I made the mistake of telling my whole family I was writing a book and I want to spare someone else this pain
About two years ago, riding high on the energy of a new project, I told most of my extended family that I was working on a novel. I thought this was a way of holding myself accountable. Public commitment. People would ask, I'd have to answer, the social pressure would keep me writing.
I had not thought through what it actually means to have eighteen people ask you how the book is going at every family event for the next two years.
The questions are always well meaning. When can we read it. Is it almost done. Have you found a publisher yet. Are you going to be the next J.K. Rowling, lol. My uncle, every Christmas, asks if I've "sold the book yet" with the same expression he uses to ask if I've gotten a real job yet. My grandmother has decided the book is about her and asks regularly when "her chapter" is coming out. The book is not about her.
The worst part is the dread of disappointing them. Every time someone asks how it's going, I'm aware that the longer I take, the more they'll quietly conclude that I'm one of those people who talks about writing a book and never actually finishes one. So now I'm not just writing for myself, I'm writing against the slowly accumulating skepticism of eighteen people who will judge me if I never produce the object.
If you're early in a project and you haven't told your family yet, don't. Tell one or two close people if you need accountability. Keep the rest in the dark. You don't owe them updates on a thing that might take five years and might not work out. Protect the work from their expectations. Once those expectations exist you can't take them back, and they will quietly become part of the weight you're carrying every time you sit down to write