Don't Think. Act.

How many times have you wanted to sit down and write the book you've always wanted to write, but instead you simply thought about it for days, hours, even years. How long have you been waiting for inspiration? As a novelist and former journalist, I know better than some, less than most, that the inspiration comes in the doing. So, I want to finish editing the climax of my novel Earth, and I can't because I tell myself I don't know how.

Well, of course I don't know how if I just sit and think about it. That's just not the way writing of any kind works. If you do the actual process of writing, you will be inspired. If you sit and think about it you will be frustrated. It's just that simple.

So, I take out the chapter, the climax on Earth, and I just start. Sentence one. Page one. What could make this sentence better? Sentence two? Paragraph one? And slowly I start to build steam and all these huge epiphanies are propelling me through the story on wings of fire. I'm soaring! I'm dreaming I'm flying over Earth the novel, over the chicken coop, the fenced off yard for the baby cows, over the house, the family working the land, and further, I'm flying across the ocean to a place where the ancestors of that family lived and I'm seeing them, and I'm witnessing the climax from a much higher and greater perspective.

And it was all because I just opened the document on my laptop and looked at it. How many hours did I sit around waiting? Days? Months? How many? Too too many.

My policy now: don't think. Act. From action comes inspiration. Only then do the muses show up, line up to propel you on your way...

The same can be said for any kind of book, from memoir to a self help business book on leadership. Inspiration comes in the doing, not in the pondering! www.theliteraryexecutive.com