Week 3: Begin drafting your book
It’s time to dive in and start writing. A lot.
Try to write 1,000 words a day. It’s great if you can follow your outline, but if you stray off course a little, that’s OK too. Just start creating a body of content for this week. Start really digging into your subject and getting words on the page. By the end of this week, you should have 7,000 words written.
I know that’s a lot. But you can do this.
What to do if writing 1,000 words a day seems daunting, or even downright impossible
- Work from your outline.
Take your outline and start adding subpoints and bullets to it. Go about four “layers” down. Then turn the most detailed points into sentences.
There is a proven technique for writing a book that just has people create a super-detailed outline, then basically flesh out each point into a sentence. This method will give you a working draft. You’ll have to go back and write the transitions, but again – you can get a first draft simply by expanding your outline.
Actually, sticking to your outline – even if the writing is coming easily – is a really good idea. Outlines keep big writing projects on track. - Try “speaking” your book instead of writing it.
There are plenty of excellent talk to text apps like Otter.ai, or even the Notes app on iPhones. These devices are pretty good at capturing speech into text. They’re not perfect, but we don’t need perfect right now: This is just your first draft.
Here’s what the speech to text feature in my iPhone’s Notes app looks:
I managed to “write” a book’s length worth of words while on a 11-day backpacking trip. Here’s what those words ended up as.
I never would have had the energy to sit up and type that much after 10+ mile days with a 35+ pound pack on my back and a 75-pound dog lashed to my waist. I was barely able to hold up the phone to talk into the microphone at the end of each day. But thanks to the Notes app on my phone, I got a book’s worth of words down.
Talking for seven minutes will produce about 1,000 words, because the average person talks about 140 words per minute. If you pause to think, or have to rephrase things? No worries. Give yourself that time. But really: talking out 1,000 words is easier than you’d think. Try it.