Divide and conquer

Many people will come up to me and say, "Gosh, I could never write a book!"

Here is my response to them: can you write a sentence?

Let's drill down on this a little further. Can you write a sentence that introduces something? Can you write a sentence that describes something? Can you write a sentence that summarizes something? Guess what: if you can write ten chapters with four or five hundred of these sentences, over a period of a few months – say, a few dozen a day – then you can write a book.

Most people look at book projects in terms of their enormity. I look at them in terms of a bunch of nice, small chunks that you can master. So if you are thinking about a book project yourself, don't think about boiling the ocean. Start with one sentence, and make that sentence absolutely incredible. Then put those sentences to work in paragraphs that teach people something.

Don't think about your next book project as being hard. Think of it as being lots and lots of easy. Then divide and conquer!