This book is about the work— the craft— of professional writing. It is written for those who make writing their career and those who hope to do so.

There's an endless number of books about finding your inner writer, about how to write elegant sentences and how to call down the Muse to help you pen your novel. This book is about none of those things. It takes as a given that you know how to write, that you care passionately about writing, and that you make— or want to make— writing the centerpiece of your career.

It is that commitment to being part of the unofficial guild of professional writers that informs this book. It is not your typical textbook. For one thing, while it has an explicit structure, it is written in a more literary style than you may be used to. It also contains stories and anecdotes, both good and bad, from my own checkered career. Why? Because when veteran writers of every stripe get together, they swap stories. For the apprentice sitting in on one of those conversations the acquired wisdom conveyed in these stories is far more important than, say, the rules of grammar. They teach how to live as a writer: how to start your career, how to manage it and how to end it.

Central to this book is the belief that writing really is a craft. As such, all writing you do as a professional is the same, whether it is a press release or an experimental novel. Up close— which is where every writer finds himself or herself when writing— all writing is words and sentences. How much art you imbue those words with depends upon your talent and your ambitions. But first comes the work of writing: If you don't complete the task before you, you will fail. And you won't get paid. And you will have to find another career.

The craft of writing is about not letting that happen. It is about having the right tools and techniques to carry you to success and having the insider knowledge to guarantee that success over and over through the course of your career.

I am a college professor, but I am neither an academic nor a textbook writer. Rather, I have been a professional writer for forty years, much of it as a freelancer.