How to Do The Thing You Don’t Know How to Do (yet)

I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

I was in prison, throwing chicken scratch handwriting into one of those black and white journals I used in high school.

You know, the ones, most people I knew filled in all the white with their pen.

I had decided I was going to write a book; looking back, it was almost like it was chosen for me.

I had to get what was inside and had probably been inside me in one shape or another for over forty years, out of me.

It had grown too big and too powerful to ignore. I needed the outlet writing provides.

But I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

How would I even take what I was writing in journals and get it into a published book? How do I craft a story? What the hell am I really writing about anyway? It felt at the time like the ravings of a lunatic.

And that 1st draft kind of was.

How do I get an agent, how do I land a publisher, how do I sell copies? I mean, this thing needs to support me; I’m flat fucking broke with no prospects on the horizon.

I’m a corporate guy, at least I was until I blew up my life; what do I possibly know about writing a book?