Wrting is Planning, then some plodding

Writing is planning, then plodding and then some more plodding

By Prasenjeet
April 17, 2014
No Comments

Success is supposed to be one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Writing is quite similar. You do need inspiration, dreams and fantasies to start with. But to finish your book, large dollops of sweat are required for sure.

As I’ve mentioned, all my books were of decent length. Many Kindle authors write shorter books especially in non-fiction. The good ones write around 80 pages per book (14, 000 words approx.). If this is your target, then this would mean that you could write 7-8 books in the time I wrote 3 books. Or you can also take the same amount of time for writing one book if you write longer books or are a Fiction Author, a genre where you are required to churn out lengthier tomes.

There can’t, of course, be any hard and fast rules about your speed of writing. Medical thriller author C.J. Lyons sets a target of writing five books in one year!

Let me shock you even further. There is no magic to it. The Authors who can tote up higher word counts in a short amount of time are not Gods. I am, of course, no God/god. But you do need to set and follow a routine that you are comfortable with. Every book that I have read on this subject suggests that you must have first a target to achieve. That target may be very modest, but the important thing is that you must fix one and then go all out to exceed that.

This is how I achieved my target:

Prepare an outline:

If you have reached so far, I am sure you would have already decided what you want to write. The first step is to write an outline. Make a few pointers on an A-4 sheet document in word. Think how you are going to begin? What chapter titles will be there? Write sub-heading titles of your chapters. Don’t worry. Make a very rough outline of your book. It may not be your final outline.

I’ll detail this process in my next post.

What is your favourite style of writing? Do you plan or prepare an outline or just start straight away?

Prasenjeet