Tag Archives: new book

Tiny Steps: Celebrating Milestones in Writing My First Novel

Image of typewriter with discarded drafts, eyeglasses, pencils, and a cup of coffee and title of blog post "Tiny Steps: Celebrating Milestones in Writing My First Novel"

Sometimes I have to remind myself that big projects come down to completing a million tiny steps. As I have shared before, I am working on a new book. It’s my first novel. My update is that I have finally settled on a title.

I will share that at the end to keep you in suspense. But for now, I am taking a moment to celebrate the milestone. The writing of this book has been much slower, and in some ways harder, than my first book. I keep finding that I need ways to motivate myself.

A Novel Is Written in a Series of Small Steps

So, today I am sharing a post about the importance of small steps. This is something that you would expect a mindfulness teacher to say. A meditation practice starts with a single breath. If you get off track, I teach that you just need to bring yourself back.

This same approach has been serving me well with this book. It took me over two years to write it and I had to keep letting the story come out, paragraph by paragraph.

I finally decided to publish the book earlier this year at a time when my law practice did not feel so busy. By the time that plan was up and running, so were all my cases. This means that I have had to literally find some stolen moments to do a Zoom call with my coach, read the feedback from beta readers, or fill out the form for my book cover.

Life Gets in the Way but I Keep on Writing

The good news is that this is very much like meditation. I keep getting distracted by other things in life and having to drag my attention back, even if only for a few moments.

Of course, this is hard and frustrating. Even though I love writing and enjoy learning about writing fiction, I’d be lying if I pretended there wasn’t a little voice of doubt that asked “what if you just quit? Would anyone care?”

More good news. Meditation has made me old friends with my doubt complex. This means that I am usually pretty good at seeing these inner questions as doubt, which is helpful in itself. Seeing doubt for what it is helps me avoid the trap of believing it.

Doubt Is an Invitation to Remember What Matters

Instead, I use it as an opportunity to recommit by answering the questions that doubt asks me. What if I just quit? Well, of course, the world would not end. Most other people would not notice or would be too polite to say anything. But I would know. I would care. I would be sad that I didn’t finish the project.

This is a long way of reminding myself that someone cares. It’s a long way of remembering that I care. I didn’t decide to write the book for approval. I decided to write it because I wanted to see where it would lead. After all this time and lots of frustration, I am still curious to see where it will lead.

And so I keep looking for an extra few minutes here and there. I have committed myself again to finalizing the editing this summer so I can publish by the end of the year. It is sometimes hard to make myself take each of the tiny steps.

Milestones Build Momentum for Writing Success

Even so, the milestones are racking up. I am starting to see a clearer vision of how this book will come together. Now I have a title, a foreword, the beginnings of a cover, and some good feedback to guide my editing. Even more significantly, I also have some friends, a coach, and an editor to cheer me on and answer my questions when I am stuck.

By the end of this year, you will be able to read my second book called A New Year’s Present. It is a mindfulness fable for lawyers inspired by A Christmas Carol. I can’t wait to to see how it turns out and I hope you can’t wait to read it.

Picture of book with title of my first novel "A New Year's Present" by Claire E. Parsons

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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Lawyers in Fact and Fiction

Image of lawyer and author Paul Coggins with cover of his new novel, Chasing the Chameleon with title of guest post "Lawyers in Fact and Fiction"

I am a trial lawyer who writes but also a writer who tries cases. Which profession takes top billing turns on the day and hour. While law is my day job and literature my nighttime pursuit, the longer I toil at both jobs, the more I appreciate how they complement each other, rather than conflict.

My decades as a federal prosecutor and white-collar defense lawyer have made me a better writer. Likewise, the thousands of hours spent writing and rewriting have turned me into a better lawyer.

How Law Practice and Fiction Writing Came Together

The first hint of the synergy came in law school, when a professor noted that 99 percent of being a lawyer was picking the right word at the right time. That describes 100 percent of what makes a good writer.

Nowhere does my legal work lean more heavily on my writing style than in crafting a closing argument to a jury. The key is to remain clear, concise, and compelling.

Before every closing argument, I reread Elmore Leonard’s rules of writing, especially his golden rule: “When you write, try to leave out all the parts that readers skip.” In preparing a jury argument, I delete the parts that will cause a juror’s eyes to glaze over.

Jury argument mirrors the writing process. There is a sad but true saying that there are always three jury closings. There’s the argument a lawyer prepares; the one he delivers; and the one he wishes he had given.

About the New Novel

Chasing the Chameleon, which was published last week, is my third book in the Cash McCahill series and my fifth book to be published. By now, I have learned the hard lesson that each work is always three books: the novel I envisioned, the one I wrote, and the one I wished I had written.

Lawyers who write on the side are perhaps the fastest growing minority in the country. At any writers’ conference or book festival, a person can’t throw a hardback without hitting a writer-attorney. Every attorney I know is either writing a book or aspiring to do so, and there is no shame in that.

Inspiration for Lawyers Who Write

In my Mount Rushmore of attorney-authors are four titans who have scaled the heights of both professions: Sir John Mortimer, Scott Turow, John Grisham, and Erle Stanley Gardner.

Like barrister-author Sir John Mortimer and his enduring fictional creation Horace Rumpole, I was privileged to read law at Oxford. Mortimer enjoyed a distinguished career at the bar, occasionally defending authors and artists facing criminal charges of obscenity. He wrote more than fifty books and scripts but is remembered best for Rumpole, the rumpled, resilient barrister who practiced his trade at the Old Bailey in London.

The older I get, the fonder I grow of Rumpole the curmudgeon. His inner voice during witty but doomed arguments with his wife Hilda (“She Who Must Be Obeyed”) and pompous judges are priceless. There is nobility in his dogged efforts to defend the downtrodden.

Some Lawyers Truly Write What They Know

I later attended Harvard Law School during the tenure of Scott Turow, whose nonfiction book One L was published during my law school years. Turow went on to write thirteen fiction works, the most famous being his first novel: Presumed Innocent. No one is better at portraying the vicissitudes of a criminal trial and the tinderbox of emotions unleashed in the courthouse.

While I share no school ties with John Grisham, he graciously visited our home in Dallas to support a fundraiser for a charity for which his wife and mine serve on the board: Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry. His success as a novelist is unmatched. Thirty-seven consecutive number one fiction bestsellers. More than 300 million books worldwide.

During the visit, I asked Grisham whether in the wake of his great success he ever missed the courtroom. He stared at me as if I were a madman and said no.

Much like Rumpole, however, I would miss the courtroom. Perhaps that is easy for me to say because I haven’t racked up the sales of Grisham or Turow. But trial work by day and writing fiction at night gives my life balance. One pursuit is largely public and performative. The other, mostly private and contemplative.

How Writing Works with Law Practice

The allure of the courtroom helps me understand why so many actors on both sides of the pond return to the stage, though a theatre gig pays far less than they could command for film. In a criminal trial, the lawyers play to a live audience, and the feedback from closing arguments may come in hours or days.

That leads to the fourth giant on my personal Mount Rushmore of attorney-authors: Erle Stanley Gardner. If Grisham is prolific, Gardner was super prolific. More than 300 million books sold under more than a dozen pen names. Among his 131 works of fiction are the mother lode: 82 full-length Perry Mason novels.

Gardner was a lawyer’s lawyer, often representing the poor and powerless, including Chinese and Mexican immigrants. He founded the Court of Last Resort to advocate for the wrongly convicted.

Yet, he still found time to create the most popular lawyer in fiction: Perry Mason. Mason is to fictional lawyers what Sherlock Holmes is to detectives. Both are brilliant knights who fight like hell for their clients and to discover the truth. In Gardner’s world of fiction, the truth is what frees Mason’s clients.

 In real life, not so much.

This Lawyer Will Keep on Writing

As a kid, I spent countless hours watching black-and-white reruns of Perry Mason and reading the source material: the Mason novels. The experience inspired me to plant one foot in the law and the other in literature.

Gardner’s long run with Mason also inspired me to launch my Cash McCahill series, the third entry of which (Chasing the Chameleon) which was published last week. With 82 Mason novels, that means only 79 more Cash books to match Gardner’s otherworldly output.

Author Bio: Paul Coggins is a nationally prominent criminal defense lawyer and the former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. He has published two Cash McCahill novels (Sting Like a Butterfly and Eye of the Tigress), with a third entry in the series (Chasing the Chameleon) to be published in March 2026. A fourth Cash book (Canary in the Courthouse) is in the works. You can follow Paul on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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