How to Write Your First Novel

How to Write Your First Novel

Writing your first book might actually be fun. I’m serious. I know you’re terrified. It’s a scary thing to do. But, at the risk of sounding like I was raised on a Portland commune, that fear is just energy. In writing your first book, it really is possible to flip that switch, and allow your fear to become excitement. Because that’s all it is. It’s life force. And it’s necessary to write your first book.

If you wait for it to go away, you’re missing the point. Use it.

Inquire into the nature of your fear, and I promise you that you will gain insight into the story you’re writing.

Your first novel or memoir lives within you. Everything you need to know, you already know. The challenge now, is to get out of your head so that your first book can emerge.

Good luck! I know you can do it.

 

Learn more about marrying the wildness of your imagination to the rigor of structure in The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, or The 90-Day Screenplay workshops.

Alan Watt with L.A. hills behind

by Alan Watt

About the author

Alan Watt is the author of the international bestseller Diamond Dogs, winner of France’s Prix Printemps, and the founder of alanwatt.com (formerly L.A. Writers’ Lab). His book The 90-Day Novel is a national bestseller. As Alan has been teaching writing for over two decades, his workshops and the 90-day process have guided thousands of writers to transform raw ideas into finished works, and marry the wildness of their imaginations to the rigor of story structure to tell compelling stories.

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