I Hope You Know How Cool You Are!

A writer is the world's coolest thing to be. Everyone secretly wants to be a writer.

Scores of people tell me that when they retire they will take up writing. Or they wish they could quit their good-money job and stay home and write. (It looks easy.) I am pretty sure they never will -- because when they ask me how to begin they don't listen when I say, "Start by taking a writing class." They usually talk about where they're going to move so they can write (a place with an ocean view) or how they will panel and decorate their home office. Anyone who wants to do something hungers for information. Anyone who wants to just talk about something talks.

It's true -- you don't have to imagine it: Hundreds of thousands of yuppies and middle managers and deans and real-estate sellers and stockbrokers and lawyers pass their days on earth hoping to summon up the bravery and confidence to be like you.