I have read enough of them.
I am aware just what they are about, which is, that they are stories, and, yes, I have got a couple of stories of my very own, but writing a book? Exactly what does it take, I mean, what are the challenges? Exactly where do you begin? What do you require? To begin with, if you don't truly feel the need to write, in case there isn't something in yourself that is not propelling you, that is not urging you to write a novel, then don't.
All good art proceeds from a deep need in the painter to express something equally profound, something that is filled with feeling, yet undisclosed (that is what writing the novel is going to do, disclose feeling), something which is full of the whole world, full of its imagery, as well as filled with the time, of its concerns and tensions, filled with the moment that you live.
In case there is not something within you that doesn't cry out, "Express me!", then don't compose a novel.
Writing a book starts with the artistic desire, an urge that's not for fame, or wealth - in case you can get it - but for a resolution of a struggle between human desire and a world bare of what is desired, against it, maybe giving rise to the desire by its own character, by its essence of change.
If you don't have a need to create something of elegance in the world, something which triumphs over its insanity as well as inanity, never write a novel.
Get a job.
Having the artistic desire isn't enough.
Like all art, the book needs a mastery of its technology.
Words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, all organized and ordered by, yes, the concepts of style, but likewise by the feelings you've got for the subject matter you intend to convey.
You will want to look into the rhetoric of fiction, the elements of the novelist's medium, viewpoint, storyline, character, and the means by which an author creates meaning for those who will read.
You will want to have a sense of beauty, and of the sublime, but you'll also need to learn something concerning man, regarding his thoughts, his body, his spirit, for the book is all about man in relation to himself, to others, to the cosmos, to God.
A good novelist is not just a thinker, a philosopher, but likewise a feeler; not just a psychologist, but also a sociologist, an anthropologist; not just a natural scientist, but also, in some manner, a theologian; and yet the author is not any of these except as their revelations have conditioned the familiar reality to which all excellent novels point.
If you will compose a book, as well as being an author, be a seer also.
Penning a novel that will be a work of genius starts with you becoming an artist.
You now may begin.