I am afraid to write fiction.

Two months ago I wrote a jokey blog about being in over my head in my writing program despite having authored two memoirs and an essay that got anthologized. But there is truth in comedy. Compared to the personal stories I've been publishing on this blog the last nine years, writing fiction takes me longer, leads to anxiety, and usually lags in quality.

It doesn't make sense. A story is a story, and the same elements that make a story entertaining cross all genres. But telling myself that didn't help, so I imagined myself as the protagonist, which I usually am in my blog stories. That, too, didn't eliminate my fear.

My next step was to write a guide on writing, developed using notes from the craft books I've heavily studied. For the past two weeks that is all I have done. I spent so much time writing this guide that I lost track of days and felt like a hermit. My hope was that the guide would eliminate my fear of writing fiction; lead me to write better and faster; and make writing fiction as fun as I have writing jokey blogs about myself.

I don't know if the guide will achieve those goals, but I know I completed The Fiction-Writing Guide Worthy of Dave Eggers and God (for now). It is a living document—as I study more craft books I will add to this guide. Ultimately I want a notecard-size list of rules to follow to write a great piece of fiction. Rules, because following rules did well for me against cancer, and following other rules helped me live a more complete life in my twenties.

It seems I will forever thrive on prescriptions, and if this guide achieves its goals then I'll write more guides like this: maybe one on being a more effective person, and definitely one on how to be attractive to women (hint: I think they're one and the same).

But first, I have about 40 pages of fiction to write before May 2. Guide, please guide me.

If you wish to see The Fiction-Writing Guide Worthy of Dave Eggers and God then contact me and I'll share the link to it on Google Docs.