Start to Write: Break Free from Rules, Overcome Your Fear, and Start Writing Today (Step-by-Step Guides for Growing Writers, #2)

You want to write.

Maybe you leave story ideas on post-it notes all over the house (or your office, or your car, or stuck to your neighbor's dog). You frantically whisper notes into your phone while you wait in line at the DMV. You might even schedule a four-hour block of time, set yourself up at a hipster coffee shop to people-watch and write.

Then you sit down in front of a blank screen and you stare at it. You prepare for battle. You order another quad-venti-three-pump-hazelnut latte.

It's scary, right? It doesn't have to be.

What's stopping you from writing right now? Do you wonder if anyone will ever read what you're writing? Do you fear your writing just isn't quite good enough? Do you feel like everything has already been said? Do you need a mentor to guide you? Do you think you need to go back to school and get a creative writing degree? Do you stare at a blank screen waiting for your Muse to give you the perfect opening line?

I hear you. I've been you. You are not alone.

I started writing seriously a few years ago. I spun around in my head about what to write, how to make people read my writing, and how to write the perfect opening line for a blog post. I wasted hours researching each idea to see if someone, sometime in the history of the world, had already stumbled upon it. I used a lot of energy worrying and then preaching at readers instead of opening up a conversation. I've learned a lot about how to be a writer the hard way.

Since then, I've spent hundreds of hours coaching writers in storytelling and copywriting. I've helped a lot of new writers work through the same things I struggled with.

I want your road to be easier.

In Start to Write, I share eight lessons I learned about being a writer. These are the things I wish I had known when I started. Things that could have saved me a lot of time and emotional energy.

I want to encourage you with practical advice and clear up the mystery of what it means to be a writer.