Are stories swirling around? Are ideas to share whirling in your mind? Are you on a carousel, all colors and mirrors with unicorns and griffins and dragons to ride?

That carousel of ideas tempts you to step on and enjoy the ride—yet you hesitate to pass the gate and climb up and select a ride. It's too wondrous, too dreamlike for any reality.

Just Start Writing is designed to convince you to buy that ticket, walk through the gate, spy out the animal you want to ride, and climb on. The carousel is real, not a wonderful dream.

"Wait," you may say. "I've tried before. I've read writing guidebooks until my eyes glaze over. I joined a writing group. I scan Pinterest and read the links. Writing just—it looks overwhelming. It can't be that easy."

Writing is that easy.

Just pour those swirling ideas onto the page.

And you want this dream, don't you? Hasn't the dream of writing persisted? Don't you keep jotting ideas down? Aren't you investigating and exploring because you can't release the dream?

That was me. I've wanted to be a published writer since the Dark Ages. A few years ago I became serious about my dream. I set a deadline to publish my first book in 2015—and I succeeded! Since then, I haven't looked back. As M.A. Lee and my other two pseudonyms, I've published 30 titles, mostly fiction.

Now people ask, "How did you start writing?" and "How do you come up with all of those stories?"

Writers ask, "How do I start writing? and "Where do you get your ideas?"

See the difference in those questions? Most people don't care about the process. Writers want the process so they can apply it to their own carousels of struggles.

That's our first admission, you and me: Writing can be a struggle. It's easy, but it's also a dizzy whirl.

• Time to Write


• What to Write


• Creating sense out of jumbled fragments.


• Discovering characters and plot.


• Playing with words so they say what we mean.

If these questions are yours—How do I start writing? and Where do you get your ideas?—then Just Start Writing is for you.

Writer M.A. Lee worked as a journalist and copy writer before pursuing the challenge of teaching high school students the triumvirate of literature, composition, and grammar+. Those years of teaching meant that she continued learning herself, sticking fingers into the writing craft and twisting things around to understand them before conveying that knowledge to students. Her motivational books and guidebooks for writers are proof that her internal teacher keeps presenting lessons.

Since beginning her self-publishing journey in 2015, M.A. Lee (under her pen names) has published more than 30 works of fiction and nonfiction.