Write a Book in a Month

You may have heard of the Book of the Month reading process, well writing a book in a month is quite possible also, provided you have all the required background information.  If you don’t have the research already done however, you can still write one in the month.

Make a folder on your hard drive and call it “My Book”, or the title of your book. Eg. “The Falcon”.  Within this folder make another folder and name it “Research”. Also keep a hard folder of non internet research. Spend the first week searching the internet, public libraries, newspaper archives regarding the topic of your book, and store these in the “Research folder” Design a plot (story) for you book and place this in a folder named “Plot” in your “My Book” folder. Write a chapter summary for each chapter in keeping with your aforementioned plot. (this can be adjusted as you write if need be).

Start writing at whichever chapter you want to start at. If you have a concrete ideas where you want your story to end, then write the ending first and then work backwards. This is a tried and tested writing method. Set a definite time and regimen to your writing and stick to it. RL Stine, (Goosebumps series) set aside a room as his office and made a rule to write 20 pages per day. After the first week of research, you have 23 days left. If you write 20 pages a day you will have a 450 page book! You do the math.

Here are some tips to remember:

• Make a plan and stick to it.
• Don’t agonize over words, write what comes first, you can always revise later.
• Find a comfortable writing atmosphere. Some people like writing in crowded cafes, some like solitude.