Nick Tosches: How I Start Writing a Book

In an interview in the January issue of Esquire magazine, novelist and biographer Nick Tosches was asked how he starts writing a book. Here is his answer:

I sit there. I come up with an opening line. And then I go little by little.

I’ll wonder, Well, what’s coming? And that goes right through to the very end.

For over a dozen years, I’ve had a recurring dream where I’m reading a book and the pages are blank, but as I read, the words come to exist as fast as my eyes can move. Strange, strange thing.