Imagonna throw out a list of questions beginning writers ask all the time, particularly if they’re writing a book that involves stories about their own life. See if you have any of these yourself:

• Who the hell cares about my story? I’m no Snookie.
• How can I write about family or friends without hurting them? Without making myself the persona non gratis at the holiday dinner table?
• How do I keep from sounding whiney or, worse, like the basket case I suspect I truly am?
• How can I faithfully reconstruct a conversation or an event that took place thirty years ago? I mean, aren’t there fact checkers waiting in the bushes to out me?
• Where should I begin? I mean, after “It was a dark and stormy night…”

Today we’re going to talk about that first show-stopper: who cares?

Who cares about your story?

Ummm, well, why wouldn’t folks care about your story?

Look, there are a million books out there about cancer, and alcoholism, and child abuse, and dysfunctional families, and overcoming tragedy. There are billions of books about a relationship with a dog, or a pig, or escaping from the Middle East. The shelves are full of business-building escapades and mindfulness journeys and tales of becoming the coach some one or another was always meant to be.

In case you didn’t know, there’s nothing new under the sun. That there is the first thing they teach you in writing school. With rare exception—and you’d have to be pretty twisted or incredibly creative to fall into this rare-exception category—anything you’d want to write about has already been written about hundreds of times before.

So lay that shit down. Drop that nonsense in the dust.

Some would say that there is only one single basic plot: A stranger comes into town. All stories being a variation on the theme.

What we’re all interested in is this stranger’s inner landscape and the challenges he or she faces, the choices he or she makes. How this person solves his or her problem.

Who is this person? What does she want? What’s standing in the way? Why does she make the choices she makes? What’s behind her actions?

You’re the hero of your own story, claim it or not. This is how you perceive the world.

Who am I? What do I want? What’s standing in my way? Why do I choose to do, say, or react the way I do? That’s the stuff your readers are looking for you to answer.

You, my hero, are unique. No one on this earth sees with your eyes, hears with your ears, evaluates a situation the way you do. No one thinks the way you do. (Thank God, right?!)

Don’t assume that everyone knows what you know, sees the landscape as you do.

They weren’t raised in your family with those sketchy rules
They didn’t have those first challenges
They didn’t marry that schmaltzy guy from that too-good-to-be-true family

You have in your possession the most badass gift there is: a unique perspective.

So, why not you? Why wouldn’t we want to read your story?

Every single one of us has something to say.

Some of us want to write a book that’ll serve as a warning: what not to do.

Others wish to write a book to explain how it’s done, to serve as an example.

Regardless, your story matters.

Have you loved, and lost?
Have you learned valuable lessons from your successes, from your mistakes?
Have you defied the odds when all was lost?
Did you find love after you thought you’d missed the boat?
How did that one random incident alter everything for you?
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
How did it change your life?
How did you start your business? Make it work?

These are the very moments great stories are made of.

So please, never let me hear that question fall from your lips if we happen to get chatting at a cocktail party. Don’t make me slap you.