Before You Write Another Word, Answer These Three Questions
January has a particular kind of energy. You know the one—the fresh start, the new notebook, the writing goals set with the kind of confidence that comes in like a fresh wind at the start of things. Maybe you started the year with a clear vision for your book. Maybe you committed to a writing practice, set a word count goal, told a few people what you were working on so you'd be accountable. Maybe you actually showed up for it, at least for a while.
And now it's April. And perhaps something has shifted.
You're still writing, maybe. Or you're meaning to. But there's a low-grade uncertainty underneath the work that wasn't there in January—a sense that you're pushing forward without being entirely sure what you're pushing toward. The words are coming, but they feel off-center. The passion that launched you is still somewhere inside you, but it's harder to locate than it used to be.
Before you push further, I want to invite you to pause and answer three questions. Not to slow you down—but to make sure the momentum you've built is actually taking you where you need to go.
Do you still know who you're writing for?
Not in the abstract. Not "women" or "the church" or "people who have been through what I've been through." I mean the one. The specific person whose life you are trying to make better with this book. If you could picture her face, describe her week, articulate the question she's been carrying around that your book is trying to answer—could you do that right now, with confidence?
If you've lost her somewhere in the drafting, your pages will start to feel it before you do. Writing to everyone is writing to no one. Go back and find her. Write her name down if you have to. Put her somewhere you can see her while you work.
Do you still know what you're trying to say?
What is the one thing—the irreducible, non-negotiable thing—you want your reader to know, believe, or do differently by the time she closes your book? If you can answer that in a single clear sentence, your outline, your chapter structure, and your editorial choices all have somewhere to point. If you can't, it may be worth pausing the drafting long enough to recover that sentence before you add more words to the pile.
This isn't a failure. It's actually a sign that you're paying attention. The writers who catch this in April are the ones who finish well.
Do you still know why you're writing it?
This one is the most important and the most easily forgotten. Why this book? Why now? Why you? Not the polished answer you'd give in a query letter—the real one. The one that gets you to your desk on the mornings when the work is hard and the results feel far away.
If that answer has gone a little quiet, spend some time with it before you do anything else. The motivation behind the manuscript matters. It shapes the tone of every page, the generosity of every illustration, the courage it takes to say the hard thing in chapter seven. A book written from a clear and grounded why is a different book than one written on fumes.
You started this year with something real. That hasn't changed. But the middle of the journey has a way of blurring things that were once clear—and the most useful thing you can do right now may not be to write more, but to remember why you started.
Get clear. Then keep going.
Which of these three questions is the hardest one for you to answer right now?