John Beckman Books

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I don't know anybody who gets married thinking, "Well, I'm going to get a divorce." But it happens. I don't know nobody who claims to want to be an author who says, "Well, I ant to be an author but I'm not going to write.." But it happens. I don't know how many people I've met who go to every writer's conference, but who never write anything.

And I can't count the people who say, "Well, John, you've had such an interesting life it's easy for you to write, but I haven't done anything so I can't write." Okay...If you say so. But I've never been a sailboat charter captain in the Caribbean, married to a beautiful former CIA agent. Yet, I have written four "Tropical" novels on that premise. I've never been a highly paid executive who destroys his marriage and his job and then rebuilds his life by restoring an old derelict boat but my novel "September Song" is that story. I've never been a hit man for a militant organization, yet I wrote a novel (The Man Next Door) about it.

If you've used any of those excuses not to write, you are not fooling me or anyone else except yourself. I'm not sure which one of the famous authors of the '20s said it, but she said, "By the age of fifteen everyone has enough experience to be a writer." I'm not sure I would go that far, but I know what she meant. She was saying that you don't need to live a long life BEFORE you begin writing. And that's true.

You want to be a true-crime author, a very lucrative literary field? Start researching unsolved or bizarre crimes. You want to write romance novels, a real money maker, start reading all the romance novels you can find. With today's Internet you can research everything - we used to have to go to the library and pile books on the table and make tons of notes (which I couldn't read when I got home). So here's the deal. If you want to be a writer ALL it takes is a commitment on your part to study the craft - and write. Will you be a success with your first novel? Probably not, but it happens. And if you keep writing you will get better. Practice makes perfect. So get at it!