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Find Your Recipe
- Timothy Kyle
- Aug 28, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 3, 2025
By Timothy Kyle
Author of:
Three years ago, I fully committed myself to becoming an author. And like many authors I sought out all the wisdom I could get my hands on. The number one advice I heard ad nauseum was that to succeed, I would need to write every single day. However, time has evolved my perspective on this advice. Now, in my opinion, I think it’s bullshit.
For some writers, writing every single day comes easy—to the point where it’s a natural reflex. It may also be something that works well for new authors early on, especially when trying to meet deadlines. I mean, if Stephen King can write every single day for the past 50 years, why can’t I.
So, the average bright eyed and bushy tailed indie author pushes through the writer’s block. They ignore the imposter syndrome eating at their psyche like a flesh-eating bacteria. They balance careers and families thinking the harder they push, the sooner they’ll become a bestselling author. Then they push themselves to the brink, until one day they burn the fuck out.
This was me. I wanted to be an overnight success as an author no later than tomorrow. And I believed it would happen without a shadow of a doubt. I still do! But eventually I burnt myself out. And I was left with a harsh reality laughing at my haggard reflection in the mirror.
The reality is that Theodore Roosevelt was right all along. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Early on in my author career I focused too much on the success of other authors and trying to do what worked for them. What I needed to do was find out what worked for me. And for me, writing every day would have doomed my author career from ever getting off the ground.
Now, my advice is simple: find your own recipe that works best for you. Give yourself time to grow. Give yourself the grace to screw up and make LOTS of mistakes. And most importantly, be authentic to who you are. We all have our own unique recipe for success. The one constant is that none of the recipes for becoming a successful author are ever the same.
But what could that recipe look like? Maybe it’s emulating a couple of best practices that work well for this author. Or, maybe it’s not touching that author’s advice with a ten foot poll, because, well, it would only make you miserable.
The key is nurturing yourself while finding the ingredients in your recipe that’ll keep that fire burning and that love for writing growing stronger with every new day. Some people spend years writing a book. Other people can write a book in a couple of months. All of that is fine and dandy for them, but you are going to focus on numero uno: YOU!
The beauty of becoming an author should be about more than writing a bestseller and monetizing this career into a full-time dream job. You still need to ask yourself: “Are you happy?” Are you enjoying the journey? Are you writing stories that you want to write?
Deep down we all know the answers to these questions. The key is being patient as we discover our own unique recipe for writing success. And if you’ve already found that recipe, I sure hope you stick with it. Otherwise, that cake you’ve been baking may look perfect from the outside, but on the inside, where it counts, it’s drier than dirt.
-Timothy Kyle
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