INTRODUCTION

“Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.”

~ Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Dear Writer,

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write books. I’m guessing you can relate because you have stories too. World-transforming ideas tickling your brain. A unique perspective on a corner of life somehow overlooked. A tale that won’t stop unfurling its chapters inside your mind. The dream, the ache to write, has been thrumming through your veins for longer than you can recall.

And yet, something—time, confidence, life—is holding you back.

I felt this frustration even before I knew it plagued most writers. Long before a turbaned guru stared deeply into my eyes and told me that writing was why I was here. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Except to say, I had no reason to think I could be a writer and was thus grateful for the nudge. My grades had me, and probably everyone else, convinced that I was most definitely not “book smart.” Several humiliating interactions corroborated this, which I’ll share in the chapters that follow.

Against all odds, I did write and sell my first book, which received generous national publicity. I may be the only author you know whose CNN segment aired while she was scrubbing toilets at Trader Joe’s market, but publishing opened countless doors for me. Missteps and absurdity notwithstanding, over the next twenty-three years, I was able to write, ghostwrite, and co-author eleven books (including two New York Times bestsellers); more than forty magazine articles; and help birth hundreds of books as a coach. Meaning, I understand a thing or two about your ache.

I know what it feels like to pulse with a longing to write and publish and publish again and write some more, preferably soon, but most definitely before you die. Bestselling author Katherine Woodward Thomas and I used to joke about the inability to birth a book akin to being pregnant with a twenty-thousand-pound baby, ten years in gestation. Books unborn weigh on you.

I’m guessing some questions eat at your resolve and feel paralyzing: Can I do it? I mean, really do it—start and finish an entire manuscript? And, if I ever do, could it be great?

Great books changed you. You want to be great too.

It’s scary to consider that you might not be able to fulfill your soul’s calling—and perhaps equally terrifying to embrace that you are already great, fully capable of creating what you came here to create. As in, all is well. Or, as Hafiz wrote, “This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.”

If what I just said leaves you suspicious, suppose we take the lofty spiritual perspective out of the equation and honor the reality of time. To paraphrase Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life, as creatives, we have good taste. But there’s a gap between knowing what we want to bring forth and being able to execute it in alignment with our vision. It takes time and a lot of work to close the gap, and many people quit before their work no longer disappoints them. But I believe simply being able to recognize quality and having the desire to get there means that you’re an artist capable of seeing your work match your ambitions. You have that greatness within you.

I hoped as much about myself in 1991 when six books appeared to me all at once in a dream in the middle of the night (we’ll get to that too). I flung my heart, enthusiasm, and lousy punctuation into two worlds—the New York publishing scene and Hollywood celebrity circles—that most find unattainable. Walled cities? Who says?! And who cares about walls when your visions are sky-high? Anyway, I lived on the “left coast,” the magical sunny one. A place where everyone knows you only have to decide which reality to call your own. Just give me my grappling hook; I’m ready to scale those walls! Despite having no idea how to craft, structure, edit, publish, market, or promote my imagined books, I was all in!

BUT but but . . . you don’t know how to write a book! And remember, you never even heard a full college English lecture because you were busy fooling with your hair. All your participles dangle. You can’t even sing “The Preposition Song”!

Damn. The voice of resistance was loud. But screw the voice! I was on a mission from God. My first book would be finished in six—no, let’s make it nine—months!

That’s when I started studying what the greats—like the people in this book—had to say on everything to do with writing and publishing. I became obsessed. Books from geniuses like Julia Cameron, Anne Lamott, and Strunk and White gave me the confidence to keep writing. They taught me how to write a book proposal, get an agent, and understand the norms of publishing while bettering my grammar and syntax, and editing skills: my real-world practice, enthusiasm, and steady streams of submissions filled in the blanks. Without taking a single writing class, I saw immediate improvement.

That first book, Lives Charmed: Intimate Conversations with Extraordinary People, incubated for w-a-a-y longer than nine months before publication; I could have papered my bathroom with all the rejection slips it garnered along the way. I’ll share the whole story on these pages, not to mention some outrageous, humorous, magical, behind-the-scenes-clawing-my-way-to-the-middle experiences. Stumbling blocks? I’ve fallen all over ’em. Face-plants? I’ve made ’em. Setbacks? Just as I hoped my first New York Times bestselling collaboration would dig us out of debt, my husband of nineteen years left me for another woman. His parting words, when I had a mere eight weeks to deliver eighty thousand additional words to my publisher, were: “Have fun with your booooooks! That’s all you ever wanted anyway!” Oh, and my co-author went to prison. That was fun. So yeah, I’ve dealt with setbacks.

But delays and drama didn’t single me out. Every one of the authors you’re about to hear from has faced incredible setbacks:

•Steven Pressfield wrote for seventeen years before he sold a single piece.

•Seth Godin sent queries for hundreds of book ideas in one year—and was rejected by thirty publishers, twenty-five or so times each.

•Martha Beck was finishing her doctorate at Harvard with severe fibromyalgia that made it impossible for her to write or use her hands most of the time.

•Jillian Lauren claimed she’d kill herself if her first novel was rejected. It was. Thankfully, she didn’t.

That’s right: Many of the world’s most beloved bestselling writers struggled every bit as much as I did when they were starting out. Who knew? If I’d been privy to their hardships, could I have jump-started my own writing journey? Taken a few shortcuts and saved myself some psychic pain? Surely someone must have compiled all those “best practices” before, right? I’d scan the shelves and ask every clerk during my visits to Vroman’s, Barnes & Noble, or the Bodhi Tree Bookstore, but I never found the perfect guide. I’d get to the last page of a memoir or writing book, and, though I loved 95 percent of what I read, I’d think, But where are the messy-middle details? Where are the stories about the things I’m experiencing? From that curtailed perspective, it seemed like success came too fast for the writers of these books. The authors were struggling, and then, boom! They weren’t. Success! Whaaat?

I wanted narratives to unfold cinematically and show me how my idols pushed past drama, rejection, hunger, and broke-ness to get beauty down on the page. I longed for the details of how they got their ideas and then busted through resistance and continued to deliver, day after day, year after year, book after book. A few authors would deliver, and I devoured their stories. And yet, because they were writing from lives and genres far removed from my own, I was left wanting more. Greedily, I wanted this type of play-by-play honesty from every author I loved.

Then one day, it hit me. If I launched a podcast on writing, I could ask bestselling authors those very questions myself! Publishing Lives Charmed had flung open the door to a fulfilling career as a writer and book coach that’s enabled me to connect authors with agents, leading to many book deals and bestselling results. But through the podcast, I could learn things I had yet to experience.

I teamed up with bestselling author Danielle LaPorte as co-creators and co-hosts of the Beautiful Writers Podcast. We invited a few treasured author friends to come on air and talk about everything from breakout success to staying power. The show debuted at #6 on iTunes in October of 2015 and has remained on Apple’s Top Literature (now Books) Podcasts list nearly every day since. When Danielle left the show, I pulled in former guests like Glennon Doyle, Martha Beck, Robert McKee, Leeza Gibbons, and Dani Shapiro to come back on as co-hosts to help me interview writers penning bestselling fiction, memoir, thriller, self-help, creative nonfiction, and more.

The podcast struck an immediate chord. Listeners told us it felt like they were getting an MFA in creative writing by hearing guests like Tom Hanks, Arianna Huffington, Van Jones, and Maria Shriver give specifics on topics such as coaxing the muse; feeling worthy; embracing creative habits; wrangling time; conquering fear; overcoming jealousy; networking; discovering when to stop editing and press SEND; using different kinds of editors; wooing agents and landing book deals; handling disbelievers and haters; trying new marketing angles; and so much more.

Like me, our listeners were spellbound, for instance, when Anne Lamott, who came on to promote her seventeenth book, shared the prayer she says before she writes (also in these pages). Or when Marianne Williamson spoke of how A Course in Miracles—the book that started her writing career—seemed to physically stalk her until she finally picked it up. When Danielle and I interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert—whose name is eternally tied to the word “prayer” because of her genre-exploding memoir Eat Pray Love—I practically spat out my tea when she confessed how hard it was for her to pray. It was an admission none of us, Liz included, saw coming.

Fans reached out to say they couldn’t get enough, would binge-listen for days, felt like they were having coffee with us, and pulled their cars over on the side of the road to take pages of notes. But they also wanted to review the information, again and again, get the stories and lessons distilled in an organized way, where the details could be easily digested, remembered, and returned to whenever needed. That’s how this book was born.

You’re about to gain access to all this writing magic, from granular to visionary, including gems never before heard on the podcast. These literary superstars will make you think, laugh, and shorten your learning curve. They’ll help keep you in the game if—make that when—the going gets tough. Because, in case you haven’t heard, the blank page can be a real A-hole. And the publishing world, worse.

I believe you were born to share your worldly tales in these complicated times. Let the fact that you want to write be enough of a reason. No one ever said it’d be all blue skies and calm waters, but I can promise you that the tips and stories in these pages will make it easier for you. (Hint: Publish when you’re no longer bleeding. Write when you are.) Filled with heart-centered encouragement, street-smart advice, and accounts of insider success—and failure—to help you gain the courage to get your book, blog, or biz finally birthed into the world where it belongs, this is the writing book I always wanted to read.

In this labor of love years in the making, you’ll find wisdom from many of the smartest, most generous, and beloved authors alive. No more dangerous driving for you note-taking listeners of the podcast. There will be no carpal tunnel syndrome on my watch! Your literary heroes are here, in all their humble honesty and effervescent humor, happy to inspire and entertain you with their decades of hard-won know-how. (Not sure who they all are? No worries! You’ll find a brief bio by each author’s name the first time their words appear—plus a complete list of Featured Authors, with the title of their corresponding podcast episode(s), in case you’d like to listen later, in the back of the book.)

As you’ll soon discover, Beautiful Writers is part inspirational, part practical, and part writing memoir suspense story, filled with wild twists and mystical turns, just as they happened, and insights into the writing life few authors have the courage—or maybe good sense—to reveal. Blended throughout is a straight-from-the-trenches, true story about how a degreeless, clueless newbie who put six commas in every sentence turned herself into a career writer. If you’re feeling out of your league or intimidated by what you don’t yet know, my coming-of-career dreams, adventures, and misadventures will support you to find—and believe in—your own path while putting the wisdom of the greats in a vivid, relatable context.

No matter where you are in your process, I believe you can create and finish your masterpiece (or many of them). I’ve seen it over and over again—even for those of us who have “no business” dreaming so big.

If you have the ache, you have what it takes. Consider this book your official welcome to the Beautiful Writers Club.

I’m so happy you’re here.

Write on!