Crafting a Book

There is no mistake so great as the mistake of not going on. ~ William Blake

I am pondering the above quote by Blake. Did he mean that if we don’t make an effort this is really the biggest mistake we can make? Or, did he mean that quitting is the biggest mistake we can make? They are more or less the same concepts, although I can see more value in quitting than I can in not starting.

Today the thought of abandoning my second book seriously crossed my mind. I am so close to being done that it would be foolish to not finish. However, I know that writing the manuscript is not the hard part—revising, publishing and marketing the book takes much more effort. I entertained the thought of quitting for about five seconds. Then I went back to work.

The solution to quitting is to write. Word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence, healing and a book take shape.