How to write your book with 3 easy steps

It is my firm opinion that most people have it in them to write a book, fiction or non-fiction. Writing a book is a process and here is one to follow from an article from Writers Digest in March 2012, which I have saved among my favourites.

The article says: “If ‘Start a book’ was on your January to-do list, how’s it coming? If you hit the ground running and are well into your first draft, congratulations! But if you feel overwhelmed by the scope of the project, consider this …”

And the article gives some writing tips, derived from Crafting Novels & Short Stories, published by Writer’s Digest Books. Being an editor I have condensed them into …

3 EASY STEPS:

1. SET REASONABLE, MEASURABLE GOALS.

As a journalist and editor I couldn’t do without a deadline. I started my book Feel it as a man: a fool’s guide to relationships on 1 January 2018, or thereabouts -- probably not New Year’s Day, come to think of it – and my target deadline was 23 April. That is Shakespeare’s birthday and St George’s Day. And I delivered my manuscript to Panoma Press, the publishers, on that day. Hurrah!

2. DIVIDE AND RULE.

Break your writing into a “compilation of many smaller items… Focus on smaller tasks to do today, tomorrow, this week, and this month to help you reach that goal”. Panoma recommended to me that I wrote for 1-2 hours a day 5 days a week, which was manageable.

3. CREATE A PLAN OF ORDERED TASKS.

This exercise keeps you focused, and helps you to concentrate on the important things.

“Break the task down into manageable steps”
Put a “workable schedule on your calendar”
“Enlist other people to hold you accountable”. That’s important and may be a writing pal, or an Editor, like me. Your editor can become your friend and help you from the start.

In setting up your calendar, you are advised to work backwards: “figure out when each of the specific items, in reverse order, must be completed if you are to meet that deadline”.

Decide what you can reasonably expect to accomplish in a day, a week, a month. Allow for events outside your control, such as illness, extra work, computer failure.

These tips can work just as well for your non-fiction masterpiece as for your novel.