I sat down to write my first novel with a blank screen. I had a big dream. I was wrong to spend three weeks picking the perfect font and organizing my desk. Many of us get stuck because we’re scared of the blank page. To avoid these beginner writer mistakes, focus on the writing itself. […]
Three years ago, I was in a small apartment in southern Chile. I had just left a job in investment banking. I didn’t have a plan or a writing degree. But I felt a strong urge to write. Outside my window, the Andes mountains were hidden in thick clouds. I was teaching English to kids […]
Three years ago, I was stuck in a dim office on Wall Street. I stared at spreadsheets that looked like rain on a windshield. I was making good money but felt empty inside. One night, I opened my laptop and typed a sentence about my childhood in India. That sentence led to a paragraph, then […]
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 […]
Every January, I’d write the same goal in my notebook. “This is the year I write a book.” I did this for six years. Each year, I’d start a new document, stare at the cursor, and quit in twenty minutes. The dream seemed too big. The blank page felt too empty. I felt stuck, like […]
I still remember the night I typed the last sentence of my first manuscript. My hands were shaking. My coffee had gone cold hours ago. I stared at that final period on the screen and felt a wave of pride. That tiny dot meant I’d actually done it — I’d written an entire book. The […]
