I love to write. I absolutely do. But for the longest time, I couldn't get over myself, my own inhibitions, insecurities, anxieties, doubts, fears, and demons. I couldn't get over my inner resistance. I couldn't write. I spent almost a decade not writing. Not even a single word. I was too afraid to write. I distracted myself in a hundred different ways, using shopping, sex, and other things to numb myself. But nothing worked.
The demons weren't satisfied. But eventually, I couldn't handle it anymore. I had to write. Something. Anything. I started writing at Nanowrimo one November, and the rest is history. Well, history that has been recorded in bits and pieces into this book, in the form of tips, tricks, and admonitions for you newbie writers to follow.
I know you are thinking that you can't do it. I know you are worried that you can't write every day. Even though every writing teacher recommends that we write every day, I know you are having a hard time with that right now.
That's okay. That's what I'm here to help you with. I'm here to help you get over your writing demons. I'm here to help you get over yourself. And write every single day. And then you will be able to find that delightful thing called persistence, consistency, and prolificness.
The more words you write, the more words you will end up writing. And then voila, you will have completed a novel. Then another novel, and one more. Until one day, you will have so many novels written that you are going to have to hire someone to take care of all of them. At least that's what we dream of as writers.
Success as a writer, I believe, comes from quantity. I believe in the adage that Quantity leads to Quality. It's not the other way around, no matter how much we would like to think. I would like you to start building the muscle to start producing quantities of words. Just a profuse mass of them. So much so that you are drowning in the oceans of words that you've written.
In this book, I don't only talk about writing, but creative work in general. Creativity can be such a lonely business. It can be a tough business. It can be a terrible business. But it can also be a fun, awesome, and addictive business. I want you to get into this business. I want you to love it. I want you to love yourself as a writer and a creative person.
Self-love, self-belief, self-confidence, and more - I will speak about all of this in the book. There's so much I want to chat with you about. I was so excited to write this book that I finished the entire thing in three weeks. Even I surprised myself by how much I had to say on the subject.
I know you don't know me, but I feel like I know you. I used to be you. I used to be a writer, who was down and out, who wasn't writing anything, but wanted to write more than anything in the world. I used to be a person who had all of these words inside of her, but they had no means of coming out. They were stuck somehow, and with that, I was stuck somehow.
The minute I was able to release them all, I felt free and released myself.
I want you to get to that point. Not only because it's so freeing, but because once you get there, everything changes. Not only your writing and creative life, but everything else. From your relationships to your body to your environment - everything begins to change, and becomes better and better.
I might not be the best writer out there, but I am definitely someone you could relate to. Because I was in your shoes four years ago. I have been there, done that, cried buckets, gotten nowhere.
I don't want you to be stuck in that cycle for decades on end. It is not fun and it is not useful for this world in anyway, if all of your words, those precious beautiful words are stuck inside of you somewhere, and not being shipped out to the world to enjoy.
I want you to write a lot. So let's get started, my dear writer friends!!