How to finish things & achieve big goals

From "never finish anything" to "sold my book to a publisher."

Creatives & solopreneurs have a problem with finishing things. 

We chase shiny new ideas. We start to question our decisions. We change things that shouldn’t be changed. We give up. We switch platforms. 

It’s so easy to NOT finish anything in a world that’s all about distractions. 

But

David McIlroy

somehow did it. 

• He built an incredible audience (7K+ subscribers on Substack alone) 

• He manages a website with 20K visits every month

• AND he finished & sold a book 

That last one in particular is something I’ve failed at more times than I want to admit. 

So I asked David how the hell did he do it?!? 

Here’s what he said. 

There was a time in my life when I was a serial starter-of-things-I’d-never-finish.

I wanted to get a job in the TV industry after finishing university, but after taking part in an awkward “group interview” (who ever thought that was a good idea?), I couldn’t even land an intern role, and quickly gave up.

I tried starting my own wedding videography business after a friend asked me to record theirs, but a couple of years in, I pulled the plug on that too.

I even made a valiant attempt to complete a charity hiking challenge back in 2018. It was my knees that decided I’d go no further that day. Something else started, something else left unfinished.

So when I sat down to start writing my first book in 2020, all the signs pointed towards the same inevitable conclusion. Something started that would never see the light of day.

And yet, as of this month (May 2024), that same book will make its way out into the world for others to read. I’ll officially be a published author in the coming days. The Soulburn Talisman, my Young Adult fantasy novel, will exist in real life.

So how did I get here? How did I finally break my long-running streak and actually finish something, especially when that thing is the Everest for so many writers: the elusive published book?

The first thing that really changed for me — the thing that helped push me towards actually finishing my first full draft — was my routine. It’s so much more important than most writers realise. I didn’t understand why for several months, either.

I wrote Soulburn in splotchy dribs and drabs for the second half of 2020, back when we were dropping in and out of lockdowns and the world was mostly still shut down. I had no discernable routine. I’d write half a chapter on Monday, not write at all on Tuesday, add another full chapter on Wednesday, return to it again at the weekend… you get the idea. There was no flow, no rhythm. My writing brain could never really click into gear properly because it never knew precisely when it’d be required.

I also didn’t have a favourite writing “spot” at that stage. I mostly wrote on my desktop PC, in between bits and pieces of my solopreneurial work. It was a messy back-and-forth system. It dragged out the entire process for way longer than was necessary.

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Using the process of my favourite author.

Then, for Christmas that year, my wife bought me On Writing by Stephen King, who just happens to be my favourite author. It was the first of several gamechangers for me, and was probably the most crucial.

Yes, yes, I know. You’ll have heard all about this before from dozens of other authors. But I can’t tell you how much of an impact it had on my approach to writing. After reading that book, I committed to writing for a couple of hours first thing every morning in the exact same place (in a nook behind our spare bedroom door). It was a non-negotiable daily appointment.

And it worked. I kept that appointment every day for months, and by the end of Spring 2021, Soulburn was complete. I used the exact same process to write my second and third novels, too. In comparison to Soulburn, which is only 75,000 words and took a year to write, my next book (an adult horror called The Substitute) took 6 months at almost twice the word count.

Of course, there will be days when you don’t feel like writing, or when the end seems simply too far off. On those days, your writing routine will save you. Your brain will click into gear at the accustomed time because you’ve trained it to do so through repetition and familiarity. Even when the rest of you wants to quit and slink back to the comforts of social media or Netflix, your big ol’ writing brain will keep you chugging along.

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What’s next? 

I put Soulburn through a few rounds of edits before inviting a selection of trusted beta readers to give me some feedback on it. Of the roughly dozen people I gave it to, only four actually read it and offered their critique. That’s pretty normal for volunteer beta readers — if you find a few who deliver for you, grab onto them and don’t let go!

I queried Soulburn to literary agents in summer 2022 — it’s a long, arduous process and isn’t for the faint-hearted. I was rejected hundreds of times (you have to be willing to send that many queries, too — a handful every few weeks won’t cut it). Eventually, I was offered representation in September that year. The book went out on submission to publishing houses in January 2023, which was exciting, but after my agent fell ill a few months later and had to leave the industry, I was forced to take the future of my novel back into my own hands.

Thankfully, an independent press picked it up in summer 2023, and Soulburn was finally on course to become a real, honest-to-goodness book. It’s taken almost a year to get from that point to its publication date, but it’s worth the wait. I’ve learned an enormous amount about the industry in that time, and the help provided by my publisher has been invaluable.

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Writing & publishing aren’t the hard part of the work. (Really??) 

I know the hard work is just beginning, though. Writing your first draft, followed by multiple rounds of edits, followed by edits based on beta reader feedback, followed by querying or pitching, followed by months of preparation (whether you have a deal in place or you’re self-publishing), followed by gathering advanced reviews… that’s all stage one. You’ve successfully created a product.

Stage two — the marketing phase — is when the time comes to sell it. And no-one’s going to do that for you, no matter what kind of deal you get. You have to get real comfortable with promoting your own work, real fast.

That’s why it’s crucial to have your own personal platform as a writer. You need a rooftop from which you can yell to the world about your writing and actually be heard. You have to find the channels that best fit your personality type and lean into them. Get followers. Build an email list. Create something sustainable and scalable. If you can’t see yourself doing it for the next decade, choose another pathway.

That’s one of the major differences between writing books and writing online. With blogging, you can write an article and fire it out into the world that same day. Instant feedback, recurring revenue. Books take time (often a long time) and may never pay off. You have to be willing to accept that risk, which most people can’t do. Most don’t even reach the stage where they have to decide if the risk’s worth it because they don’t finish their first draft. It’s a tough gig.

But it’s well worth it, if you can stick to your guns. There’s nothing like holding a physical copy of your book in your hands after months or years of hard work and patience. Seeing it on your bookshelf. Watching loved ones crack open the pages for the first time. It’s a tough gig, but it’s also one heck of a dopamine rush.

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Not everyone “has a book in them.”

Most people don’t. Hardly anyone actually starts writing one. Even fewer finish. A tiny percentage of those who do get published, despite how many authors there seem to be on Amazon.

If you want it enough, though, you can most assuredly do it. If there’s a story you need to tell, one that’s trying its level best to claw its way out of your skull, one you can’t suppress, then let it out. Start now. Write the first sentence, the first page, the first chapter. Stick at it and you’ll get there.

If I — the serial starter-of-things-I’ll-never-finish — can do it, so can you.

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