I sat in a coffee shop in 2015, staring at a blank Word document. The cursor blinked at me like a tiny, mocking heartbeat. I wanted to write a book so badly I could taste it. But I had no clue where to begin. That day, I typed exactly fourteen words before deleting them all […]
In 2005, Sara Gruen started writing “Water for Elephants” during National Novel Writing Month. She wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. This rough draft became a bestseller and a movie. Starting to write a book can seem scary. Novels usually have about 100,000 words. That’s a lot of pages. When I first wanted to write […]
Twenty years ago, I sat beside my wife’s hospital bed. She was seriously unwell. I had a laptop and a story burning inside me. That story became a 190,000-word manuscript. It landed me an agent and a six-figure deal with HarperCollins. My first book became a bestseller sold across foreign territories. I’ve published a new […]
A writer sat by his wife’s bedside during her illness. He had no fancy office or ideal conditions. But he had a story burning inside him. He typed away every night while she rested. By the time she recovered, he had a 190,000-word manuscript. This landed him a six-figure deal with HarperCollins and made his […]
I was in a coffee shop in Portland, staring at a 120,000-word manuscript. It was a mess. Every chapter was too long. Every character was the same. I’d written for eight months. A stranger, a retired editor from Penguin Random House, saw my screen. She said, “Your story needs less stuff.” She was right. I […]
I sat at my kitchen table in 2019, staring at a blank screen. My dream of writing a book seemed impossible. I felt like climbing Everest in flip-flops. I didn’t know where to start or if my idea was worth it. That night, I found an interview with Jerry B. Jenkins. He’s a famous author […]
I remember typing the last sentence of my first manuscript at 2 a.m. My coffee was cold, and my cat was on my keyboard. I felt proud and thought, “Now what?” For weeks, I wondered how to turn my 60,000 words into a book. Writing was hard, but making a physical book seemed even harder. […]
I remember the night I typed the last sentence of my first manuscript. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, my heart pounded. I hit that final period like I was planting a flag on the moon. I leaned back in my chair and thought, “I did it. I wrote a book.” That rush lasted about […]
I once spent six months building a fantasy world for a short story. I drew maps and invented languages. But when I started writing, I realized I didn’t need any of it. The story was just about two people arguing at a kitchen table. This taught me a lot about storytelling. A short story is […]
I sat at my kitchen table three years ago, staring at a blank screen. I had a story inside me but didn’t know where to start. Stephen King said the scariest moment is before you start. He was right. That night, I closed my laptop and walked away. A few weeks later, I read “On […]
