Last year I did a 30-day book challenge. This was an eye-opening experience as an author. What I learned is with a proper outline and a game plan it is possible to write a book in 30 days, but extremely hard to do.
Anything is Possible
Over the years I have found that anything is possible when you have a goal, hard work, and a good strategy. Depending on the amount of research I have to do, realistically for me writing a complete book looks more like 90 days to more than a year.
Manuscript or Book
What are your writing goals? Being clear on your writing goals and what you want to accomplish is key to being a successful writer. The question I ask you is over the next 30 - 90 days, what are your writing goals? Are you trying to complete a book or just write a manuscript?
If you can write three chapters a week that would get you a 12-chapter manuscript in 30 days, but not a complete book. For a complete book, I would still need to make time for editing and book design. Three chapters a week can be a lot for a new writer. If you do one chapter a week you will have a 12-chapter manuscript done in 90 days. This is what Steve, and I did on our first book.
Both of my editors were on vacation during the time of the book challenge. The book cover is also something to think about when on a short deadline. It takes time for a designer to create the artwork. A good artist can be booked weeks if not months out. I only ended up with a manuscript at the end of my 30-day book challenge.
Adapt Your Goals
Developing goals is a process. As you start writing, you may come across some new information you want to include. When this happens, it is important to reassess and adapt your goals if needed. I am not saying to just give up on a difficult goal or change deadlines, but it is ok to make changes if you want to achieve a certain outcome. Adjusting goals allows you to maintain high-quality work that would otherwise be sacrificed in order to meet a specific date. Goals are there to keep you focused.
Valid reasons to adapt your goals should be due to unforeseen circumstances and things that are out of your control. Illness, world events, family emergencies, and the availability of others are the types of things that can force you to modify the original goal.
When struggles happen, if you can still achieve your goal with some extra effort, I encourage you to push through and make it happen. I am certain you will thank yourself for the extra effort. When we push through the hard times, many times we find out we are capable of more than we thought.
Writing it Down
Write down your goals and how you plan on accomplishing them. When you write down your goals and the steps you are taking to achieve them, they become more real. If you can see the goal and read it from time to time it helps to hold yourself accountable.
I use dry-erase pens and write my goals across the top of my bathroom mirror or sliding glass door. This reminds me to stay on track because getting sidetracked takes me away from my publishing achievements, making it harder to complete what I have set out to do.
Make a Road Map
What are you writing? It’s time to get organized and plan your road map to writing the book. To accomplish my writing goal, I first make a folder on the computer, then back it up to the cloud. The backup is one of the most important steps. I lost a whole book once when I had not backed it up to a separate location. The black screen of computer death taught me everything should be saved in more than one place.
Make an outline of the book with bullet points for each chapter. Sometimes I do this on cardboard or big pieces of paper so I can see the book layout. For me, using a different media than my computer helps my creative mind see things differently. I title my book and chapters at this time. This helps me keep organized and on track. The titles might change after I’m done writing the manuscript, but it gives me a working title.
Get to Writing
With the outline defined it is time to get to writing. Create a Word document for each chapter and place it in the folder that’s saved in the cloud. This will allow you to work on the individual chapter as you feel inspired. I might start in the middle or even the last chapter of the book. This also allows me to add chapters as they come to me during my dreams. It sounds crazy however some of my best chapters have come to me in dreams.
To reach my full potential as a writer, I want to get my thoughts down as quickly as possible. I must employ strategies to ensure I don’t miss anything and capture thoughts as they come. I try to let my thoughts flow to the page without restriction. That being said, I want to keep in mind that a large percentage of everything I write gets cut out during editing, so I need to make sure I’m getting good-quality content. There will be plenty of time to edit later. The little red lines can be a distraction, this is a good time to turn spell check off and just let the words flow.
We will share tools to help speed up the writing process in another blog, but at this time you should have the structure needed to begin your work of art. Find a place that inspires you and get started sharing your story or wisdom with others. Remember, the goals are there to guide you to completion. The outline and title can change up to the point you send it to print, so relax and get to writing.
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