More writers are making money today than at any other time in history. For centuries few have been able to support themselves from the quill or the keyboard alone. Not anymore. With the rise of ebooks and indie publishing there are now more opportunities than ever for writers to generate substantial income from their work. And there is still a traditional publishing industry that needs new talent to keep growing. For years, I dreamed of being a professional writer. I believed I had important things to say that the world needed to hear. But as I look back on what it really takes to become an author, I realize how different the process was from my expectations.To begin with, you don't just sit down to write a book. That's not how writing works. You write a sentence, then a paragraph, then maybe if you're lucky, an entire chapter. Writing happens in fits and starts, in bits and pieces. It's a process.The way you get the work done is not complicated. You take one step at a time, then another and another. As I look back on the books I've written, I can see how the way they were made was not as glamorous as I once thought.