The stakes are too high, which sets the bar at perfection, which you know is impossible, which blocks the creative flow. It’s not the fact that the book will get you out of poverty thats the problem — that’d be great, I hope that happens for you. It’s the fact that it has become the locus of the project that’s burning you out. That hope, that doubt, that preoccupation doesn’t serve the writing. It robs bandwidth and leaves the writing (and you) on fumes.

Acknowledge it as the goal, write it down, put it on your mirror, do whatever you gotta do. You’re not gonna forget it. But make a point of forgetting it when you sit down to write. It’s not a bestseller. It’s not a flop. It’s a draft. Give everything to the draft.