September 2025

Turns out I’m not ready to write a book

TLDR: I’m starting a monthly blog about accessibility.

If you’d like to read my writing, you can quietly subscribe to my RSS feed.

Why the sudden writing habit?

I got offered a book deal. Don’t congratulate me yet.

Since I was a kid, books have always been my escape. When Covid hit and suddenly everyone was stuck inside, I wasn’t fazed. If I have a book, I can learn stuff and travel to other realms.

A publisher showed interest in my proposal for a book about accessibility. I’d been wanting to write a book for years and I was beyond excited.

I reached out to some people in my network for advice. Caroline Jarrett generously offered me some time to improve my book outline. If you haven’t met Caroline, she’s very wise and straight-talking. I had long admired the structure of her book Surveys that Work and was aspiring to produce something as considered.

She stopped me as I began to launch into my book pitch.

“So, why do you want to write a book?”

Long awkward pause. I mumbled something about enjoying writing.

“What have you written recently?”

Shit.

I write every day for work, but it’s not exactly writing. It’s guidance and technical specs and documentation, mostly delivered via bullet-points.

I realised I was in love with the idea of writing a book, but I wasn’t in the habit of writing. This was a problem. Could I really go from not writing to bashing out 1000 words, 5 days a week? A book contract comes with deadlines. Was this like me volunteering to cook Christmas dinner when I struggle to accurately pour hot water on instant noodles? Perhaps I should start a little smaller.

Why systems beat goals

Habits take repetition to build. James Clear wrote a whole book about this called Atomic Habits. His main point: building systems beats having goals every time.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

I’m a systems nerd. I understand the importance of solid foundations. My lofty aspirations of writing a book suddenly seemed ridiculous without the systems in place to support it.

I know first-hand how habits take time. Despite being possibly the world’s least athletic person I’ve somehow managed to run three times a week for the past 18 years. When I started, I was so out of shape that it took 3 months before I could even make it to the local park. The idea I could one day run a marathon was unfathomable. Yet I was expecting myself to perform the literary equivalent. Sometimes I can be really dumb.

At the end of our call Caroline suggested:

“Why don’t you start a blog and spend a year getting into a regular habit of writing?”

It’s annoying when someone cleverer than you points out something really obvious.

The following week the book contract arrived and I disappeared into a vortex of overthinking and annoying anyone unlucky enough to hang out with me. I got some legal advice which scared me. I started to question my motivations. Why was I doing this? Ultimately, I wanted to write a book because I enjoy writing. But I’m not in a position to take a year out, so writing a book would be alongside my day job. Would hauling my arse out of bed at 5:30am this winter be enjoyable?

After my freak out, I sent a wholehearted thank you to the publisher and declined the offer. I’ll probably regret this decision for the rest of my life. It’s still the thought waking me up at 3am like some angsty protagonist in a Netflix teen drama. But sometimes you have to listen to your gut, and to the people that the universe puts in your path.

Building the habit

I’ve never written blog posts with any regular cadence, so I’ve set myself the challenge of writing one post a month for a year to build my writing habit. I’ve worked as a UX designer, design systems lead, and accessibility specialist over 25 years, so I figured I might have some thoughts worth sharing. Hell - if I run out of ideas, I have the outline of a 50,000-word book to plunder!

Disturbingly, the initial ideas jangling around in my brain are all AI related, like:

Like many of you, I am currently going through an existential crisis over AI. I’ve actively started editing out my own em dashes—in case people accuse me of cheating.

The delightful thing about having my own blog is that I can write about whatever interests me. My site doesn’t track anyone, so it’s deliciously free from metrics and bullshit. I’m just writing for enjoyment and to learn stuff. How liberating is that? Who knows, maybe at the end of the year I’ll feel confident enough to write a book.

Here’s my RSS feed again if you want to join me on my year of building a writing habit.

If you don’t use a newsreader app to browse blog posts, you should. It’s simple to set up and beats the hell out of doomscrolling on social media. Read this guide by Matt Webb.