This is a true story. Samuel Siemens stopped by my publishing office one day, complaining bitterly. "I've been fooling around for a solid week, trying to work up an outline for my book! But every time I think I've got it, something needs changing. It doesn't stop! It's driving me nuts!"

Based on having written...well, let's just say lots of books...I was able to give him this advice.

"Sam, your book is about your true experiences with that legal maniac, right? The one who dragged you into court...what...a hundred times over ten years? Okay, here's what you do. Forget about your outline. Forget about chapter order. Forget about the kind of ending it should have. Just relax. Get comfortable. Now tell me one of the things you remember about that terrible time. What comes to mind?"

"Well, there was that time Anne and I and the girls were coming home from shopping and I...I dreaded coming home because I'd have to pass the mail box. You see, almost every week there was a new court deposition of some kind in the mail. The bastard kept dragging us into court just for the fun of it. We were already bankrupt and about to lose the house, but it just kept coming and coming.

"Anyway, I eased around the last corner, pulled into the driveway, rolled down my window and grabbed the mail in the box. Thank God! No large manila envelope with 'Superior Court of San Mateo County" written on it. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then Anne whispered to me.

"Sam...across the street..."

"I looked in my rear view mirror. 'Oh, shit,' I thought. 'Another subpoena server.'

"A middle-aged man got out of a gray sedan, envelope in his hand, and started walking toward us. Then something in me just snapped. We'd had subpoenas served on us for years, and now I couldn't take another one. I just couldn't."

"So what did you do?"

"Before I even knew what I was doing, I shifted the station wagon into reverse and shot back out of the driveway. I almost hit the guy. Then I floored it and headed toward the Interstate 280 on-ramp. Went right through a stop sign-first time in my life I'd ever done that."

"Was he following you?"

"Damn right he was! But I figured I knew all the streets in the area better than he did, and I could give him the slip. After turning down lots of side streets, I hit the on-ramp and accelerated onto the freeway. Traffic was fairly light and pretty soon I was hitting ninety. I figured I'd put some distance between us and the subpoena server, and then lose him somewhere around Stanford.

"I kept it to about ninety, weaving like crazy through the traffic-fortunately no highway patrol cars were around. Just then I felt a squeeze on my shoulder. I took my eyes off the road for an instant and looked into the rear view mirror. It was my younger daughter, Cindy. She was crying. She leaned forward and, over the road noise, shouted 'Daddy, Daddy, please stop! I'm scared! Please!'

"Well, that hit me like a ton of bricks! Hot tears of shame rolled down my cheeks. 'Dammit!' I thought, 'I could have killed all of us! What am I doing?'

"I slowed down right after that. I hadn't even been aware of Anne or the kids-just the animal urge to get away, to get away from the legal maniac who vowed to ruin us, to get away from the courts, the clerks, the recorders, the lawyers-always the lawyers-and the whole goddamned injustice system!

"A few minutes later I saw the gray sedan close in behind us. I got off at the next exit, turned around, and headed for home. It took about ten minutes to get back. I pulled into the driveway, stopped the car, opened my window and held my arm out.

"A moment later a voice said, 'Samuel Siemens?' Nothing more. No mention of the chase. Just, 'Samuel Siemens?'

"My voice croaked out a 'yes' and a large manila envelope was placed in my hand. I drew my arm back inside and looked at the envelope in my clenched hand. It was the familiar, legal-looking envelope that bore yet another summons to court, just as all the previous ones had done. It wouldn't do any good, it wouldn't help, but I squeezed the envelope, crushing it between my two hands. 'Damn you, damn you, damn you!' came the words in a whisper filled with suppressed rage. 'Damn you to hell for doing this to me and my family!'

"I threw the envelope to the floor of the car, realizing all the while that, later, I would carefully flatten it and try to digest its legalese. But for the moment, its crushed shape symbolized what I wanted to do to my enemy. I let out a great, long sigh, and sat there, wondering what I had ever done in all my life to deserve this."

In my office there was silence. I waited a while before I spoke to Sam. "Sam, that was terrific. You just told one hell of a good story."

"I...I did?"

"You did, and that's the way you're going to write this book. When you remember an incident like this, jot it down. Don't worry about how long or short it is, don't worry about the style, don't be concerned with its place in the book, don't worry about anything! Just do one thing-write down your memories and write the way they felt when they were happening...just like you told it right now."

"That's it? That's all I have to do?"

"Well, Sam, that's not all, but that's the most important part. It's the way to write a book painlessly-and superbly! You do this and soon you'll have several vignettes, then dozens, and before you know it, you'll have enough for a book. Then we start chopping and arranging and all the rest. But that's easy-anyone can do that. First, though, you've got a book to write. Think you can do it?"

"Yeah (with a big sigh), I can do it."

"See you next week."

"Bye...and thanks.

.............................

There is no single best way to write a book. But if you're having trouble getting started or you're stuck somewhere in the middle, here are some guidelines.

1) As you think about the subject of the book you want to write, begin by simply writing about what comes to mind. Write whatever you feel like writing. Don't worry about relevance, importance, logic, organization or style.

2) If you are using a computer, keep a backup of everything you write, on a disk or otherwise.

3) After you finish a segment, put it aside without evaluating it.

4) Next time, again begin with whatever comes to mind. Pretty soon you will amass a pile of writings. Keep doing this until the pile is substantial.

5) Next describe the purpose of your book and write it down in one sentence.

6) Determine who is your target audience. Do the purpose and the target audience match? They should.

7) Review your writing and make an outline of its contents. Arrange the outline into a logical sequence of topics. Does the outline, in general, reflect the original purpose of the book? Are there gaps in the outline that need to be filled to bring it more into line with the purpose of the book? Are there extraneous topics that should be deleted?

8) Now start to write the topics that are missing, until your written material corresponds to your outline. Organize the material so that it follows the outline.

9) Review your material and try to determine objectively if it has the authority for what you say. Is it credible? Is it believable?

10) Now review your material and pay attention to writing style.

11) When you are reasonably sure you have something of value, have others read it. Don't ask them if they liked it. Ask them to be specific in their responses:

* Is the book of value to them?

* Rate the book on a scale of 1 to 10.

* What could be added to make the book more valuable?

* What did they dislike about the book?

* Would they recommend the book to others?

12) Using others' suggestions (with which you agree); refine the material further.

13) Understand that the improvement/refinement of a book never ends by itself; you can make improvements indefinitely. At some point you simply have to say, "That's it!"

Good luck!