You want to write.
You want ideas that pull you to the page. You want to finish the story, email, article or book you keep thinking about.
But when you finally have time, somehow the laundry gets folded instead.
You want to look up after an hour and have words on the page instead of another broken promise to yourself.
Back in 1995, I quit my job.
I walked into my boss’s office and said his name.
“Hans?”
He looked up, gasped, and said, “You want to quit?”
I had everything I wanted. A boss I loved. Working hours from 9 to 3 four days a week. If I finished work before 3 o’clock, my boss would just send me home.
It was perfect.
And boring.
My dream was to become a full-time writer, and I decided that life was too short to spend it looking forward to the weekend and doing what I really wanted.
December 27, 1993, I had an idea for a story.
Sitting next to the driver on a one-hour road trip, I organized the idea in my head. I had the introduction, the body and the surprising ending. All worked out during that trip.
On my first day off, I wrote the story.
I sold it and it was published on April 21, 1994.
Now I was officially a professional writer.
Alas, I didn’t get more brilliant ideas, so my writing slowed down and got to a screeching halt.
Instead, I began to write nonfiction for IDG Books Denmark.
In my dream, I would write fiction outside on my patio with a cold glass of white wine next to my laptop.
In reality, writing had become a job.
Now I wrote because I had to. Not by choice.
For years, fiction became something I dreamed of writing someday.
Twice I got good ideas. In 2001 (sold the short story) and 2008 (never finished the novel).
Meanwhile, I began to write other things. Emails and newsletters. Computer tips.
That was fun.
Still, I wasn’t quite there yet.
Who would have thought, right?
You read the books, take the courses and flex.
This stuff is easy.
LOL.
When I finally began to write, for real, I had to relearn it all.
Little by little, I discovered something else: It’s all connected.
The fiction techniques I learned?
Hmm . . . What if I tried to use it in my emails? Or on social media content?
Woah, that worked.
Subscribers told me they loved my emails. My PayPal account told me they weren’t lying.
Now I can no longer imagine not sitting down to write. By choice.
You need to make writing feel like something you choose again.
Let me help you with that.
Try my Skool group Writer by Choice for free for seven days.
Inside you’ll find:
🖋️ Weekly exercises that get you writing and make it fun again.
🖋️ Monthly techniques like “show, don’t tell”: how and why they work and how to use them in fiction, emails, content and sales pages.
🖋️ A friendly community to share your writing and get feedback.
🖋️ Bring whatever you’re working on. Or start with a weekly exercise.
🔏 Lock in at $0.30/day as a founding member.