How to Write a Book

Crank out your magnum opus in few simple steps!

• Write a proposal - the first 50 or so pages of the book and a letter mapping out where it will go, the major themes, some comps, and the overall arc and goal of the project

• Send it around

• Attract an editor who sees potential in the unvarnished but ultimately compelling genesis of something

• Trust this editor.

• Get a contract from this editor’s publishing house

• Immediately plan your book party

• Go on The Real Real and find a few options in terms of dresses

• Think about maybe a jumpsuit instead

• Or a suit? Oooooh. Chic. Yes. Definitely a suit. Like Katharine Hepburn or Lydia Tàr.

• Ask your mom if you can pull off a suit. When she asks why, deflect. When she presses, admit “Oh - I was just thinking of my book party!”

• Hear a long silence.

• Hear your mom say, “Bess. Are you serious?”

• Say you were kidding and hang up.

• Try writing.

• Look on Zillow for idyllic cottages where you will live like David Sedaris once you write this book, which will become an international sensation and be quoted by The President during every State of the Union. Oh my god - are you going to win…a Nobel Prize? Maybe you should wear a tunic for the book party.

• And a sculptural necklace.

• Look on The Real Real for a sculptural necklace.

• Start writing again. Oh no. Your hands are very dry. Too dry to write.

• Look in the medicine cabinet for moisturizers. Decide you do not like the smell of any of them. What you need is an unscented moisturizer that does the job but isn’t too greasy. You are a writer and your hands can’t go slipping and sliding right off the keyboard. Then how are you supposed to write anything? Impossible.

• Decide the best thing is to go out and walk to the pharmacy and test a few moisturizers for yourself. Besides: A walk will do you good! Well? What is it? It’s good.

• Put on your jacket and leave the house. Treat yourself to a decaf latte on the way to the pharmacy. You’re an author! You earned it!

• Walk past a bookstore. Go inside.

• Wow! Sure are a lot of books in here.

• Great books. By great and established writers.

• Much, much better writers than you.

• Writers who won prizes and teach at Iowa or Columbia or whatever.

• Writers who actually write.

• Seize up in panic.

• Oh god.

• Oh no.

• No.

• Help.

• Start to hyperventilate.

• Apologize to the cashier who truly has not noticed your existence. Quietly leave.

• Sit on a bench outside the café where you got your coffee. Text your best friend and see if she’s free for dinner tonight.

• She’s not - but she’s going to a book party and you can come with her.

• Say you can try for another night. Turn off your phone.

• Go home.

• Take a shower.

• A month goes by.

• Another month.

• Your editor emails asking how it’s going.

• Reply, “Great! Pages soon!”

• Go back on The Real Real. See the first dress you liked still for sale. Buy it. Panic as your credit card gets processed.

• A week goes by.

• The dress arrives. You try it on. Perfect.

• Write the book.