For the past few weeks, we have focused on capturing our thoughts,  survival, and following our dreams.  Today, I am so pleased to present Joyce Shulman’s guest post on how to write a book.  Joyce is the author of Walk Your Way to Better.  Joyce offers advice on how we make our dreams of writing a book a reality.  Please share your thoughts in the comments. Enjoy!

My cousin called me a few months ago. “I want to write a novel,” she said. She described the characters in detail and walked me through the plot. It had the potential to be a captivating story.

“Go for it,” I said. “You’re a great writer, and it sounds like a great story.”

Six weeks later, she called again. “So,” she began hesitantly. “How exactly do you write a book?” she asked. “Did you map it all out on index cards first, or do an outline or, well, how do you do it?”

“You put your butt in the chair and write,” I said. “There is no magic formula.”

Last week, another friend messaged me: “I have an idea for a book, and I’d love your opinion,” she said.

We hopped on the phone the next morning, and she described the moment when the idea for her book came to her, fully formed, while she was sitting on her back porch, sipping a cup of coffee. The idea was compelling, and I told her so. “You should write this,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I want to, but I’m not sure I ever will,” she sighed.

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase using the links.

How can you become inspired to write a book?

Someone once said that everyone has one book inside them, and I believe that’s true. Ever since I published my first book, dozens of friends have confided that writing a book has been a long-time dream.

The question is, how do you get inspired to do the work it takes to get hundreds of thousands of words on paper? How do you “find” the time? Where does the inspiration come from when you feel like quitting?

I wish I had an easy answer for you. I wish there were a magic formula.

Sadly, there’s not. Honestly, you just have to put your butt in the chair.

But four things helped me get from the dream of publishing my first book to holding it in my hands fourteen months later.

Four steps to writing a book

See the end.

While you might not know the entire story and you certainly won’t know every word, you have to be able to picture the end. You have to know where you are going and what you want to build. You must have a vision of the structure of your book, whether it is in your head or on paper. You need to know where you are going, even if you aren’t 100% sure how you will get there.

Commit to a doable daily word count.

Six hundred words a day was my minimum, and that’s not a lot. And some days, those 600 words were crap. But some days, I got on a roll, and 600 words quickly became 1,000 words that I was proud of. But whatever it is, whatever you know you can do, you need to commit. Daily.

Then get lost in the process.

Then, you need to fall in love with the process. Okay, maybe fall in love is an overstatement. Some days, the empty white page will feel overwhelming, and the writing will feel like torture. But some days, the thoughts will come, and the words will flow. Hang on for those days.

Don’t wait to find the time — you never will.

If this is something you want to do, you will need to make the time. And that might be at 5:00 a.m. That might be what you do in the evenings instead of watching This is Us. Unless you are one of those rare people who happen to have an extra hour or two in each day — and if you are, I’ve never met you — you are going to have to make the time.

A final thought. Writing a book is hard. Like, hard. Editing, formatting, publishing it is even harder. You will only get from where you sit right now to holding your book in your hands if it is something you want to do. But if it is, put your butt in the chair and get to work.

Joyce Shulman is the co-founder of Macaroni Kid, Pack Leader at 99 Walks, and author of Walk Your Way to Better. A serial entrepreneur, speaker, and confessed idea junkie, you can find her on Instagram at Joyce.r.shulman.