What 4WD Tracks Taught Me About Writing a Book

A crescent moon, a cup of tea, and the long roadmap of making a book.

🚙 The Long Road to a Book: Why Writing Feels Like a 4WD Adventure

Early one morning not that long ago, before the sun even bothered to show its face, I stepped out onto the balcony with my tea and watched the crescent moon rising east over the ocean about two hours before the sun — curved up from the bottom like a smile. I learnt long ago when I was just a girl, that this meant it’s a good time to go fishing. I wasn’t fishing, but I was thinking about the kind of journeys that require patience all the same. The long ones. The ones that rattle your bones and test your patience and make you wonder why you ever set out in the first place.

And it struck me — writing a book is exactly like taking a 4WD across remote areas in Australia.

Not the glossy brochure version.

The real version.

The corrugations, the dust, the mud, the “is this even a track?” version.

Let me explain.

1. Drafting the Book: The 10,000 km Corrugated Road

Writing the first draft is like driving a 4WD along a badly corrugated dirt road for what you swear was 10,000 kilometres, but in reality, was only 500 kilometres.

You start out excited. Fresh. Optimistic. You’ve packed snacks. You’ve got a playlist. You’re convinced this will be fun.

Then the corrugations hit.

The rattling gets into your teeth.

Your tea (or coffee) sloshes out of the cup.

You start talking to the dashboard and give it reassuring pats.

You wonder if the chassis will shake itself loose and leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere.

But you keep going.

Because you have to.

Because you said you would.

Because the only way out is forward.

And eventually — dusty, exhausted, slightly feral — you roll out the other side in one piece.

That’s a first draft.

And once you’ve survived the corrugations, you realise the real work is only just beginning.

2. Revising the Book: The Mountain Track With No Clear Wheel Ruts

Once the draft exists, people assume the hard part is over.

Ha. No.

Revision is the real test.

It’s the moment you turn off the badly-graded road and head toward the mountains, following a track that’s barely visible and definitely not well-used. Sometimes the wheel ruts disappear entirely and you have to stop, get out, walk ahead, and squint at the terrain to figure out where the path actually goes.

This is where you:

• strengthen character arcs

• cut 20–30K words you once loved

• restructure scenes

• rethink pacing

• question your life choices

It’s slow.

It’s technical.

It’s occasionally terrifying.

But it’s also where the book becomes a book.

And when the track finally holds together, you face the next challenge: taking the book out into the world.

3. Submitting the Book: The Muddy Flats in the Rain

Once the manuscript is shaped and trimmed and holding together, you enter the submitting phase — competitions, programs, agents, publishers.

This is the muddy flats.

It’s raining. The ground is soft. You grip the steering wheel to keep the vehicle straight, steady, and moving forward at a slow, stubborn crawl. Too fast and you’ll slide sideways and maybe even roll over. Too slow and you’ll sink.

And every now and then, it’s like hitting the clay floodplains in a thunderstorm — tyres skating, heart thumping, sliding in control even when it doesn’t look like it from the outside.

This stage requires patience, resilience, a strong stomach — and an endless supply of tea, beef jerky, and chocolate.

You can’t control the weather.

You can only control the wheel.

4. Being Published: The Wash and Polish Before the Next Trip

If someone decides to publish your book — if they look at your dusty, mud-splattered 4WD and say, “Yes, that one, let’s take it to town” — then comes the final phase.

The wash.

The polish.

The shine.

Copyedits.

Cover design.

Proofs.

Launch.

It’s the moment you stand back and admire the machine that carried you across all that terrain. The moment you realise the journey was worth it. The moment you start thinking — quietly, secretly — about the next adventure.

Because there’s always another track.

A Quiet Moment on the Track

And somewhere along the way, you glance across the landscape and spot your twin — or triplet, or quadruplet, or whatever‑number‑plet version of yourself — travelling in their own 4WD on a different track. Maybe they’re climbing a ridge while you’re slogging through mud. Maybe they’re rattling over corrugations while you’re polishing chrome.

And then there is that moment. The one where you realise you’ve been all of them at different times — the one climbing, the one slogging, the one polishing.

You don’t wave or shout.

You just nod, quietly, and cheer them on.

Keep going. It’ll be worth it. Trust yourself.

5. The Real Lesson in All This

The writing journey isn’t a straight line.

It’s not a race.

It’s not even a road, half the time.

It’s terrain.

And every stage requires a different kind of driving:

• Endurance for the corrugations

• Navigation for the mountains

• Patience for the mud

• Celebration for the polish

If you’re somewhere on this journey — whether you’re rattling along the corrugations or inching through the mud — know this:

You’re not lost.

You’re just on the track.

And the track is doing exactly what tracks do — leading you somewhere you can’t yet see.