People ask me all the time about how to become a writer. Which is hilarious to me, since in my entire life I’ve been paid somewhere in the neighborhood of two or three grand for writing. Okay, fine, sure, I have a day job, and a big part of said is that I write. But it’s also that I take photographs, and do graphic design, and any number of other 21st-century Gen-Y duties that a degree in religion and half a lifetime spent online prepare you for.

All that is to say, people ask me about writing. And I’m all to happy to offer some advice, if I feel I know what I’m talking about. Which – and this surprises me more than anyone – I often do. Despite never having experienced it personally, I know a few things about how to sell, publish and market a book, for example. I know even more about how to write one.

Oh, that’s the bitch, isn’t it? That’s what I always tell people. "Oh, I have this book I want to write," they say. They describe it to me, and for the first 45 seconds or so, I consider killing them and stealing their idea, because it’s usually better than anything I’ve come up with in 30 years.

"What happened to Lisa?"

"I dunno; she had a meeting with this guy – Nick? Was his name Nick? - she was going to talk to him about working on a book proposal."

"Lisa’s writing a book?"

"Yeah, isn’t that cool?"

"Well, she’s 45 minutes late for dinner, so – no. Honest to God, I hope that Nick guy bashed her skull in with a garden hoe and is pitching her book to editors as we speak."

No, I mean. In my mind. And my name’s not Nick.

Though, funny aside, there was a girl in college who, for FOUR YEARS used to call me Nick. She introduced me to other people as Nick. At first I was too shy to correct her. And by the time I decided to man up and let her know the deal, the whole charade had gone on too long, and anyway graduation day is a bad time for things like that. "We made it, huh? We’re college graduates! By the way, my name is Nate." So Nick it is!

Anyway.

All right, so people ask me about writing. And often they have good ideas. But I tell them the bad news is that before you sell a book, before you see your name at Barnes and Noble and get to be Oprah’s new best friend, the bitch of it is that you have to write a book. I know. How long have books been around? They can’t come up with a new system? Nope – you have to write one. You have to write day and night, and the worst, most awful thing you can do as a writer is to act like a writer and wait for inspiration to strike.

I didn’t know this for the longest time. I thought that if the idea was good you’d float along on a cloud of writerliness, a bright glowing halo above your head and rainbows shooting out of your ass, the words flowing as if some verbal dam had broken. Uh, nope. Writing is hard freaking work and if you don’t stick with it, you’ll lose your momentum. You know how if a shark stops swimming, it’ll drown? 

Or, oh, here’s a better metaphor. You know how if you stop feeding a baby, it’ll, like, die? Yeah, I was surprised too, but it’s true. Stories, books, works of art, are little crack-addicted babies who can never get enough food. But if you feed them regularly, and well – if you give them the very best and purest stuff you have to offer – they’ll get big and strong, and the people won’t have to come and take them away.

I mean, not to get braggy, but in the last year I wrote, edited and finished a novel. And in September – if not before – I might sell it. I’m stunned. I’m proud of myself, but it takes mental muscles I didn’t know I had not to get ahead of myself and start figuring out what I’m going to say to Conan when I’m on his show.

Okay, so skip ahead. Or back. Anyway, so this weekend was amazing. I got to spend it with six of the coolest people I know at a cabin that has magical creativity-inspiring powers. Also, we watched a lot of Friday Night Lights, drank beer and played cards at a laundromat. But we also talked, and as I didn’t know everyone at the cabin as well as I’d have liked, I spent a lot of time asking nosy questions. And when I was driving home with one of aforementioned people, my nosy questions turned into a fantastic conversation about friendship, God, church, sex, and Facebook.

My wheels got to turning. I didn’t even see it coming. But last night I was sitting on my couch, watching Behind the Music with 50 Cent, and all of a sudden stuff started coming to me: a new story.

And.

It.

Was.

Terrifying.

I have written in 2010. I’ve written blogs, stuff for the Gazette, and a couple extra scenes for this novel. I’ve written my sports column. But I’ve written almost no fiction. And in the last 3 months, with everything that’s been going on – funerals, grieving and the like – it’s no small stretch to say I’ve had a few feelings. A few new experiences. I’ve got a lot to process. I had a lot to process before all of this happened; I’ve got even more now.

I asked Brian if it would bother him, if it would be exploitative, if I wrote a story to try to process some of this stuff. He said it wouldn’t, because he’s amazing. He loves well, and he said last night that my "process" - whatever that is – is one of the things he loves the most about me.

But I was terrified. I almost started to cry. I couldn’t imagine facing this stuff yet, much less the other scary stuff – stuff from my EARLY TWENTIES AND BEFORE – that’s going to comprise the emotional meat of this story. Stuff from freaking COLLEGE, you guys. From HIGH SCHOOL. And stuff from April. From this weekend. I’m terrified. I sat on the couch and tried and tried and tried to talk myself out of it, and I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to write this; I wanted to coast on having written a great story last year. I wanted to clutch my little 2009 novel tightly – and with it, the life I had when I wrote it, the life where people didn’t die in awful ways – and take it to New York, sell it, and get to hang out with Sarah Vowell and the Sedarises. I wanted to coast.

You don’t get to coast. If I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that life is just too damn short.

I sat down and wrote one scene. One measly scene. It kicked my ass all to bastard and back, and I’m not even sure it was good.

I want to be a writer. It’s an impossible dream, and I’ve had it since I was three years old. You don’t get a break from something like that. You don’t get a bye, or a time-out. The muses are rare, and inspiration is in short supply; the rest must be made up in hard work. Grace is free, but we pay for everything.

"You want to be a writer?" I asked myself.

"God, yes," I said. "But I’m scared. I’m scared to write about this stuff."

"You want to be a writer?"

"Yes."

"Then write."

Life’s too short to be scared. Life’s too short to wait for inspiration. If you wait for the perfect time to do something, you’ll never do anything.

So – I’m telling myself what I tell everyone. Step one is to write. Get it done, get it down. Don’t worry about if it’s good or if it will ever sell. Write it because you have to. Write it because inspiration is a gift, and because it’s better to regret trying and failing than to regret not trying. I’m scared; I’m writing about things that scare me. Things like death and friendship and church and sex and growing up and not being in control. But if I don’t write about them, I’ll be scared forever. And life is just too short for that.