CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE: Two Ways to Write Your Delicious Book

Congratulations! Your outline has been accepted. Or is very close to being accepted. Your next step is to FIND YOUR AUTHOR MOJO and figure out how you work best as an author. For the full download on this read chapter 4 of my book The Difference. Ask me any clarifying questions you have before you take this last step.

Most authors writer about 1000 words an hour. Your first task is to figure out your hourly rate. As you look at each chapter thing about each item in the chapter and, while connecting with your heart, write down your best, first guess at how many words each section will be. For my book, most chapters are 2000 words. Inside each chapter are 4 subsections that are each about 500 words. Knowing about how much you want to write on each topic will help you set up your time better.

Next, it’s very important you know whether you are a burster or a plodder before you pick an approach to writing your book. If you want to work 2-4 hours a week on your book, think of yourself as a plodder. If you would prefer to bang your book out in 2 or 3 days, you’re a burster. (For more on this see: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2012/10/plodding-and-bursting/)

Option 1: The Plodder Let’s be honest, no matter what, writing this book in 2 days or 6 weeks, it’s going to be a sprint. But if you would like to write a little bit each day for 6 weeks, you are a plodder. Take your book and break it up into 5 writing assignments. If it’s a 10 chapter book, that’s 2 chapters per week.

Now look at the time you want to spend each week on your book. If you are scheduling 2-4 hours a week, and you write 1000 words an hour. You can write between 2000 and 4000 words (or between 8 and 16 pages a week). This can be 2 short chapters or one longer chapter. The important thing is next to your outline to assign the date for when that chapter is due to be turned in to your editor. You want your final assignment – the 6th assignment, to be included with the entire manuscript assembled all in one place.

Here’s a sample schedule. As you can see, you don’t have to write the book in order. Assign yourself to write the harder chapters in weeks when you have more time.

Intro - 5 Pages 2/3/18 Chapter 4 Pain - 15 Pages 2/10/18 Chapter 2 Work - 10 Pages 2/17/18 Chapter 3 Home - 15 Pages 2/24/18 Chapter 1 God - 10 Pages 3/3/18 Conclusion - 5 Pages 3/10/18 (see with entire manuscript in one document)

Option 2: The Burster! If you know writing 2-4 hours a week isn’t for you. That’s cool! You are a burster. You can write your book in a weekend. In fact most of our books require just 16 – 24 hours of actual writing time! Our average book is 16,500 words and our average author writes 1,000 words per hours which means it takes our average writer about 16.5 hours to write their book! Awesome right? Now we need to find 16.5 consecutive writing hours on your calendar. In fact, just to play it safe, try to carve out 2 or 3 back to back days where you have no distractions. Figure out how much you write in the 2 hour block. I would guess it will be between 1500 and 2500 words every 2 hours but keep track of your word count and celebrate when you are on pace.

I’ll include some tips for doing this below and you can ask me any questions about how we do it with our 3 DAYS TO DONE events but here is our schedule for the 2 writing days. Adjust this according to the time of day you work.

DAY 1 7 - 8 breakfast 8 - 10 writing period 1 10-10:30 break 10:30 -12:30 writing period 2 12:30 - 1:30 lunch 1:30 - 3:30 writing period 3 3:30 - 4 break 4-6 writing period 4 6-8 dinner 8-10 writing period 5 (CROSS THE HALF WAY POINT DAY 1)

********************** DAY 2 7 - 8 breakfast 8 - 10 writing period 6 10-10:30 break 10:30 -12:30 writing period 7 12:30 - 1:30 lunch 1:30 - 3:30 writing period 8 3:30 - 4 break 4-6 writing period 9 6-8 dinner & CELEBRATION

Here’s an outline where you can see which writing period she is writing each section.

Introduction (8) First Foundation (1&2) Second Foundation (3&4) Third Foundation (7&8) Fourth Foundation (5&6) Conclusion (9)

Here are some tips for making your BOOK BURST SESSIONS WORK!

Tip 1 visualize your book complete. Set a clear intention of the date and time you will finish. Set a consequence for not finishing. And make a plan for how you will celebrate when your word count is on pace.

Tip 2. Write your outline and then read it out loud to someone. When you read it outloud make sure you can write a page on any line of the outline.

Tip 3. Pick a part of the outline you know best. Write for 30 minutes or an hour. Set an alarm and at the 30 minute or 1 hour mark and check your word count for 2 hours. So if you write 500 words in 30 minutes multiply times 4 for your 2 hour pace. In this case 2000 words every 2 hours. Then Pick a section of the outline (ideally a full chapter and set the timer for 2 hours and see if you can hit that word count pace again. If you can (and you will) you'll prove to yourself every 2 hour chunk you can write this much.

Our average book is 16,500 words so if you are writing 1,000 words an hour you get a book in 16 or 17 hours.

Tip 4. Take breaks even if you don't want them.

Tip 5. Eat healthy - high protein low carbs. Tip 6. Don't put a 2 hour sessions in a time of day when you know you aren't productive. On the flip side, don't skip time windows when you are productive.

Celebrate every chapter you finish and set a big juicy reward for when you finish the whole manuscript.

Tip 7. Have Someone awesome to call when you get stuck (because you will get stuck)

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There is no right or wrong way to write your book but PICKING between these 2 methods and committing to one before you set the deadlines and page counts in your outline will make your chance of finishing MUCH greater.

One final policy reminder no matter how you write: Once you kick off your editing process (aka the 2nd trimester) you have 6 consecutive weeks of editing sessions. You can use all 6 or just some of them but once the 6 weeks pass the window closes. You can get more sessions for an extra fee of just $100 a session. You can use the 6 sessions however you want within the 6 week period. So if you write the book all at once, you can send it over in chapters or as a complete manuscript. Just remember it’s your job to get the feedback from your editors in the time allotted so you have a final approved manuscript you are both happy with by the due date.