How to Write AND Publish a Book in 30 Days

I don't like to ever teach something unless I personally have professionally done this.

In the 25 books I've written, it's always been a challenge to simply START the book.

In this lecture I describe some of the issues you will encounter on this exciting path and how you can defeat whatever monsters are trying to block your creativity.

Authenticity is the key to success: whether you are writing, starting a business, speaking, podcasting, even doing standup comedy.

I describe the three questions I ask myself (and why) before launching every endeavor.

There are a lot of myths in the publishing industry. Don't forget, this is a billion dollar industry where many people: agents, publishers, editors, bookstores, and on and on, want to take their share out of the process.

What myths do they spread to maximize their profit? It's important to understand these myths and why they might be obstacles to you writing a book (if you let them).

Let's get into it! What's the difference between a good book and a bad book?

There's one simple formula: the Arc of the Hero. Every great story has it.

I describe the Arc of the Hero and give many examples, ranging from fiction, to non-fiction, to even a tweet.

All good writing has the Arc of the Hero.

I look at the best "first lines" of 12 classic books to understand what is it that drives the reader forward after reading those first lines. Often the DNA of the success of a book can be found in those first words.

There's a little know test called the Flesch-Kincaid Score which tells you the readability of your book. So many people ask, "Why didn't my book sell better?" and the answer is often a poor Flesch-Kincaid Score.

I love teaching writing. I've written every day for so many years it gives me great pleasure to helps others see the beauty and nuances in this wonderful creative activity.

In this lecture I give a few of the tricks of the trade that I have used for years to hep make my books and articles better.

Step-by-step I go over - getting an editor, a good cover, a good interior design and then how to publish your paperback, hardcover, ebook, audiobook.

Now that you've written a book, how do you get people to read it? While no formula guarantees certain success I talk in this lecture about best practices for marketing your book.

[To access the downloadable resources, you can scroll to the bottom of the article included with this lecture and click on the File's Name]

Attached to this lecture are 25 audio interviews I have conducted with some of the greatest and bestselling authors of our time.

Authors ranging from fiction writers like Judy Blume (100 million copies sold), Ken Follet (150 million copies sold), Steven Pressfield (author of "The War of Art"), and many other great writers.

Please listen to the interviews at your leisure to get a full understanding of the different types of mastery involved in writing. However, it is not necessary to listen to these before starting your book. These are bonus interviews to complete your own mastery of this beautiful craft.

Audio Interviews with writers that I have done  include: 

1. Hugh Howey: Is Self-Publishing The Next Gold Rush?

2. Simon Rich: The Story Behind The Youngest SNL Writer Ever.

3. Jim Lucerno: Star Wars The Podcast Awaken.

4. Ben Mezrich: The Art and Science of Being a Successful Author.

5. Andy Weir: How to go from Self-Publishing to Six Figures.

6. Cheryl Strayed: James' Go-To Author.

7. Brad Meltzer: Creating a Bestselling Novel.

8. Judy Blume: Stop Wondering What is it all for.

9. Steven Pressfield: How to Go from Amateur to Pro.

10. Steven Pressfield: The Meaning of Practice.

11. Ben Mezrich: Success after 190 Rejection Slips.

12. Alex Berenson How to Write a Page-Turner.

13. Ken Follet: I want to write a bestseller.

14. James Frey: Breaking the Rules, writing becoming yourself again.

15. Steven Pressfield: It's not too late to become the hero of your journey.

16. Brad Thor: How to start craving out time for your dream.

17. Julia Cameron: The Best Tool to Unlock Your Creativity with The Artist's Way.

18. Tim O'Brien: Learn to Live in The Maybe.

19. Chuck Palahniuk: How to Captivate Someone on a Gut Level.

20. Ken Follet: I want to write a book that can sell more than 160 million copies.

21. Chuck Wendig: How to Write a Great Novel and All Things writing.

22. Darin Strauss: How to Lucy.

23. Brandon Webb: You Can't Just Be Something, You Have To Do Something!

24. Jon Morrow: Google Doesn't Care about Stories!

25. Steven Pressfield: Writing Lessons from The Master.

----------

Hugh Howey: Is Self-Publishing the Next Gold Rush?

Hugh Howey, the author of the New York Times bestseller Wool, joins The James Altucher Show. If you have ever wanted to write a book or any piece of literature... this is the show for you. Hugh explains how self-publishing is breaking down the walls of the literary world. This is creating more genres that people actually want to read rather than what general publishers assume the public wants to read. You'll hear him break down his creative process and the steps that he took to self-publish his books. Just by cutting out a few activities a day made it possible for him to accomplish his writing goals. It will prove that you are the only one standing in the way of your success. Taking a day off will only snowball... you have to stick with it. You have to "Choose Yourself!"

----------

Simon Rich: The Story Behind the Youngest SNL Writer Ever

He is one of James' favorite writers... At just 30 years old, he has already written six books, two of which are being made into movies... one by Seth Rogen. He is also one of the youngest writers ever hired on Saturday Night Live. Simon Rich, author, and screenwriter join The James Altucher Show to not only talk about his process of writing but also about what it takes to really be funny. You'll get an inside look at his writing technique and routines... his very own "daily practice."Plus, you'll get exclusive details on his new sitcom that will be featured on FXX. There is an art to Simon's writing and you can feel his passion while listening to him talk about his work. He has created shortcuts and methods that have molded his writing ability... From reinventing previous works to getting inspiration from The Simpsons. If you are looking for inspiration or just some good reads... take some notes, because Simon discloses his favorite books and authors that have been huge motivators to his career.

----------

Jim Lucerno: Star Wars The Podcast Awaken.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, the Force may just be against you.

Jim Luceno author of three Star Wars novels and a couple of feet of other books joins James today to talk about careers and everything Star Wars.

Sometimes hard work isn't enough. Often you need to look for out-of-the-box solutions...

You have to stick with it... you may get lucky.

They dive deep into the blockbuster Star Wars franchise. They go over all their favorite backstories and talk about their anticipation about what's coming next. James tries to get a little insight into the newest movie but Jim gives him nothing. You can hear his disappointment.

James and Jim geek out as they talk about Jim's newest book Tarkin and some future Star Wars movie ideas.

If you're a Star Wars fan then this show is a must-listen.

----------

Ben Mezrich: The Art and Science of Being a Successful Author

James and Ben Mezrich dig deep into the art and science of writing books as a full-time career.

His parents gave him two years to make a go at it, but secretly he gave himself five.

As Ben tells James, he never wanted to do anything else. After college, he locked himself in his apartment and wrote nine novels. He got rejection letter after rejection letter, about 190 in all.

Eventually, he found an agent and finally sold his first book, then his second, and his third.

But as he says...

Nobody was reading them until he finally got his break.

Ben has now authored fifteen best-selling books. His book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal – debuted at #4 on the New York Times list.

The book was adapted into the movie The Social Network – written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher – and was #1 at the box office for two weeks, won Golden Globes for best picture, best director, best-adapted screenplay, best score, and was nominated for eight Oscars, winning three.

They also talk about his new book, Q.

"The real information superhighway isn't in your computer it's in the sewer system."

Q is the story of a regular cop, Benjamin Grady, who suddenly finds himself on the front line of an unyielding, terrifying epidemic. His job is simple- to quarantine the Probables- those most likely to be carrying a deadly disease. But Grady quickly learns that no amount of training, no amount of lectures from the experts at the CDC or the military infectious disease specialists can prepare him for a society on the verge of losing the war to a microscopic, unrelenting scourge.

Plus, He breaks a secret on the show today and tells James about his next book.

----------

Andy Weir: How to go from Self-Publishing to Six Figures.

Since Andy Weir was a boy, he wanted to be a writer. But like most, success didn’t come easy.

His first “claim to fame” finally came with The Egg, a thousand-word story that went viral.

His latest book, The Martian was first published as a serial, one chapter at a time on his website. He had only a few thousand readers.

There were many things about the book I wanted to understand more so I called up Andy and asked him if I could ask him the questions in front of the listeners to my podcast. He was very kind and did so.

It was his first published book but he had been writing for years. That’s how it goes.

He self-published “The Martian” in 2011 after everyone rejected it. He started writing it and researching it in 2009.

Once he published it it got so popular (35,000 copies in 3 months) that Random House bought it and republished it in 2014 where it quickly went on every bestseller list. Then Ridley Scott scooped up the movie rights and Matt Damon is starring.

Very exciting!

At the end of our discussion, I asked Andy for his three tips for writers.

I said it would be for my listeners, but really I was asking for my own personal benefit. He said, “I would love to give you three tips,” and he did.

I’m going to spoil the show, but I hope you listen anyways. The 3 tips were:

It’s easy to daydream about your story but you have to sit down and write.

Resist the urge to tell your story to your friends and family.

This is the best time in history to be a writer. Today, you can bypass the gatekeepers.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

Andy’s daily writing habits

The books and authors of which Andy is a fan.

What is next for Andy Weir

Why Andy is afraid of being a one-hit wonder

Sometimes I feel like the character in “The Martian”. Stranded and left behind on a strange world where I have to learn to survive.

Fortunately, books help me connect back. And when I land back on Earth I have new stories to share. Stories I gained without even leaving my couch.

----------

Cheryl Strayed: James' Go-To Author.

Do you have a favorite book you return to over and over again?

James does, and today the author of that book joins him on The James Altucher Show.

Many of you know James does a Twitter Q&A every Thursday. But what you probably didn't know is that before he jumps online he rereads one book...

He turns to Sugar for inspiration.

Sugar is the fictional character in Cheryl Strayed's book, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar.

Cheryl Strayed has had a rough life: sexual abuse, divorce, past drug abuse, and her mother's death. All this pushed her to do something radical with her life.

She decided to take a hike. Not your everyday hike; she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Coast Trail from the Mojave Desert through California, Oregon, and Washington – and she did it alone.

The hike finally healed her, and she turned it into her NY Times bestselling memoir, Wild. The book was then turned into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon.

Oprah loved the book so much that she restarted her book club just to highlight it.

Cheryl's new book Brave Enough was just released in October. James asks her, "Why a book of quotes?"

As Cheryl says in the introduction of her book...

"I've always been a quote collector... From the comic to the profound, the simple to the complex, the sorrowful to the ecstatic, the inspiring to the stern, whenever I need consolation or encouragement, a clear-eyed perspective or a swift kick in the pants – which is often – quotes are what I turn to. They've been tacked to the walls of every home I've made. I've written them down in my journals and kept them in files on my computer. I've scribbled them on the back of ripped-open envelopes and drawn them across stretches of sand."

Now that they've met, James is almost sorry, as he'll not be able to steal from her so easily going forward.

----------

Brad Meltzer:  Creating a Bestselling Novel

Brad Meltzer is one of the most passionate writers I’ve ever met. He writes page-turning thriller novels. “The Tenth Justice”, “The Millionaires” and his most recent, “The Escape Artist”. The first book Brad wrote got 24 rejection letters. But he trusted his gut and kept fighting. He found what he loved: 1. Character creation and 2. writing. I wanted to find out the X-factor in his books… and how he pressed on to become the writer he is today.

----------

Judy Blume: Stop Wondering What is it all for.

If she told me to jump off a bridge, I just might do it. She was the only friend who would tell me anything and I would do anything for her.

I think I love her.

Growing up, I wanted to know everything—sex, bullying, whether I was normal or not.

I was curious—confused really. Kids were mean and girls were pretty.

Judy Blume was the only one who would answer my questions.

I was asking, “What is it all for?” And she told me. I thought, maybe this is what finding God feels like.

She’s a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author with more than 82 million books sold. Successful? Yes. But it’s more than that.

“I represent childhood,” she says, “I think when somebody represents your childhood, that’s special. I’m lucky people tell me that.”

Her book, “Forever,” taught me about sex. “Blubber” explained bullying. I read Judy Blume’s books because I had questions and she had answers.

So where did she come from?

At age 19, a man took her on a date. He stayed the night and never left.

They got married, had two little babies, but Judy realized she had stories but no other outlets. “I wouldn’t say I had exactly grown up when I started to write, but I was in a grown-up situation.”

Sometimes, as grown ups, we stop taking care of ourselves. We neglect our needs, health, relationships, and friendships. But if you’re open to living a better life, you’ll learn something from Judy Blume.

She used to feel stuck, too. Stuck and lonely. “I understand now how important friendship is in a life, no matter how happy you are with your family,” she says.

Do you feel a void, too? What’s missing here?

Judy realized she needed to take care of herself. “Before I started to write, I was sick all the time. I was always sick. I had one exotic illness after another, but once I started writing I was letting that bad stuff out and it didn’t have to make me sick anymore,” she says.

Writing helped her and it helped us, but we’re still wondering, “What is it all for?”

Uncertainty and darkness. “Would you say that’s the overriding theme of the book,” I asked.

“You’re interesting,” Judy says before answering, “I’m a person who never knows the theme of her book.”

Her new book, “In The Unlikely Event,” is an opportunity for me, for you, for everyone “to be taken out of our own lives, to get insight into other people’s lives, as well as our own lives, and to learn new things.”

Listen now to Judy Blume. No bridge necessary.

----------

Steven Pressfield: How to Go from Amateur to Pro

Steven Pressfield: The meaning of practice.

I had a full time job. I was trying to run a business on the side. I was pitching two TV shows. And I was obsessively playing chess day and night and traveling to tournaments.

And nothing was going well. My attention was scattered. I was unhappy. I felt stuck.

One time I was talking to one of the partners in my side business, Randy Weiner. I said to him, “I’m reading this fascinating book about chess endgames.”

He said, “I don’t care about that! Why are you even looking at those books? Chess is a game for kids. You should be working at this business full-time.”

The next day I quit my job. I joined the business full time. I never played in another chess tournament ever again. I stopped pitching TV shows.

I went from being an amateur to being a pro.

Which is why I’m glad the other day I spoke to Steven Pressfield, author of “Turning Pro,” “The War of Art,” “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” “Do the Work,” and more than a dozen other great books and novels.

Sometimes it seemed like each new low was lower. And often the highs were higher. But I haven’t had a job since.

Ever since I made the decision to turn pro, I’ve been free.

It took me two years of asking before Steven finally agreed to do the podcast. I’ve read all his books twice. But I was still scared to death right before the podcast.

Steven and I spoke for two hours about turning pro, writing, how to improve, how to achieve peak performance in any field of life.

I wanted to ask questions nobody else would ask him. Two hours later I feel good about it.

----------

Ben Mezrich: Success after 190 Rejection Slips.

“When I was a struggling writer, before I wrote my first book, I got 190 rejection slips.”

He taped them to the walls like a serial killer.

“My wallpaper was rejection slips.”

“What was the worst one...,” I asked Ben Mezrich, a New York Times bestselling author. Over the past five or six years, I’ve probably read all of his books. He wrote “Bringing Down the House,” which became the movie “21”. He wrote, “Accidental Billionaires,” which became “The Social Network” where Jesse Eisenberg played a seemingly evil Mark Zuckerberg.

The New Yorker sent him just a page with the most powerful word known to man.

“It was just, ‘No,’” Ben said, “I was rejected by a janitor at a publishing house because I sent a manuscript to an editor who was no longer working there and the manuscript ended up in the trash can. A janitor took it out of the trash, read it and sent me a rejection letter.”

That was his big chance. Not Ben’s.

The janitor.

“I’ve never wanted to write a book,” Ben said. “I wanted to write. I wanted to write a hundred books.”

I was interviewing him about, “The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America's UFO Highway.”

They found these cows in the 70s. It looked like they were sliced with a laser. They had perfect slices of circles in their abdomens. Like pancakes. And they were completely drained of blood.

The FBI investigated.

There was no mess. No blood spill.

Then pilots started seeing UFOs. Ben says if a pilot sees a UFO now, they’ll get fired for reporting it.

So I asked him, “Isn’t there a freedom of information act?”

“They’ve tried,” he said. “But they didn’t even admit Area 51 existed until a few years ago. So, no. They don’t have to release that information.”

People lose their minds looking for answers. Questioning can be interrogative or art. Answers birth more questions. And the space between answer A and question B is just space.

And that’s where Ben’s books are created.

“I only go into the stories where it’s larger than life or something happens,” Ben said. “What leads up to that incredible moment? What leads up to Facebook being a billion dollar company or what leads up to a guy suddenly believing in UFOs?”

I asked about his writing process. And selling process.

“I write by page not by time,” he said.

If he’s writing a 300 page book, he does this:

Step 1: introduce characters

Step 2: introduce love interest

Step 3: introduce what they’re trying to achieve / their goal (You’re starting off with the obstacles.)

That’s part 1.

Step 4: “At the end of 100 pages something happens -- something that makes it very difficult for the characters to achieve their goal.”

Ben said, “When I’m interviewing people, I’m thinking of their lives as chapters.”

Interviewing is part of Ben’s writing, but it’s also part of his selling process. He won’t write a book that won’t sell.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Usually, I speak to the main character enough to get a book proposal,” he said. “Then I do all that research. Then I do an outline (very specific, in fact, I know how many pages each chapter is. It’s like a skeleton. It’s very severe.)”

My dreams don’t have skeletons.

They usually look like boneless blobs or liquid sliding downstream. Direction over details. That’s what Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert told me.

I get stuck because I want to do everything at once. I want to read every book, go for a walk, fly around New York City, interview Carly Simon, Edward Thorpe, Carrie Fisher (who I’m sad I missed sharing her stories with you… we were going to meet when she returned from the UK). I want to spend time with my daughters, begin and win at all my dreams, but I also want to do nothing.

Sometimes I get so worked up dreaming of the millions of directions I could fly that I forget to take off.

But it’s ok.

Because I have something to write about. I have a connection with you. Something to share. Something that makes us the same kind of human: ambitious, terrified, curious.

We want to be all in.

We want to be creatures of resilience.

----------

Alex Berenson: How to write a Page-Turner.

Alex Berenson had the dream job. But he was unhappy. And perhaps it even scarred him in some ways.

He switched it up. To his true dreams. To the dreams he had for himself since he was a child.

I want to do this.

First off, Alex has written 11 bestselling thriller novels. Alex knows how to get the reader to turn the page and ask, “What happens next?!”

This is an unbelievably hard skill.

But it’s not the most important skill when you are moving into your dream job.

I will tell you the most important skill. And Alex explains more clearly how he did it when we are in the podcast.

The most important skill is to have this weird sort of “active arrogance”.

Here’s the gap: The best in your profession have skills, experience, and they know how to sit down and DO something every day.

The beginners: they WANT to do something. They PLAN to do something. They SAY they will eventually do it. They THINK they have the skills they need.

But they never do it.

The ones who succeeed. They have the arrogance to think they can just simply sit down and do it. .Despite not having the skills. Despite being total amataurs. They simply sit down and DO IT.

By doing it, you LEARN the skills, you DO the job [a first novel in Alex’s case], and you get better.

DOING is the only way to succeed. Most poeple stop before this point. Alex didn’t.

And thank god. Because his 11 bestsellers have been lifesavers for me. A way for me to dream. A way for me to escape.

Here’s how Alex did it:

[6:25] - Create your own universe

“In 2003 and 2004, I went to Iraq for the paper,” he said (he worked at The New York Times). “The war had ended, supposedly… we deposed Saddam. Most reporters go during the ‘active phase,’ so The Times said any cub reporter could put their hand up and go. So I put my hand up.” Then he came back and realized he had stories. And John Wells was born. Alex has written 11 bestsellers. All page-turners. I wanted to know what made him start writing thrillers. I’ve always thought of writing fiction. I still wonder if that’s what’s next.

Here’s what he told me, “In my universe, nobody lies to me. They can lie to each other, they can even lie to themselves, they cannot lie to me.”

[11:00] - Some luck goes unnoticed

“Coming back to the states was a shock,” he said. “The wastefulness of this country really smacks you when you’ve been away for a while, certainly in a place like that.”

“What do you mean? What’s an example?”

“I think the example that struck me is the electrical grid.”

We take it for granted that the lights go on. And then use them like crazy. I live in NY. The lights are always on. It doesn’t matter what time. And I never think about it. “American is a place of abundance,” Alex said. “I guess that’s a good thing. It’s better to be rich than poor but realize that 80% of the world is never going to live in conditions anything like this. It really does just smack you in the face to realize how lucky we are and how little we realize that.”

[12:00] - Choose yourself

I asked Alex if he thinks we’re becoming complacent as a society. “Thats a real fear,” Alex said. There are two sides. One side is if you give people everything will they stop wanting to work? Will they say they have enough. And give up.

But then the other side is you work so hard and go nowhere. “The flip side of that is if you make the system so unfair that nobody believes hard work can get you ahead, they’re not going to work either.”

And I think that’s why work should be more than a paycheck. There has to be a vision. And following that vision is how you choose yourself.

[15:00] - Have a little arrogance

Alex said a lot of reporters want to write novels. He was one of them. But there’s something that separates those who write from those who don’t...

“I did something arrogant,” he said. “I wrote a novel.”

So I wondered if that’s part of the formula? Do all novelists have some arrogance to write something totally made up and think other people will want to read it?

“Of course,” Alex said. “Are you kidding? It’s the craziest endeavor. ‘I’m going to create this world with these fake people and I want you to believe they’re real. And I want to make them come alive for you.’”

[17:17] - Finding aspects of you

I’m curious about the characters. Like dreams, where do they come from? Is it a manifestation of yourself? Of people you know? And who leads the story? Is it the writer? Some writers say the characters are so strong psychologically that they lead the story.

Alex got his answer from his wife. She’s a psychiatrist. She says John Wells is a projection of Alex’s most idealized version of himself. “He’s strong, he’s very capable, he’s so tough. Women love him, men fear him, sheep want to be with him, ya know he’s tortured because he’s committed all this violence over the years, but he’s essentially a good guy.”

I wonder what it would be like to create my own universe and then ask a doctor to read into me. But I only know what I create if I start creating.

[19:22] - How do you survive?

His books are 400 pages each. And that’s before everything gets cut down and reformatted. He used to write before work. Now it’s his full time job.

“So how do you survive? How do you sit through it?”

“Writing the books is mentally painful,” he said. “I make the characters suffer. Because I’m suffering.”

[26:13] Who’s your hero?

I wanted to know more about Alex’s hero. He could’ve made the everyman. But instead he chose a spy, someone who in danger. Maybe it’s a reflection of who we want to be. Someone with real freedom.

Alex said. “When you have nothing to lose, when you don’t care if you live or die, you have incredible freedom.”

Alex doesn't have that freedom. He told me how he was almost kidnapped in Iraq. “People thought I was spy,” he said. ““I had a very close call. I mean everyone has a close call, but I had a very close call”

“What was your close call?”

“Ya know, I don’t like to talk about it.”

I couldn’t let this go. When someone comes on my podcast, I have one chance to ask them everything I want to know.

“Could we please talk about it?”

“I found a notebook that a Shia fighter kept… It was just a tiny green notebook. It was in the rubble of a building. And I took it.”

“They saw you pick it up?”

“No… I was dressed like a local. I had a goatee. I had my haircut shorter, but no one was going to be fooled into thinking I was Iraqi. No one who REALLY looked at me. And I didn’t speak arabic”

People got suspicious of him.

“The question was, ‘What are you doing? Why do you look like this? Why are you trying to pass… you’re not one of us. And once that happened, it just spiraled.”

“So you reached a point where you got scared,” I said.

“Oh, no no no no. It was much worse than that…”

[34:16] - Get stories

I wanted to know how Alex got back home. He was detained. And almost martyred.

These experiences lead to his novels. Now, he had stories to begin fueling the John Wells series.

[43:34] - Write everyday

People ask Alex how he gets his inspiration.

“I have a mortgage to pay and I have a contract. I can’t wait for inspiration.” He says he makes progress everyday.

[44:30] - How do you get people to turn the page?

Alex turned the tables. He asked if I wrote a page-turned.

The answer’s no. I tried. I’ve tried for 20 years. He said one key is to let people read your work. I’ve never let anyone read my fiction. I want to know the beats.

We broke them down.

“I’m kind of the wrong person to ask about structure,” he said. “My books violate the normal structure of genre fiction.”

But I find this is true with all peak performers. They can’t explain how they do so well. It comes natural to them. So getting into the finer nuances takes effort.

I dug. And here’s what I found…

[54:54] - Finding structure

1. In the beginning, the main character is involved in something bad

2. Then he solves it

3. And he’s given a grace period of relief

4. Then he goes through something worse… Alex said, “You have to have a mission and within that mission there has to be sub-missions.”

5. It could get worse. “It depends,” Alex said. Sometime the main character gets help from somewhere else or a clue is revealed. Anything can happen.

[58:20] - They key to a great ending...

Eventually it ends… But here’s the key. You need a cool solve.

So I asked, “What’s a cool solve?” This is another great example of an expert knowing his craft better than the inner workings of that craft…

We went through a ton of examples. And finally landed on this:

You have to build. “For Wells, there’s always tensions. Your always asking, ‘How far will this go?’ You just got me to explain it better,” Alex said.

----------

Ken Follett: I want to write a bestseller.

Ken Follett is a well-known Welsh novelist who specializes in writing spy thrillers novels and has sold over 160 million copies worldwide. Before he became a novelist he was a reporter for the London Evening News and was a Deputy Managing Director for a small publishing house, Everest Books. In his spare time, he wrote novels, but he wrote a dozen before finding success. Eye of the Needle, his eleventh book, was his first successful novel published in 1978. His novel The Pillars of the Earth was on The New York Times bestsellers list for 18 weeks in 1989. This novel has been so incredibly popular all over the world for many years. In 2007 it became the #1 most popular choice on the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and returned to The New York Times bestsellers list at #1.

----------

James Frey: Breaking the rules, writing becoming yourself again.

James Frey is a controversial writer. On purpose. He wanted to be “the most notorious writer in the world.” He ran off to Paris to be a writer when he was 21. He published a bestseller 12 years later ("A Million Little Pieces"). That’s 12 years of failure. He told me about those 12 years, his writing style, how he developed a voice, rehab, addiction, and depression… but mostly about learning how to become yourself again.

----------

Steven Pressfield: It's not too late to become the hero of your journey.

Steven Pressfield was a cab driver for years before becoming a best-seller author. He's taught me about following your gut and not letting time get in the way of who you’re supposed to become. Listen to Steven talk about the hero’s journey and how you can become the hero of your life (even if you feel like it’s too late, it’s not.)

----------

Brad Thor: How to Start Carving Out Time For Yours Dream.

Brad Thor used to work in the TV industry. Then he got married. And his wife asked him, “If you were on your death bed, what would you regret not doing?" He answered right away. Without thinking. "Write a novel," he said. Now he's written 19. And he's one of my all-time favorite thriller writers. He told me how he carved out time for his dream, what it's like to work on secret projects with the government, how he got his book deals, the beats of a thriller and more.

----------

Julia Cameron: The Best Tool To Unlock Your Creativity.

Julia Cameron is the author of "The Artist's Way." I've read and re-read this book for decades. It's THE #1 tool for when I need to clear out my self-doubt, fear, creative blocks, etc. And I'm not the only one. Countless of movie producers, actors, writers, and more have used this book to unlock their creativity. And build success.

----------

Tim O'Brien: Learn to Live In The Maybe

Tim O’Brien is the bestselling author, “The Things They Carried.” Tim wrote this book as a veteran of the Vietnam war. He was drafted. Like everyone else in their 20’s at the time. “85, 90% of our casualties came from land mines,” he said. “Not gunfire. Not the typical battle you’ll see in movies. Landmines were the killing force.” Every step he took was a mystery. People died all around him. ““I’ll never know how close my foot was to a land mine,” he said. Now he's 73. And has a new book. It's called "Dad's Maybe Book." His son came up with the title. But I look at this book as a sequel to "Thinks They Carried." Because both books include the idea of "maybe." "Will I live another day?" "every day has maybe," Tim said. "But that’s true for everyone. We all write our maybe books. Maybe my dreams will come true. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll change my dream, amend them or qualify them..." This episode is about learning to get comfortable with the maybe. Settling in. And seeing the story unfold.

----------

Chuck Palahniuk: How to captivate someone on a gut level.

Chuck Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club... a cult classic. And one of my favorite books. I felt so lucky getting to watch him breakdown storytelling. Because he does it in a way that goes beneath the surface. He takes you into what it means to be human. He makes you feel seen and like your life, as messy as it is, makes sense. Now he has a new book called, "Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything Was Different." Which not only has all the best writing advice I've ever seen, it also has a list of recommended books in the back. Chuck and I read through the list. He asked me, "Have you read this one?" And said the title. I said, "No." He said, "I'm so jealous. It's like you're about to have sex for the first time." I can't wait.

-----------

Ken Follett: I want to write a book that can sell more than 160 million copies.

Ken Follett, the author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works, came on to talk about his latest book, NEVER

How does one write books that sell 160 million copies? What was the writing process looks like?

In this episode, I have one of my favorite authors, Ken Follett, the author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works, came on to talk about his writing process for his new book, Never.

Some of the things that we talked about include, developing characters, what can we borrow from the real world in the writing process, and what's the best approach to writing current politics and current events!

-----------

Chuck Wendig: How to write a great novel and all things writing.

Chuck Wendig, has my dream career, he is an American author, comic book writer, screenwriter, and blogger. He even wrote one of the official Star Wars (post-Disney) canons, Star Wars: Aftermath! In this episode, we talked about all things writing!

----------

Darin Strauss

I LOVE LUCY! Lucile Ball is truly a choose yourself person, I even wrote about Lucille Ball in my upcoming book, Skip The Line, (Pre-Order it here: http://bit.ly/STHELINE. I have my friend Darin Strauss, a best-selling American writer, to talk about his new book, The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story, writing, the new trend in media, and all!

----------

Brandon Webb: You can't just be something, You Have to do something!

Brandon Webb, former United States Navy SEAL, and SEAL Sniper course Head Instructor, New York Times bestselling author, Experimental aircraft pilot, and Entrepreneur, always wanted to be a fiction and novel writer. This time, he did it. He wrote a novel called Steel Fear: A Thriller, and he even manage to auction it off to Peacock TV! I am so impressed by this, so I decided to call him up, and asked him how he did it. How to write a non-fiction book, how to defy all the naysayers, and do what you wanted to do and believe in it! Listen to this episode, and see how Brandon made it all possible!

----------

Jon Morrow: Google Doesn't Care about Stories!

Jon Morrow might be the most successful copywriter on the web, and he's definitely the best indexed on the web. Jon (the owner of Smart Blogger) and James take today's 80 minutes to unravel the current market conditions for getting paid to write content, how to learn to do it, and how rapidly the market is going to shift over the next 5 years.

In Jon's words, "The future of AI isn't to replace all writers, I think it's going to replace the word processor. Instead of going into Google Docs or Microsoft Word, you're going to go to an AI prompt and you're going to have a writing assistant who you will feed at your novel ideas and it will express them in super interesting ways that you can then choose from to publish on the web."

The pair also discuss:

• Search-driven content vs. social media-driven content

• What are content briefs and who are content strategists?

• Domain authority vs. topical authority

• Copywriting vs. content writing

• AI-assisted SEO keyword generation

• How to get paid to write from home with no prior experience!

----------

Steven Pressfield: Writing Lesson from The Master

Steven Pressfield's newest book, Govt Cheese a memoir, must jump to the top of your reading list. Both gut-wrenching and laugh-out-loud funny, his brutally honest story is a compelling page-turner.

Steven's writing career spans many genres and formats, but it almost never materialized. From US Marine to advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout, mental hospital attendant, migrant fruit-picker, and hack screenwriter, his debut novel - The Legend of Bagger Vance - was 30 years in the making before it was published (later to become a major motion picture). Never content with one format, his non-fiction book The War of Art has now sold over a million copies globally & his historical fiction novel Gates of Fire is on the required reading list at West Point.

James and Steven touch upon all manner of concepts & credos during today's conversation, among them:

• What role does advertising play in an author's toolkit? (00:06:10)

• After writing 3 unpublished novels and 9 failed screenplays, what kept Steven motivated? (00:15:17)

• Did Steven ever consider suicide? (00:16:43)

• What breakthrough made Steven's books "publishable"? (00:19:13)

• The 5 stages of creative development: Desire, Craft, Soft Skills, Finishing, and Killing the Ego (00:29:43)

• The importance of mentorship (00:31:43)

• What did Steven learn from re-writing a porn script? (00:47:04)

• James' two classes of humans: "Writers" & "Birdwatchers" (00:56:02)

• Belief in the other all-knowing dimension (01:02:08)

----------