The Sunday Book Experiment
Sunday feels like the right day for small experiments.
This is a writing experiment, not the kind that require discipline or improvement or a colour-coded plan but the kind you can try quietly, without pressure or visibility.
Here’s the first one.
Imagine you’ve written a book and it’s finished and on all the shelves. (Yay!!)
Don’t worry about the celebrations or the reviews, your book is finished, that’s what matters.
Just finished.
It exists. It has weight. It sits somewhere without asking anything more from you.
Now imagine someone asks you about it. Not someone you need to impress, just someone genuinely curious.
What do you say?
Most writers don’t answer this directly.
They drift. They describe atmosphere. They talk around the edges. They tell me what they hoped the book would become, or what it struggled to be, or why it matters to them.
All of that is understandable.
None of it is wrong.
But today, I want to try something simpler.
Write this sentence:
My book moves from __________ to __________.
That’s all.
Don’t make it elegant. Don’t explain it. Don’t correct yourself halfway through.
Just write what arrives.
Something interesting happens when we do this.
Either the sentence lands — quietly, solidly — or it doesn’t.
And your body knows the difference before your mind gets involved.
When it lands, there’s often a sense of relief. Phew! Not excitement — relief.
A feeling of direction. A subtle internal yes.
When it doesn’t, there might be fog. Irritation. Frustration. A sudden urge to complicate things. To add more words. To make it safer. To chuck it in the bin.
All responses are useful.
Books don’t usually stay unwritten because their writers aren’t committed or capable.
They get chucked in a drawer because the movement of the book hasn’t been named yet, even in the writer’s own consciousness.
Structure, when it’s right, isn’t restrictive.
It doesn’t box the book in.
It gives you something to return to.
So if you try this experiment today, notice what happens afterwards.
Not on the page — in yourself.
Do you feel steadier?
Restless?
Resistant?
Quietly energised?
That response matters.
If you wrote the sentence, keep it somewhere visible this week. It will continue to speak to you. It teaches you to listen.
I’ll be back next Sunday with another experiment.
In the meantime, if you want to sit with this for longer, or do a little deeper, try this mini-course:
If you crave a safe space to get some writing done with other writers, come along to the Write Wild Writer’s Workroom on Tuesdays at 6pm. It’s free, just register here
