Chic's Blog

In 2005, I wrote my first screenplay. Like most writers, I believed that if I worked hard enough, improved enough, and refused to quit, eventually someone would say yes. I imagined a straight line between effort and opportunity. What I didn't understand then was that creative careers rarely move in straight lines, and sometimes the distance between belief and validation is measured not in months or years, but in decades. Over the past twenty-one years, I have collected more r

There’s a quiet myth that keeps so many great stories from ever being told—the idea that you need to be ready before you begin. That you need the perfect outline, the perfect opening line, or some kind of certainty that what you’re about to write will actually work. The truth is much simpler, and a little uncomfortable: the best way to write a fiction book is to just start writing. You don’t need to have it all figured out. In fact, you probably won’t, and that’s exactly how