How do you write a novel? How do you put together stray thoughts and ideas into a seamless series of events?

First I have to be rid of old ideas:
a novel is –> this big <– or a paragraph this long. These ideas are stuck in my head, and the idea that I have to have the killer opening line. Like Billy Crystal from Throw Momma From the Train constantly writing and rewriting the same line “the night was dark… the night was misty, it was a dark and stormy night…” and wanting to kill when someone comes up with the perfect line… in this case it was: “The night was sultry…”

A story, an idea, a biography, all of these things can be a book… provided you just take that one step at a time and make it happen. Sitting and staring at a blank sheet of paper, or in my case a blank computer screen doesn’t accomplish anything….

JUST WRITE!