Writing a book is the first step to finishing a book. Writing begins with words, proves a concept and allows for a story to emerge from chaos.

Writing a book is like telling a story to somebody not really interested in it. A person looking over your shoulder the whole time you’re talking, to watch the TV on the wall behind you. Who answers their phone in the middle of your sentence. You try and try to keep on going with the story, but they just distract themselves away.

Writing a book is like repeating yourself over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Writing a book is first grade language education by an underpaid, overwhelmed teacher. You don’t know how to spell. You have no idea what a comma is supposed to be doing. Is that even a full sentence?

Writing a book is a drug. A malicious substance forcefully integrating itself into your metabolism. It’s all engulfing. Like a haze, like a fog, like a hand grabbing your genitals and squeezing really hard. You need it. You crave it. In your dreams, in the shower, at work, during supper, during sex. The story, the characters take up root deep inside of you.

Writing a book is like the chase for the first high. The moment of bliss when the first few chapters were so perfect, so golden, so beautiful. Nothing ever compares to it after. The ending never satisfies. It needs another fix. Another needle. Another polish. Another puff, snort, shot.

Writing a book is a waste of time. Getting up early. Staying up late. Between work. Between meals. Between serious talks about money and weddings and children and future-planing and appointment and commitments and friends and foes and dragons and demons and guns and drugs and apocalypses and fireworks and nuclear wastelands and vampires and evil — death — doom.

Writing a book never ends. Maybe the chapters work. Maybe the plot thickens. Maybe the ending is great. Maybe they all live happily ever fucking after. The ideas keep coming. The next book. The other book. The character has more to do. A never ending story.

Writing a book never starts. An idea. A spark. A blank-page-of-doom. What to do — what to do — to do what?

Writing a book is dream dreamt by a dreamer. A way out of life. A way to understand life. A distraction, a comprehension. A fulfilment, and a big honking question mark. Nothing on the page is real, yet it all defines who you really are. These people you lead, no, they lead you. They show you the way. The story tells you. A thick tar of air, running scared, running slow. It’s a dream come true. It can be a nightmare.

Writing is hard. Really, really hard. You write and write and write, hammering out these precious words to hit your daily count of thousand, two-thousand, whatever. Write and write and write and when you’re done, you’re not even close to that number you set yourself. And does any of it make sense? Go back. Read again. Edit. Because you’re weak. Because you can’t move on. Because you’re afraid of writing more, so you go back and polish a turd. Because it’s too hard.

Writing a book is making love to yourself.

Writing a book is a chance. An opportunity. C’mon, you complain about movies and stories and mainstream media and all that cookie-cutter bullshit. You do that, because you want more. You want something deeper. Richer. So you write your own book. Because you can.

Writing a book is lazy. In your underwear (or open house-coat, with junk dangling in all directions), while the rest of the world is out doing important things, you sit there and type away. Tip-tip-tip-clicky-di-click. Some people even get paid for this kind of lazy-ass nothing.

Writing a book is commitment. Not to others. Not to a job or a manager or an out-sourced project. It’s a commitment to you — yourself. This is your thing. Your words. Your voice. Your imagination. Doing it, writing it, living it, is all that makes you — you. Commit to yourself.

Writing a book is like punching yourself in the face.

Writing a book is awesome.