John Piper is back with us coming off of a six week writing leave and Pastor John, you

have written a new book and I want to talk to you about what you've written soon.

But first as a writer, I would love to know what you've learned more generally about

the writing process from this past six weeks and maybe give us some lessons that writers

can learn from as you reflect back on this time.

It's a huge gift to have a writing leave.

Most writers write in between things and I get this incredible gift of once a year or so

getting six to eight weeks where I can do nothing but write.

And for me, the conceptualization stage is the absolute hardest.

I tend to quit before I get started.

It's so frustrating.

But once I'm off and running, it's like pushing a car, getting the thing going is hard.

But once you get it rolling, then you could probably keep it going by yourself and you

need about six guys to get started with it.

So I step back and ask what did I learn about that initial process and then the actual

writing.

And I'm assuming here that we're talking about a nonfiction book about a topic and I'm

assuming that people are writing against the backdrop of ongoing Bible reading and meditation

and prayer and participation in a local church, that's assumptions.

So here's number one, plan a block of time that you can commit to regularly.

For me, that was every day, six days a week from about nine in the morning after devotions

and exercise and breakfast, so about nine in the morning to about seven in the evening

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