Do I really need all this junk? Could I learn to live more simply? Can I let things go? If you let yourself sit with those questions long enough, you start to uncover something else entirely.

A few months ago I quietly began working on a manuscript for a true crime fiction novel. An idea struck, like a bolt of lightning, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger the longer I thought about it. As David Lynch might say, “an EXPLOSION went off in my mind!!” I had to pay attention to it—I had to give it life. But I have never written anything more than 10-15 pages, double-spaced—how the hell am I going to write a novel?