I want to talk about four of the most common fears that new writers and people who set out to write a book for the first time often have. To talk about these fears I want to tell you a little bit about my writing journey. You see, when I was in my early twenties I decided I wanted to become a writer and I said I wanted to write a book but there was just one problem, I wasn’t writing anything at all. You see, I believed I wasn’t ready to write and I needed some anointed mentor in a tweed jacket to pull me aside and say “Bryan, now is your time!” and I became jealous of the success of the people around me – the journalist I went to college with and the other students in the creative writing class I was in and I felt sick by my lack of progress. So I joined an advanced creative writing and non-fiction writing workshop in Dublin and on the second evening, the instructor said that every student had to submit a short story or a personal essay.