(Let’s Fix That.)
Can’t find the time to write your book? This one’s for you.
Why I Wrote this Post
I talk to a lot of people who want to write a book, yet are seemingly never able to get around to it. The truth is, many of us would rather have a book than sit through the process of actually writing one. (I get it—there’s a reason why I offer ghostwriting services!)
But even those people who look forward to the process of writing a book find it difficult to write more than the first few chapters. I have worked with many people who manage to write 15 or 20 pages and then hit a wall. (See 15 Pages and Stuck.) Typically, they are people who started writing without a detailed outline and yes, of course, we can fix that.
But more than that, life gets in the way. There always seems to be something more important and more urgent than sitting down to write. It’s also something “extra” to do. Our days are filled with all the things we have to do to survive. Writing a book is one more thing, and it’s a big thing.
So, let’s cut it down to size.
What’s the Hold Up?
One of the biggest deterrents to writing a book is finding the time to write. While you can write a, shall we say, “lesser” book – an eBook or a quickly-thrown-together collection of blog posts, the book that you’ll use as your brand flagship deserves and needs your time and careful attention.
There are, of course, all the usual ways to dig out the odd hour or two to write, but your authority book will take blocks of concentrated time. I schedule out two separate two-hour blocks of time every week just to work on my books. My days are filled with creating content, taking care of clients, and a plethora of interruptions by seemingly urgent things, but writing (and finishing my books) is a priority for me. I may work on my books at other times, but those four hours a week are the absolute minimum.
When you first start writing, you may only be able to create about a thousand words in two hours. You will get faster as you go along—I promise. About a month in of dedicating four hours a week to writing, you will most likely double or even triple that.
The easiest way for you to be able to create the volume of words you will need is to know where you are going and why.
Get REALLY Clear on Your Message
For people who are interested in my Authority Book Platform program, the first thing we do is a 90-minute strategic session that I call the Platform Book Reality Check. We stress-test the core idea of your book, evaluate your current positioning in relation to where you want to be, and have an incredibly candid conversation on how the book can support your larger business goals.
Clarifying your message is not something you can do while waiting at the doctor’s office or on your twenty-minute commute to work. You need to set aside one or more two-to-four-hour blocks of uninterrupted time to just think.
What do you want people to take away from your book? What lessons or information do you want to instill in them? What do you want the reader to do with this information?
Whether you are writing your book on your own, using me as a book coach or ghostwriter, or going deep as we build your authority book platform, these are just some of the questions you’ll want to consider.
Think About Your Message
Ask yourself these questions:
- Who do I want to reach? Who is my reader?
- What is the core message I want to give them?
- What do I want the reader to do with that message?
- What is the end result I want for that reader?
- What is the end result I want for me? For my business?
You may already know the answers to some of these questions. Others might need clarification. MAKE the time to think through these questions.
Next think about how you can best relay that message. Clue: The structure of your book can help or hinder the reader’s ability to absorb information.
You may find you need to do further research before you finally start the actual writing. You may find you need to do further research on certain topics. Make notes and research when the topic comes up as you’re writing. This way, the information is fresh. If your book has gone in another direction and you’ve decided not to include that information, you haven’t wasted any time.
Once you have answered these questions, brainstorming topics and subtopics, create a logical order, and develop your outline. These things, too, take a chunk of time; they are more than stray thoughts quickly scribbled on sticky notes. (You can incorporate those stray thoughts – you just need to spend time in order to have something to incorporate them into.) You may be encouraged by the word count of your detailed outline alone!
This is the heavy lifting that you need to do before you start writing. If you take the time to do this, your entire writing process is going to be a LOT easier. Promise.
Block Out Your Time
Now that you know what you want your book to do for you and your reader, and have your outline done, you’ll be able to complete many parts of your book using those smaller time chunks. This is where all those nifty ways of carving out time come in handy. You can use the odd hour to write part of a chapter or a twenty-minute wait to do some quick fact checking.
Literally, take out your calendar and block out days and times now so nothing else can be scheduled in. Four hours a week is a minimum. Two-hour time blocks work because it’s enough time for you to focus in and get work done without it being an overwhelming amount of time. If you want to schedule in another time block or a shorter, “weekly progress check-up” go right ahead.
Set your schedule out for at least four months. If you’re writing as scheduled, your book should be nearing completion by the end of the third month. If you’re not used to writing thousands of words at a time, it may take you a month or so to increase your writing speed and gain confidence.
When I’m working on fiction, some days my only goal is to write one scene. It may be an entire chapter, it may be part of a chapter. But I never start a writing session with the expectation that I’m going to churn out an outrageous number of words or chapters. I keep my workload reasonable for the time allotted. This keeps me from getting frustrated if I don’t make HUGE progress in any one session. I almost always finish more than one scene and then I can feel good about what I’ve done. Playing games in my head? Sure. But I finish books.
You will also need to put aside another larger chunk of time for when you have finished writing. Unless your book is written in self-contained modules, you will need to read through your entire book within a short period of time for clarity, flow, and continuity. If you read a section of your book and can’t get back to read the next section for a couple of days, you are going to miss continuity issues. You’ll find yourself going back to check what you had said previously. Once your manuscript is completed, It’s better to work through the book in a short time frame to keep things fresh in your mind. That’s a good weekend or Monday holiday task.
Yes, you read this section correctly. If you start with a detailed outline and a solid structural framework, and keep to the schedule, you should be able to finish your book in about four to five months.
You Need Momentum to Carry You Through
Don’t let anyone fool you—writing a book requires a large time commitment. Even after twenty plus years of writing books for myself and others, I catch myself being a time-optimist. I have learned to pad out my estimations; reality has finally sunk in.
When you block off the time you will need to write your book, add some time as a “fudge factor”—it always takes longer than you thought. Many of the initial Strategy Sessions I book with clients involve creating a custom writing schedule, complete with milestones. I shoot for a combination of ambition and reality. I want you to feel some pressure to get the work done, but I also know that you have a life and a business, and very few people can take a few months off to sit around in their sweatpants and write a book. However, one of the pitfalls of writing a book is that if it takes too long to finish, you will lose momentum and quit. A realistic writing schedule takes all these factors into consideration.
Some people just don’t have the time. Or, more to the point, their time is better spent doing what they do best, and hiring someone to do the actual writing. When I ghostwrite for a client, there is still time involved. I spend anywhere from six to ten or more hours interviewing and learning your speech patterns and tone. I take your words, experience, and knowledge and spend months shaping them into your book.
Finally, completing your book comes down to how passionate you are about having your book done. You need to be “all in” on this. A project that you feel lukewarm about will take years to complete. Or it may never be finished. If you know you have other projects that will take priority, pushing your book project to the back burner, you might want to hire a coach or a ghostwriter to get the job done. The sooner you can publish your book, the sooner it can start working for you and your business.
