Writing a book: Getting started

You don’t “find the book as you write.” You have to do the hard work of solving the problem first. You have to figure out the best route, too. Before you start to write, articulate the idea in one sentence, one paragraph and one page. Nassim Taleb wrote in

1. Set a total word count. 40,000 - 60,000 words = standard nonfiction/novella book. A long nonfiction book/standard-length novel contains 60,000 - 80,000 words, and a very long nonfiction/long novel contains 80,000 - 100,000 words.
2. Give yourself weekly deadli...

Instead of getting a notebook to journal in, get a (large) desk calendar or date book, and then just challenge yourself to write a sentence or two every day, on that day.

This small amount of writing a day feels attainable. By writing it on a calendar, it’s very obvious wh...