If you have a story you’d really like to write down, I want to encourage you to do it. Sit down and write page one—I know. It might not be as hard as you think. Maybe you have a story about your life or a special experience you’d like to share. Or perhaps you want to teach others something you know. Maybe it’s a novel? What’s holding you back? Have you never written before? Don’t know how to get started?
I give inspirational talks on this topic for groups of all sizes.
I’m self-taught and haven’t taken any writing courses or anything like that. When I started writing my first manuscript, I hadn’t had any dreams of becoming a writer and had never even considered writing anything other than emails. The reason it happened was that I wanted to read a mystery novel set in my new hometown, Nyköping. There wasn’t one, so my wife joked, “Then write it yourself,” and I replied sarcastically, “What a great idea, honey—I’ll write page one today.” On a whim, I sat down at the computer right away. How hard could it be? I wrote: “Detective Inspector Arne Olofsson pulls up in front of the police station in Nyköping…” All that happened on page one was that he arrived at work, and I never intended for this whim to amount to anything more than that.
But I started thinking about what might happen on page two. I made my way through a couple more pages before I realized I didn’t have a story. I also knew nothing about police work and had no idea how to write dialogue. But it was fun and something I hadn’t done before, so I stumbled forward and tried to write a story that I myself would want to read. My ambition wasn’t for it to become a book.
Are you interested in a meetup where I can inspire you to try writing page one? Contact me, and we'll see if we can make something happen.