What are the key principles for writing a book?

First principle: Write the thing that scares you. If your heart isn't pounding, if you're not afraid someone you know will read it and never look at you the same, you're not digging deep enough. I remember writing my first draft like peeling my skin off layer by layer, afraid someone would see the raw nerves underneath.

Second principle: Start with the skeleton, not the skin. Plot is overrated. Think of your story like a dead body decomposing—strip it down to bones. Forget the fluff. Find the core. Characters are born in those deep, dark places where sunlight doesn’t reach. They’re the ones who smell like real life, the ones who keep the reader up at night.

Third principle: Get ready to kill your darlings. Not just the pretty sentences, but entire chapters, maybe even characters. Writing is like Frankenstein’s monster. You stitch it together, but if it doesn’t breathe, if it doesn’t lurch off the table and strangle you with its own hands, then you’ve got to start chopping parts off. Brutal? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

Fourth principle: Rewrite until it bleeds. Your first draft is like the slop of raw meat on the butcher's block. Tenderize it. Hack at it. Add a little seasoning, some fear, some hope, a dash of regret. Do this over and over until the words themselves start to bleed.

Final principle: Embrace the chaos. There is no one way. The secret is, there is no secret. You’ve got to claw your way through it, laugh at your own missteps, and never let the bastards tell you how to do it right.

Write the book you’d read with the lights off, the one you’re scared of finishing because you don’t want the ride to end. Write like you’re going to die tomorrow. Because, in a way, we all are.

4o