Colum McCann's 'Bus Theory': A Call to Action to Finish Your Book

Award-winning novelist Colum McCann crafted "The Bus Theory" as a metaphor for the writer's drive to create. It's a measure of commitment to your craft, even in the face of life's unpredictability. Have you got it? In McCann’s words, this is how you know…

"You wake up in the morning. You get to your workspace. You carve. You chop. You create. And at the end of the workday – be it an hour, or a morning, or the whole livelong day – you walk out into the world. The traffic slides by in the street. The world is its ordinary self."

"You still carry your quiet sentences with you. A little distracted, you step off the curb. Suddenly there’s a whoosh of air, a blast of horn, a whack of diesel, a scream. The bus misses you by inches. Less than inches. A whisker away."

"It’s not so much that your life passes before your eyes, but your novel does, your poem does, your story does. You step back onto the street and catch your breath. You do not ever want to be hit by a bus, but if you are to be sideswiped –"

"If the world is fated that way – then the bus must at the very least wait until your book is completed. If I have to go, Lord Conductor, please wait until I’ve finished this novel."

"This Bus Theory – which might also be called The Theory of Purpose – will get you out of bed in the morning. It proves the value of your struggle. The work matters. The story needs to be told. Death is a bore. At least for now."

McCann's theory suggests that the true value of our work is realized when we consider its importance in the potential face of death. It's the story, and no other regret, that flashes before our eyes.

This National Book Award winner's advice to writers is to engage deeply with their work, as if each day could be their last chance to shape their narrative.

For McCann, whose works have been adapted for the screen and stage, the act of writing is a purposeful defiance against mortality, a struggle worth pursuing until the very end.

In essence, "The Bus Theory" is a call to action: write with the urgency of a life hanging in balance, where finishing a novel is a triumph over the mundane and the mortal.