Good morning.

New to writing? Yes? Great. Because even if you have not yet written your first word, your story has already begun to emerge. You may have been thinking about it for years — yearning to lay it out in chapters of a novel. Many dream just that, and never begin, and never find out if that story was worthy of an audience.

If you look at the future of what must be done in too much detail, the mountain you must climb to become an author with your first book may seem insurmountable. Your genre requires how many words to satisfy readers? My goodness. Is that more than all the words you have ever written, up to this point in time? Then people want to know how many

• books you have read,

• words you write per hour,

• agents and publishers you know or have contacted,

• people on your email list,

• blah, blah, blahs … on it goes.

Best to stop investigating right now, before you decide writing is not for you. There is plenty of time for all that. You do not need it until a chunk of writing has begun and your work emerges from the pages in full panorama for all to enjoy. Do not doubt yourself. How can you know that with confidence? Well, as you browse library catalogs, bookshops, and markets you will pass thousands of flat surfaces covered in publications. This is the ultimate proof that what you are about to embark on can be accomplished by people just like you.

So, get writing. Give it time to settle into your life. Don’t forget this is something new and you will have to allow yourself room to absorb all the freedom it offers. If you don’t quite find your rhythm, that will come. It will gradually slip into gaps in the crazy world you call your own.

Delight in the journey. We look forward to seeing your work published and lying in wait on a flat surface. Let us hear about your progress in the comments.

Have a great day. Damon