How to write a book
Since “Someday Is Today” published, I’ve been asked in many interviews about my advice on how to write a book.
“Everyone wants to write a book,” a journalist recently asked. “Few actually manage to accomplish that goal. What’s the secret?”
My answer, as unsatisfying as it may seem, is always this:
“Put your ass in a chair. Keep it there. Then write enough sentences to constitute a book. If those sentences tell a good story or uncover a corner of the universe in a new or interesting way, you might even get that book published someday.”
Not the most eloquent bit of advice, and it’s definitely not the magic pill that so many would-be writers are seeking, but it’s true. As with most creative endeavors, writing a book requires persistence, determination, and desire.
Put your ass in a chair. Write sentences.
I’m currently reading “Adventures in the Screen Trade” by legendary screenwriter, playwright, and novelist He offered a similar piece of advice about writing, but he did so far more eloquently than I ever could:
“Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you, that Demon being the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound.”
Thankfully, I don’t suffer from the self-doubt that plagues Goldman and most writers, I suspect, but perhaps a little more self-doubt would do me well.
