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It's already been written. It's called Moby Dick. And if Melville is the 1927 Yankees, then the people on Helium are playing sandlot ball. Yeah, you can write a novel, maybe even a good novel; but you need lots of talent, a powerful and original intellect, a brilliant grasp of the language and a thorough mastery of craft. You get that by reading, reading and more reading, and writing, writing and more writing. You get it by a combination of a fertile mind that throws lots of ideas at you and an uncompromising critical sense that throws 99% of them out. You get it by being a perfectible perfectionist, who is insanely driven. By being one in a billion or so.

Good luck, aspiring novelists. But maybe writing a half-decent thriller or spy story is enough of a challenge, as well as being more lucrative. And hang on to the movie rights.

Learn more about this author, Steve Paulsson.
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