: Re: Everyone has a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay. Does that apply to me? Everyone has a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay I'm not

@Vandalay250

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You said that you would want others to read that, but you didn't say how important that goal was to you. I think that it's important to recognize that just like the world is flooded with mediocre musicians, it's also flooded with mediocre writers. If you knew that others would not care about reading it, would you still want to write it?
I suggest that you write a five or ten page "book report" of your story. This book report will have three sections. The first section is a description of the book as though you had completed and were very satisfied with it. This is a synopsis of the story. It should summarize the story in a way that causes someone reading the synopsis to want to read your book. So you need to understand that this is not an outline of every aspect of the book. It doesn't need to cover how all the transitions take place from scene to scene. But it does need to highlight several parts of the book in vivid detail, so that a reader of this book report would be wanting you to hurry up and write the book because they could hardly wait to read it.
The second part should be an overview of what made the story compelling or interesting to read. This part will be in the voice of someone who had read the book and was impressed by it. This section should cover things like if you were unable to put it down once you started reading, how immersed you were in the book, what parts of the book will remain with you for a long time, etc. This should be in the form of one friend telling another about a book that they had read and why they liked it so much. So it can touch on plot elements, but it can also cover things like writing style or anything else related to the book outside the plot.
The final part of the book report should be a section giving a brief overview of how you went from knowing nothing about writing to being an author. This part is written in your own voice. It should explain if you took writing courses, or joined writers groups, or exactly what tools and practices allowed you to become a writer. How many hours a day did you write? How did you get yourself to remain focused on completing the book and what period of time did it take you to write it.
Once you have the book report like you want it, get one of your friends to read it over. This needs to be someone you can trust to be brutally honest with you. You are having them read it for two purposes. You want to see how they judge the writing in the book report, and you also want them to say what they think about this book that you are writing about. Once they've read it over, listen to and accept any criticism that they may have without challenging them. Challenge any praise that they have for it and have them explain to you why they think the good parts are good. Thank them profusely for their input.
Incorporate any changes that you want to make into the book report and then repeat the process with another friend. I believe that as you go through this process, it will help you focus on the important elements of the story, and help you explore if you are really ready to do this or not. The nice thing about this is that you are not writing a book. You are writing about writing, and you can portray the most favorable outcome possible without encountering the limitations that you would actually encounter while writing the book.
In effect, the suggestion is to write three closely related short stories about the writing of your book. Doing this will allow you to flex your writing muscles slightly, but it will allow you to plan how you are going to accomplish this.

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