Almost everyone who plans to try their hand at writing runs into the same thing: they don’t know how to do it. A perfectly normal state for anyone trying something new.
Drawing on my experience writing my own books and on the literature I’ve written as a ghostwriter, I’m putting together a series of articles for beginning writers — articles meant to help in the actual work of writing a book.
This particular article is about mood, about how you perceive things from the inside and from the outside. The foundation of foundations. The first step in writing. Many people talk about the opening as the beginning of a book — but that isn’t quite true.
By the time the first lines actually start being written, an idea has to have appeared first, and then a decision of will: yes, this book is going to be created. Only after that does everything else come — and not a moment sooner. Assuming, of course, that we’re talking about a good book.
The Small Flame at the Heart of It
That’s why, when I consult with beginning writers, I look at their state and their mood. There has to be a flame. A small one — but warm and stubborn. The kind even a strong wind can’t blow out. When that’s there, the book has every chance of getting written.
The flame doesn’t have to burn constantly, of course. Each of us has different sides to our lives, which means no one can dedicate themselves exclusively to one thing for very long. Short-term, that’s possible. Long-term — and a book is always a long distance — it isn’t.
But in the moment when a writer is talking about their book, or thinking about it, something has to shift just a little. Whatever else is going on should fade slightly into the background, bringing the future book to the front. Creating that artificially is an impossible task — at least, I’ve never seen it happen. But if you genuinely want to write a book, that small flame will appear on its own.
State of Mind: Its Influence and Its Importance
The working state itself is a different matter. Here we can be far more concrete, because state is something you can actually work with — and need to.
Plain irritation, for example, shifts your focus onto entirely different things than usual. If you’re doing some kind of mechanical work in this state, the risk of making more mistakes than usual goes up.
With creative work, the situation is more complicated. Creativity in an irritated state can either disappear altogether or show up looking like something else entirely. As a result, text written in that state will be nothing like text written earlier in calm.
And who’s going to want to read a book made of patches of completely different material — different in character, different in substance? Probably no one.
One Mood for One Book
Write the book in one state, in one mood. This is what allows you to keep the style and the content in a single key. Then you’ll have a whole work — not a collection of letters assembled by the different versions of “I” that live inside each of us.
It’s best if this is your usual, primary state. The simplest variant — so that, when you carve out an hour for creative work, you don’t have to crank yourself up. You just sit down lightly and start.
Of course, it can also be the case that the writing happens in a different, special inner state. That’s a more complicated story, where you either have to catch the moment when it appears, or learn to wake that state in yourself. The first option is inconvenient, because we can’t always sit down and start writing right then and there. The second is hard, because invoking and controlling internal states takes practice in itself.
But there’s also music. Conversation with specific people. Some other kind of activity. All of this can build the right mood and let you move into writing the book. You just have to look closely.
Trace It Back
Look at what state lets you write best. Learn how to invoke it. Look at the conditions under which it appeared, and try to recreate them.
The same people. The same music. The same time of day. The same processes leading up to it. Do these specific things, and watch what happens inside you. I’m certain that, sooner or later, you’ll hear it again — that signal that says: “Now. Write.”
You have to learn to manage this. And it’s well within your power. You just have to try.
Back to the Flame
The flame can be small. It can also be a blaze that nearly reaches the sky. A common story I’ve seen many times in conversations with new authors. An overwhelming, almost incandescent love for one’s own project — that’s completely normal. But there’s a high risk, almost a certainty, that a book begun in such a state will never be finished.
It’s like the well-known image of a candle burning at both ends. It gives off far more light — and it goes out far faster than the others. Roughly the same thing happens when someone throws themselves into their work with maximum enthusiasm. Today they’re ready to spend twenty-four hours straight on the book. A week from now, they don’t have the strength or the desire to write a single line.
Can you control your own great enthusiasm? It’s quite difficult. Even if you consciously hold yourself back — for example, by limiting yourself to a certain number of hours a day. The “burning” stays. So does the inevitable burnout that follows.
But the situation isn’t hopeless.
If you’ve fallen for your book with overwhelming intensity, aim for a short work. Ten or twenty pages, which will definitely get finished. It will be concentrated creative work, which you can later expand — or leave in its original, beautiful form.
And One More Thing
If, in this state of high intensity, you genuinely want to write a long book — write it. But try to build it out of the most independent blocks you can. Then you’ll always be able to come back to it without losing the connection between the parts, and continue this beautiful work with the same intensity as before.
Inspiration Can Be Brought Back
Finally, a word about losing the mood.
It happens to everyone. You can burn out in any line of work, and writing books is no exception. What do you do in such a case? What advice can I give?
Keep writing. Not in the same volume. Not as often. But still — keep writing. Let it be fifteen minutes twice a week.
That kind of volume doesn’t require huge effort or huge time. Let it be half a page. But it will exist. Sooner or later, instead of the small volume, you’ll write a bigger one. It won’t be fifteen minutes anymore. It will be an hour, or even a few hours.
Then you yourself won’t notice how, through your loss of interest and your simple, brief movements, inspiration will return — and bring back into your life a book that absolutely will be finished.
The Best Book Available to You
As you can see, mood and state are the foundational basis of all of this — and you can use that fact, and to the extent possible, manage it. It’s real. I know this from my own experience and from the experience of the people I’ve talked with about it. Tune in. Catch the most powerful version of yourself, inside yourself. And then you’ll absolutely write the best book you’re capable of writing.
— I write fiction on commission. If you have a story you want to see told, here’s how we can work together. More on writing and the craft of books — in the blog.
Vasyl Kovalchuk, 30.04.2026
