Should I start writing a book?

How do you know if you’re ready to write a book, when you’re just a beginner writer?

One way of finding out is to open a novel you like, and copy it. Type the whole thing out, word for word.

Do not use copy and paste.

It should be over 80,000 words long, so it will take a while.

Many painters employed to copy Rembrandt’s paintings ended up being well known artists in their own right. When you copy from a master, their pacing, dialogue, sentence formation, tense, scene setting, and so on, will rub off on you.

Copying a large work is also like running a trial marathon in preparation for a real race. How do you know you have the stamina until you do it? Running 4000 metres isn’t going to do it, and neither is writing 4000 word essays or short stories going to prepare you for writing a book.

When you’ve finished, you will be ready to answer the question, and should your answer be “yes”, you will have built up your writing muscles ready to do so.