate them. Because art and abundance go hand-in-hand; it’s just that abundance doesn’t always come in the form of a steady salary, or a windfall. Sometimes, abundance is spiritual. 

But I’ve also come to realise that the pursuit of anything that has value to us requires ‘eating out of a can’ at some point, or at several points. Our dreams and ambitions test us. 

So I’m desperate and I live desperately. Between working on books and scripts, and waiting for screen deals, and hiring agents, and firing agents, and meeting with producers, and joining Instagram, and Substack, and pitching articles – rejection is a verging-on hourly occurrence.

Then, last month, at the height of the energetic fervour of my second trimester, I entertained the idea of not only penning an article about how to write a book, I imagined starting up a one-on-one coaching business. Even though everything I’ve learned about writing has been through observation and/or in spite of the advice I’ve been given; even though you’re either doing something or you’re not; I still wanted to leap out of my unpredictable writerly existence and into something that seemed scholarly and secure. 

Because being a writer is a joke. But nobody’s laughing when you’re 37, renting, financially unstable, at the mercy of every email, and pregnant. 

But I’m a writer. So I am willing to live intuitively and to go mad, and to be shameless, and to risk everything, everyday, because writing connects me with something beyond any struggle I may face. It unites me with God and I can’t let it go. And, if this still sounds like a vibe, then maybe you should be writing a book. And, maybe, you should be DM’ing me for coaching. 

Madeleine Ryan is the author of A Room Called Earth and The Knowing. Her third book, love, honour, and obey, comes out in 2027.

Keep up with Madeleine here.