047: How to Write a Book in 6 Months
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How to write a book in 6 months
Hello, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I'm excited to break down this process of writing a book in six months, I've got four tips I'm going to share with you in this episode. Obviously, there's a lot of ways that this could be done. There's no one size fits all approach. But these are sort of four general tips that are that are going to help you accomplish this, if this is something that you want to do. And let me just say quickly, before we dive into these tips, I know some indie authors who write a book in like 60 days, like they six months would be so incredibly slow to them. If you're listening to this, and you have done that, if you've written a book in 60 days, or if you have written a book in three months, and you're like, oh my gosh, six months, that's nothing. But I understand I understand, believe me.
But I took two and a half years to write my first book. So after I got done with that book, after I got through that two and a half year process, the idea of me writing a book in six months, I felt like there was no way there was absolutely no way in hell, I was ever going to write a book in six months. And I probably if you had said, No, you need to write a book in six months, I probably would have said like, Oh great. Well, I've got to give up all my commitments, I've got to like, stop seeing friends, I've got to like, shut myself in my room and write for two hours a day in order to make this happen. No, that's not that's not one of the strategies, it's not one of the tips I'm going to share with you in this episode, because that's not how I write. That's not how I teach writing. That's not my approach. So that that's not part of it.
Um, so yeah, I think I think one kind of pre tip, before we dive into the four tips of this episode is just to believe that this is possible for you, that you can write a book in six months. Again, people write books in like 60 days, it's incredible how fast some people write. And of course, the thing that people always say, as an argument is like, well, how good can your book be? If you write it in 60 days? Or how going can your book really be if you write it in six months? Like it probably needs tons of work? Well, yes, and no, I mean, I would say that my book probably needed like 10%, more editing. And a little bit more like it was my draft was a little bit rougher, but not that much rougher.
The point is that your first draft needs work, no matter what, like, even if you turn out whether you turn out a book in 60 days or a book in three years, it's going to need editing, that first draft is not going to be the finished version of the book. So you know, there's always going to be some editing that's required. And I think one of the things that's that's important about this whole writing a book in six months, once staying is is doing a tiny bit of preparation beforehand. That's not to say that you can't do this, if you're a pantser, someone who just wants to dive in and start writing, you absolutely can. And I'll share a way that you can kind of implement one of the strategies if you are someone who's more of a pantser. And you don't want to do a ton of like prep work and outline before you start. But yeah, you still can, it just might require getting a little bit more strategic.
But yeah, I I hate the assumption that because you write something quickly, that it means it's bad. And and it means that it's just gonna need so much editing, because I don't think that's necessarily true. Okay, so again, pre tip, before we get into the four tips is just believe that this is possible for you believe that you can, that's a huge part of what I do. When I work with people one on one, a lot of people come into my six month container. And there still, there's part of them that believes they can do it because they signed up to work with me, but there's part of them that scared and there's part of them that's worried that they're not going to be able to do it. There's part of them that just thinks it's not possible. They have all of these doubts and and kind of beliefs about what the process is going to be like. So I just want to say that that's common, and, you know, to really work on like, believing that this is something that you can do. Absolutely. A ssuming that you want to of course, if you are fine, you know, writing a couple times a month and like taking your time taking few years to write a book. That's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. This is just a strategy and an episode for people. who do want to write a book in a six month time period? Just want to make that clear.
Okay, so my first tip, to write a book in six months is to reverse engineer your goal. What does this mean? I'm talking specifically about word count here. Let's take a standard 80,000 word novel. As an example. If you decide, let's say you want to get the first draft written in four months, and maybe do a couple of months of revising, like maybe two months of revision, to write 80,000 words, in four months, what you're going to do is take a calculator, well, those numbers are pretty easy, you can just divide 80,000 by four, which is 20,000. So that means that you need to write 20,000 words a month. And if you divide that up by each week, that means that you'll need to write 5000 words each week. And you can go further if you want, and divide that into days. But you know, a lot of us don't write every day, it's not really that realistic. So for me, it's easier to think about 5000 words a week. So one day, I might write 1500 words, month, one day, I might write 700 words, you know, and kind of piece it together to then get to 5000 words each, each week.
But yeah, that's basically kind of how you do it. So then you can measure and know if you're on track if you need to kind of make up some time some words. And that makes it a lot more doable, right? To just say, like, Okay, I've got to write 5000 words, this week, I can decide when I do it, I can fit these into my schedule when I need to. And by the end of four months, I'll have an 80,000 word book. And I know obviously, I'm making it simple right now, that's still a lot of work. But 80,000 words is a lot. And what you can do is tweak it, if you think that your book is going to be a lot longer just do some math, you can play around with the numbers, if you're writing young adult, maybe and your book is only going to be I don't know, 75,000 words, you can do some some calculating and figure it out. Maybe you want to just get a rough draft done in six months. And if that's the case, let's say you've got a 75,000 word book, and you want to divide it into six months, that's 12,500 words every month, and divided by four, that would be just over 3000 words a week. Right? So a lot more doable. I think this is a helpful way to break it down and help you see like, oh yeah, I don't have to write 40,000 words every single week to do this, like this is this is manageable.
Step number two is to create a rough outline. Now, for all of you Pantsers are people who think that you might be Pantsers, where you just prefer to just dive in, you have a loose idea, maybe one scene in mind, character, something vague, and you just want to write in and discover the story as you go totally fine. What I suggest is implementing something just called a brain dump, where you get all of the everything that you know about the book out of your head onto the page and make a few decisions about maybe the opening scene and who this main character is, you don't have to make a massive outline, you don't have to get super nitty gritty with it, you can if you want to if you are more of a plotter, and you'd like to do a lot of outlining this is the point where you do that.
But you certainly don't have to, with my coaching clients, sometimes they'll come into the six month program with an outline already that they've worked on. So we'll just go ahead and start writing, if that's the case, or they'll start there, they'll start writing and I'll start supporting them. Obviously, I don't actually write the book for them. But sometimes people just come in with a vague idea. And so what I have them do, it's a little bit more complicated than this. But essentially, it's just writing a sentence summary about what the book is. And then I have them turn that into a paragraph. And then once they have that paragraph, that's usually enough of an idea of kind of what the story is going to be that they can go ahead and start writing. So that again, like think of that example. It's not a ton of outlining that they have to do, it's just getting a loose idea of where the book is going to go, what the story is, what the setting is maybe a little bit about the main character, and that's it, then they can start writing, they can start discovering the story, they can start figuring out who this character is all of that stuff.
So I do suggest just at least a little bit of brain dumping before you get started. More so because it's going to help you be successful in a shorter timeframe. If you know we didn't have a timeframe constraint then it wouldn't matter as much, but it's a little bit easier and less stressful if you can do that ahead of time. My third tip to write a book in six months is to implement writing sprints. If you haven't heard me talk about writing sprints before. Writing sprints are basically where you set aside a short amount of time 30 minutes at most. First, you set a timer. You put away all distractions, the only thing that you are doing, when that timer is running, is writing. And not just writing, but you're writing as quickly as you can trying to get as many words down as you possibly can Don't think too much about what you're writing. Do not go back and edit and think like, oh, what's the perfect word I could put here? Let me go look at the dictionary. And no, no, none of that you can put an asteric on the page, if you need to come back to something later to check a detail like maybe I don't know what year something happened and just put an asterix and then later, you can go back and fill in that that detail. T
he goal for the 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever is to write as quickly as you can, and to be as focused as possible. It is so much easier to make progress when you are setting aside 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 15 minutes. And really focusing hard, as opposed to setting aside two hours and having your laptop out. But also be talking to your partner and talking to your kids and taking a phone call and pausing to like scroll social media, and you're watching something on Netflix like if you're doing all of these other things, it's very difficult to write, of course, you can still do it and make progress. But it's just a lot more challenging to do that. And the other thing about sprints, if you're thinking about, you know, getting a book done in a matter of months, is to be creative with the amount of time and be creative with how you're doing it. So if you have 10 minutes in the morning, perfect that is a great length of time for a sprint. If you have 10 minutes or 15 minutes where you are at your kids soccer practice and they're running late, and you're sitting in the car waiting 15 minutes for them. Why not get out your phone, open up your Google Docs and start writing use that as a sprint. So kind of getting creative with how you write and when you write is going to allow you to get more done. And that's an easy way to fit in the 5000 words a week or 3000 words a week or whatever number of words you're fitting in, it's going to be a you know, an easier way to actually get that in.
And then my last tip for writing a book in six months is to get some accountability. This is different for everyone. Some people are more externally motivated, motivated than others where they need support to help them meet their goals to keep them on track. Whether this is like enlisting the help of a friend and saying like, hey, I want to get this many warrants written this week or this month, like, check in with me, I'm gonna report back to you and let you know that I'm doing it or like, Hey, I'm not gonna watch Netflix today until I knock out 10 minutes of writing or so you know, whatever the thing is, get your partner on board. Maybe this is like giving yourself a reward. So you have a really fun, like, I don't know, dinner out planned, like a really fancy dinner, once you get your rough draft done. Maybe this is sharing on social media that you're doing this and kind of having that hold you accountable. Those can all be great ways to stay on track.
Now, some people are not really necessarily motivated by that. So that's okay, that's just an option. If you are motivated by that, and you think it would be helpful to keep you on track, and then don't be afraid to use it. Some people are just internally motivated, and they can wake up one morning and start a new habit and just That's it, they don't need any handling. They don't need any accountability, any motivation, no one's cheer them on, they're just gonna do it. So for those people, that's great. But if you need some support, like, you know, take advantage of it. And if you think about something like NaNoWriMo, for example, where there's this community, it's a time crunch, you've got the month of November, you're trying to write a lot in the month of November, you know, trying to get to 50,000 words, or at least a lot of people are, there's a sense of community in that that's really helpful for people because everyone's working towards the same goal, everyone's doing it together. And that can be helpful to kind of harness that energy and keep you keep you on track. So those are the four tips that I have to write a book in six months. Again, if you want to write a book in six months, if not, if you want to take longer, nothing wrong with that totally fine. I have just found that there's something about six months, that's incredibly motivating. And that's part of why I've structured my private coaching to be six months where you work with me for six months to write your book. Speaking of which, I do have two openings available. One opening is right now we can start as soon as possible.
On the day that you are listening to this episode. The spot is open. And then I have another spot that we'll be opening up November 1. So if you're thinking ahead, you're kind of bouncing some ideas for your book around. Maybe you've already started writing it but you're just kind of you're not sure what you're doing and you want some support, November 1 would be a great start date for you. And there's so much that you get when you work with me one on one, you get a monthly coaching call, I give you regular feedback on your pages as you're writing your book, which is so helpful so that you don't get to the end and realize there's, you know, a big error are a big problem with the book itself. I, you can check in with me Monday through Friday on the Voxer app, which is this really great voice and text app. So you can ask me questions, you can get some accountability. You can talk through any mindset stuff that comes up on there for you every single day, Monday through Friday. And then I also edit whatever you have, at the end of our six months, and we talk about a revision plan for you. We talk about what's next for you, whether you want to self publish, or traditionally publish, we can get together a plan for you for what's next. And yeah, there's just there's a lot that's included in the six months, it's everything you need to get this book written. So if this has been a dream of yours to really get serious about this and do this, I would love to support you. So again, the spots are open as of right now. If they are taken when you reach out to me, I can put you on the wait list and get you starting in December. That's no problem. But um, yeah, yeah, I would love to do this with you and support you. I'm at the point right now where I have three clients who are finishing up their books that I'm getting ready to edit and it's so exciting. It is so cool. To see them get to the end to see all their hard work pay off. It's just the best feeling for me and for them. There's they're so excited as well. So, I will have a link in the description of this episode where you can find out more information about the coaching program. If you feel like this is something you might want to do. Or you can just reach out to me on Instagram and send me a DM at the Katie Wolf. All right, thank you for listening.
Good luck. If you decide to implement this into this in six months. I'll be cheering you on. And I'll see you next week.