It seems as though everyone I talk to has at least one book inside them, waiting to be born. Sadly, most will die without ever seeing the light of day. Why? At this point in our development as a society it is for nothing more than lack of time and/or motivation. The first lack is always fixable. Even if you carve out an hour a day to write, you can and will eventually get your book finished. Motivation is another issue altogether. The brilliant writer Dorothy Parker said many profound and quotable things in her life, but the observation that struck me most deeply and stayed with me for all of the years since I first heard it is, “Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.” The difference between being an aspiring author and a published author is often little more than sitting down and doing the actual writing.

In On Writing (considered by many to be the quintessential guide to professional writing), Stephen King advises authors to “write hot and edit cold.” Combine this with the advice from Parker and you have the best and most direct instruction for actually getting a book completed from two successful authors: just write. Do not outline just yet. Do not worry about anything between your starting point and your ending point. For that matter, do not even define your ending point just yet. Do not go back and rewrite to correct continuity or to accommodate plot changes. Just write your book from beginning to end.

This guidance applies whether you are writing a fiction or a non-fiction book. Of course, you will want to consider basic points to cover, but the idea is to be very flexible about what the book might want to say in its own voice. Although my primary genre of writing is non-fiction, I recently began a series of fantasy fiction. I was surprised to find that my character and events drove their own story. I naively believed that I was in control of the direction of the book, but they quickly let me know who was boss. I found myself eager to get back to writing, not only because I wanted to complete the book, but because I wanted to find out what happened next! Give your fiction room to breathe and take on its own life. The story it tells when you give it the freedom to do so will be far beyond what you can accomplish within the confines of a rigid outline.

Your First Two Drafts Belong To You

Do not bring others into your writing process until the rewrite (and yes, you will have a rewrite) unless it is necessary. Your book should be purely in your words and follow your own projection. Although you may want to change minor points as your book fleshes out, for the most part, you should write your book linearly, from start to finish with very little backtracking. If you come to a part of the book that simply is not working, take a break for a while (an hour, a day) and come back to it. You may need to take it in a different direction or just power through the project, pacing a bracketed space-holder at the trouble area like this:

[Fix this later]

Or

[Find a way to segue these chapters]

Or

[How the hell did Donovan get back to the house after the train wreck??  O_O ]

Then jump to the next part and fix the trouble area in the rewrite. Sometimes, when you take the book all the way through to the end, the solution to the trouble area becomes clear. Regardless, there is no harm in skipping difficult areas and returning to them later with the benefit of a completed book behind you. You can also identify research you need to do in this fashion as well:

[Get statistics for print book versus ebook sales for recent quarter]

See? Unless the information is vital to the remainder of the book, it is often easier to catch it in the final draft. You want to “slow your roll” is little as possible when you are moving through the first burn of the book draft. Like Dorrie from “Finding Nemo” says, (paraphrased) “Just keep writing; just keep writing.”

Once your book is finished, step away from it for at least a day – preferably, a week. I know about deadlines and how eager most authors are to move on to the next step, but in order to achieve a quality result, you should give the project some room to breathe. Once you have taken a short break from the book, try to come back to it with new eyes. You now know your book intimately because you have followed it from beginning to end. You know its weaknesses. You know its strengths. You know how long you want the chapters to be and you know what parts you need to rework or research. Finalizing that first draft is your golden ticket. From there on, it is easy stuff.

Using your fresh, rested eyes, re-read your book from start to finish, every single word. You will find yourself often rewriting or rearranging and that is fine. Now that you know the exact trajectory of the book and the shape it has taken, you have greater insight into how it should flow. The book has now told you its story and now it is up to you to perfect the package.

By now, you have completed your first draft and your first rewrite and the book likely only needs spit polishing and formatting. If your rewrite involved significant restructuring of the book, I suggest yet another read-through to make sure everything flows and your message is intact. Once you feel comfortable with the flow and integrity of the book’s package, it is time to turn it over to a new set of eyes.

To recap: write your first draft and at least one second draft, then bring in your editors and beta readers.