A guide should give clear directions and then get out of your way. In this unique collaboration, bestselling author Dan Millman and his daughter Sierra Prasada help to orient you as you advance through five universal stages of creativity: Dream, Draft, Develop, Refine, and Share. Whether you’re seeking new goals, the discipline to reach them, a shield against self-doubt and inertia, or practical advice on sorting through feedback and connecting with readers — you’ll find a way forward in this fresh approach to writing and storytelling. Drawing on the coauthors’ personal stories about overcoming challenges, as well as sage advice from other writers, artists, and innovators, The Creative Compass will transform both the stories you tell and the stories you live. “Thoughtful, thorough, and practical in its application, this is an important work on the creative process, and on the craft, business, and magic of writing.” — from the foreword by Terry Brooks, bestselling fantasy novelist “A good book about writing will guide you like a torch. You finish it and you’ve learned some useful lessons; you feel enlightened. But a great writing book is hard to finish because it keeps exploding in your face. All it makes you want to do is write. Everything else: blown away. The Creative Compass is like that, a box of inspiring dynamite. And of course that’s just what you want. Boom! Get back to your writing!” — Steven Goldsberry, creative writing professor and author of The Writer’s Book of Wisdom “This is a wonderfully insightful guide to the art of transforming ideas and stories into books. It presents old narrative and stylistic truths in a new, highly imaginative way.” — Stephen Kinzer, author of The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War Dan Millman is the author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior and sixteen other books that have been translated into 29 languages.  Sierra Prasada is the author of Creative Lives: Portraits of Lebanese Artists . A writer, voice actor, and editor, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband. The Creative Compass Writing Your Way From Inspiration to Publication By Dan Millman H J Kramer and New World Library Copyright © 2013 Dan Millman and Sierra Prasada Millman All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-932073-65-2 Contents Foreword by Terry Brooks, Prologue: Your Story, Our Story, About This Book, Your Questions, Our Answers, Beginning, Introduction, Dan: Finding My Way, Sierra: The Other Side of Anxiety, Dream, Introduction, Dream a Little Dream, Your Stickiest Idea, Objective: Define Your Story, Get to Know Thyself, Dreaming in Dialogue, Your Ideal Reader, What If ...?, Dreaming on Deadline, Draft, Introduction, Objective: Tell Your Story, Who Is Your Storyteller?, Sense and Sensibility, Begin With What You Know, Sierra: How to Listen, How to Read Writing Books, Writing as a Solitary Act, Dan: The Will to Write, Permit Yourself to Write Badly, First Draft, First Layer, Develop, Introduction, The Missing Link, Sweat Trumps Talent, Dan: The Cycles and Layers of Learning, Your Master Metaphor, Sierra: Never Surrender, Objective: Follow the Golden Thread, Allegiance to Story, Your Voice, Your Persona, Questions: Help Us Help You, When the World Becomes Your Teacher, Refine, Introduction, No Bad Writing, Only Bad Timing, Creative Destruction, Objective: Choose the Right Words, Questions: More to Ask Early Readers, Working With an Editor, Trust Your Gut, Sierra: How I Write Now, Dan: My Final Draft, Share, Introduction, Objective: Move Your Readers, Your Book in Brief, Handling Rejection, The Nine-Sale Gauntlet, Self-Publishing Pros and Cons, Marketing Your Book — and Yourself, Sierra: Sharing on the Web, Dan: Reflections on the Writing Life, Epilogue: Your Writing Career, Parting Reminders, Acknowledgments, About the Authors, CHAPTER 1 Beginning Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you. — Constantin Stanislavski INTRODUCTION As we prepare to embark with you on this journey through the five stages, we share memories of our own beginning. We each felt a desire to tell stories before we developed any sense of how to do so. Like all writers, we needed to dream before we could draft. In these first two memoir chapters, and in the chapters that follow, we relate how insights derived from our life experiences have transformed our work as writers. Our trials may reflect your own, and we write so that you can share in the rewards of our labor. We're no longer beginners, yet we begin again and again, continuously propelled forward by a shared love of words and stories. DAN: FINDING MY WAY When you come to a fork in the road, take it. — Yogi Berra I WAS UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN. Not surprising, since I spent a good deal of my childhood that way, swinging like Tarzan from ropes