I\u2019m on day 35 of the book I\u2019m writing for Allworth Press on public speaking for authors\u2014give or take a few days I lost due to a family emergency earlier this month. I have around 30 more to go in order to meet my strict deadline. Book-writing is an interesting process and we all approach it a little differently. Of course, what I do is write, so I don\u2019t have to juggle taking care of little kids or working at a full-time job with the writing. And deadlines, while I complain about them, really do keep me focused.<\/p>\n
I get up somewhere between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. as a rule. (Yes, I go to bed with the chickens\u2014well, not in the coop\u2026). I start my mornings taking care of office and SPAWN business\u2014shipping books, returning emails, communicating with new SPAWN members, handling bookwork, and writing this blog, for example. And then I get right to work on the book.<\/p>\n
For me, it has been a process of writing, interviewing, organizing and reorganizing the material and a lot of rewriting to make it all work. It\u2019s rather interesting to watch a book grow from a few thoughts and jotted notes to an 80,000-word manuscript and transform from a garbled, disorganized, meaningless jumble to something actually useful and worth reading. I love watching a book take shape, don\u2019t you? Sometimes it seems as if it is by magic. Other times\u2014well, if you\u2019re a writer, you know\u2014it can be torture. <\/p>\n
They say that it takes an average of 725 hours to write a nonfiction book. That\u2019s 90 eight-hour days or eighteen weeks or four and a half months. I\u2019m putting in mostly eight and ten-hour days seven days a week in order to complete this one within approx. two months. And I\u2019m doing it without having received the advance, yet. I hear it\u2019s in the mail, though.<\/p>\n
How long does it take you to write a book? I know people who have spent twenty years to finally finish a book. Some never finish. For some, it\u2019s like putting a book away to read someday. The book doesn\u2019t seem like such a good idea now. My bookshelves, for example, are full of books I thought I would someday read and now I don\u2019t have much interest in them. <\/p>\n
I once completed a sixteen-chapter book for a client (a book on how to get credit) in around three weeks. They wanted a rush job and were willing to pay for it.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019d better get to work on the book. I\u2019m in a more enjoyable stage of it. The organization process drives me crazy\u2014which quote should I put where? How should I divide the chapters, etc. Now I have the book pretty much set and I\u2019m doing some preliminary fine-tuning to make the transitions work and to create continuity and flow in the material. I still have a few chapters left to write in some coherent manner. And then it is on to the last fine-tuning stage. <\/p>\n
Sometimes I get bored during the last stage of writing the book. I become tired of looking at it and ready to move on to something else. That\u2019s usually when I will drive down to the beach and take a walk to clear my head, refresh my brain and seek a renewed sense of joy for the project.<\/p>\n
If you are writing a book or thinking about writing one for publication, don\u2019t miss out on the opportunity for clarity with regard to the complicated and complex world of publishing. Order my latest book now\u2014it\u2019s a rewrite and revision of a 5-star book I wrote in 2006 and rewrote in 2007. The latest version\u2014completely revised and updated\u2014is out now. Order your copy at Amazon or at my website.<\/p>\n