Do you ever see a writer in a film or television show and think “If only I had that setup, I could write a bestseller”?
It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea there’s a perfect place, desk, pen, situation that would change everything for our writing. But it’s a fallacy. A fantasy. It doesn’t exist.
The only thing that does work is…work.
Sitting down every day and stringing words together.
John Grisham wrote his first few novels by hand on legal pads in between cases as a lawyer. Kathy Reichs wrote her novels (and consulted on her subsequent TV show Bones) in between working as a forensic anthropologist and professor, not to mention continuing her position as a consultant to other institutions. Voltaire wrote Oedipe while imprisoned in the Bastille. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 at the Powell Library in Los Angeles. Agatha Christie famously wrote in her tub.
So stop looking for that perfect pen or journal or software program. You don’t need it. All you need to do is write. It’s that simple and that hard.
You also have to give up the notion that you will someday master the form. You won’t. But you can master the fundamentals. I invite you to check out the Fable Cohort: Story Foundations course (coming soon). In the meantime, develop a daily practice. Write. It’s the only way to get better.