Step 1: Turn off the television!

How much Tube do you watch every day? How much every week?
What do you really get out of it? turn it off! Better yet give it away. I'm serious. Me I am pretty lucky. All the buttons on my television are broken and I can't find the remote. So my TV is stuck on channel 3 which means
the only thing I can do is use the VCR. For a while I could use the VCR to change channels but I lost
the remote for this too so the only thing I can do is pop in a tape and press play. I watch one or two
movies a week. I am definitely not missing anything- my gain. Now I have the time to write and so
will you. Maybe you will even read a little more.

Step 2: Buy a spiral bound notebook.

I hear it all the time: "I can't use a computer well. I can't spell. I don't have the things I need to write.
What kind of software should I get? Well I got something for you. You only need a notebook and what's in
step 3. . .

Step 3: Buy a pen or pencil

What have we invested so far? Five bucks? Don't have the five bucks? Sell your TV. (Two birds with one stone.)

Step 4: Sit down somewhere and write.

That's it. Just write. Don't let your mind psych you out. Don't even give a second thought to all that
stuff about dialogue, setting, characterizations, plot lines and the like. It doesn't have to be great. It doesn't
even have to be good. That will come later. It is just like exercise. The more you do, the better
you get. You will improve. But only if you write.

Hey listen, sit down and write the first sentence and watch it grow into a first paragraph and
then into a first page and a first chapter. Oh and after you write that first sentence send it to me.
I would love to read it!