Write it first, then worry about what comes next.

Don’t get ahead of yourself In an old Garfield book we had growing up, there’s a week-long gag about him becoming a writer. In one comic, he says something like, “Lots of people say they want to write a book, but very few actually do something about it.” The punchline is him, still having written nothing, sitting in front of the mirror in a smoking jacket saying, “Yes, this is how I will be photographed for my book jacket.” The following is an adapted excerpt from Building a Writing Life: sta...