Today I'm going to share with you five books that I think every writer needs to read. For a writer, a good book on writing can be your best friend.

My favorite books on writing have literally changed my life and how I view the world.

I'm really excited to share those with you today, but their power also goes both ways. A bad book on writing can derail you and that has happened to me, so I'm also going to tell you the book that did that for me, which I tell everyone not to read.

So let me share my favorite books and my least favorite writing book with you now. Let's go!

Today I'm sharing three things that no one tells you about writing your first book. I've written three books over the last few years, and I've coached many others to write and complete their books.

Working with writers I find that there are some things that no one ever talks about in writing classes and writing groups, and when they come to me, I find that there's some things that I need to debunk. So in this post, I'm going to share some of these things. Okay, let's go!

Today, we are taking writing tips straight from the desk of Stephen King. You may have heard of him.

When people ask me what it takes to write a book and get it published, I often point them to Stephen King.

Why? Because he's clearly a talented writer or at least knows how to write books that millions of people read, and it took him four novels before he actually got one published. You've probably heard of Carrie.

If you're having trouble, it's not for lack of talent. He's a great example of that. So let's dive into some strategies that king himself uses to help him write well, and consistently.

So how long does it actually take you to write a really good book? Let's say you've always wanted to write a book, but you have a full-time job and a family, and when are you supposed to find the time? Doesn't that kind of thing take people years anyway?

It can sound overwhelming to commit to writing a book. I know it's a huge project, especially when you have other stuff going on that you're not able to sacrifice or don't want to sacrifice.

Well I have good news. Writing a book, and not just any book, but a good book, doesn't have to take over your life or take forever. In fact, you can write a solid draft in 45 minutes a day, five days a week, and over just a few months.

I'm not even talking a year. Yeah. It's basically like carving out time for a workout plan and people do that all the time, right? Okay. So I'm going to tell you exactly how to do this. Let's go!

In this video I want to talk about feedback on your writing. Who should you listen to? What should you think about it? Feedback is our greatest ally and our worst enemy as writers.

It can unlock brilliance in your writing or it can set you down a very wrong path. Believe me, it happened to me. It can even shut you down if it's harsh enough, I've been there too.

Feedback can be a writer's best friend or a writer's kryptonite, so I'm going to tell you when, from who and how to get feedback so that it can be your most powerful tool and not your Achilles heel.

These are not tips. I'm not even going to play them down by calling them tips. These are straight up lifesavers.

One of the most common questions I get from writers I'm working with about their books is, how do I decide what happens next?

In this video, I'm sharing five of my favorite idea generating exercises. Okay, let's go!

Exercise #1: The open ended brainstorm

The first one is the open ended brainstorm. To do this, you're going to very open-mindedly ask, what could happen? Anything goes.

Aliens could land or a hurricane could hit. A couple could break up. They could get back together. A whole new character could be introduced.

In this video, I want to share with you my personal journey of writing my first book. One of the reasons I love sharing tips about writing, mentoring writers and my Book Incubator program is that it took me 99 years to write my first book. Well, it took took me six, but it felt like 99, and I don't want that for you.

So I'm going to walk you through the mistakes that I made before writing and publishing my three novels so that hopefully you don't make the same ones. Okay. So here are my mistakes, and what finally happened when I stopped making them.

If you're going to invest the time into writing a book, and you're not just writing it for yourself—which is fine by the way if you are—but if you want it to be a publishable book, how do you make that happen?

Okay. Here's a horror story. A man believes his life to be remarkable. He knows it's remarkable. Everyone tells him that he's lived a crazy life.

So he writes down his entire life story, but to his dismay, no one wants to publish his life story. He's crushed.

Here's the thing, if he'd have known the principles I'm about to tell you, he'd have known this would happen and would've known how to write his book differently so that it was publishable.

Let's talk about the secret to writing stories that are actually compelling. I'm going to give you five strategies for writing a book that people aren't going to put down after 30 pages. Let's go!

I decided to write a novel in 2011 and I'd never written a novel before. I'd honestly never even written a short story. I was a lawyer who had just left law to decide to launch a writing career.

I thought it would take me a year. Instead it took me six, six years to write my first novel!

I kept writing it to please other people. I was trying to fit a mold of what I thought they wanted. Who are they? People in the writing classes I was taking, or the teachers of those writing classes.