You’ve decided to write a book. Great. Now, do you want to write it the hard way or the easy way?
Writing a book is not easy. I’ve written and finished ten of them and started more than 25 others that I haven’t finished. If it was easy, I would have finished all of them.
It will take weeks and months of your time to write your book.
Hold up books
When I’m writing my books it captures my attention. I’m thinking about it all the time. When I go to bed, I may not fall asleep because I’m thinking about it. I wake up in the middle of the night with my head full of ideas – thinking about my book. And some mornings, I’m too tired to write – because I’m constantly thinking about my book
If you want easy, don’t write a book.
But if you want to write a book, make it easier by going about it the right way. Don’t make the hard task of writing your book more difficult than it needs to be.
When we say ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ what are we talking about? What is the hard way to write a book? And what’s the easy way?
The hard way is:
Take a moment to create a table like the image above and write down…
How well you stay focused, avoid distraction, and streamline your workflow will determine how easy it is for you to write your book. If you fail in one or more of these three areas then you may not finish your book.
I find the best way to address this is with a little pre-planning. In other words, to have a good Game Plan.
What’s the one thing that elite athletes do before they go out onto the field? They create a Game Plan for how they are going to win. To write and finish your book the easy way, you need a Game Plan too.
This post is part three of our four-part series on Game Plan for Authors.
The third part of your Game Plan focuses on focus. And in terms of gameplay, this comes down to having rules. You need to design the rules of your book-writing game in such a way that it becomes an easy process for you to follow and complete.
The tricky part here is if you are writing a book for the first time, you may not know what works for you.
My advice here is not to overthink this. Write down a couple of ideas that appeal to you. Then try them out. If they work keep them. If they don’t work, then change them or get rid of them.
If you’re not sure what book-writing rules to follow, the good news is there are plenty of examples from famous authors about how they write their books that you can learn from.
James Clear of Atomic Habits fame has written a great blog post with 12 examples. Here are three you might want to steal use:
What sort of rules do you need to write your book easier?
There are three levels to consider here and two types of rules to create. The three levels are:
Now for the two types of rules.
In any game or sporting contest, there are always rules about what’s in the game and what’s out.
In tennis, there are lines painted on the court. If the ball lands inside the lines, then the game goes on. But if you hit the ball outside the lines, the game stops and you lose the point. These are boundary rules.
By being clear on the boundaries or limits of your book project you can ignore many potential distractions. This instantly sharpens your focus on what’s important.
The key to boundary rules is to think of either In or Out: What’s included in your book project? And what’s excluded?
For instance, in my book Done, I was writing about productivity. Rather than try to attempt the impossible and cover the entire field, I created a manifesto – The Seven Rules of Done. In this way, I was able to focus on my seven rules and ignore the rest.
Or you can think about beginnings and endings. What will your book be like when it’s finished? For example:
The second types of rules you want to consider are the rules of play. Every game has rules. They shape how the game is played.
Did you know there are five different types of football? There is Soccer (the world game), American Football or gridiron, and two types of Rugby (Rugby League and Rugby Union), Gaelic Football and Australian Rules football.
Naturally, they all have different rules. That’s why they’re different types of football. If they had the same rules, they’d be the same game. For instance, in the world game of football (soccer), only the goalkeeper can touch the ball with their hands. But in all other games of football, every player can use their hands.
You might also like to pull out your favourite board game or even a digital game to review the rules that shape how the game is played. Usually, they’re written down and easy to find.
And you can even watch a reality TV show like Survivor or The Amazing Race to see if you can spot the rules of those games.
Your rules for writing your book will include your writing process. How will you get the ideas out of your head and into your book in a clear way? Here your rules might include:
A great example of Rules of Play for Authors is by painter and author, Henry Miller. He wrote his 11 Commandments for getting his work done. (My late great mate, Mike Allen, originally shared this with me several years ago. It was also on James Clear’s blog post.)
Ideally, you want to think of your rules through the lenses of how you can:
You might want to sit down and create a table like the one below. Then jot some notes under each of these headings to kickstart the rules of your book-writing game.
And as a writer or a creative person, I bet you’re thinking… “But I’m creative. I don’t follow rules. I break them.” I’m creative too. But I have a different perspective on that.
My first career was as an architect. When people found this out, they would often ask, ‘What’s your dream house look like?’
Now, this could be an example of me breaking the rules, but I could never answer this question because it depends on so many things. It depends on who the house is for, it depends on where the house is, and it depends on the budget. It depends upon so many decisions you have to make.
The only way to design a house in that situation is to create some boundaries or rules about what to design and what not to design. When there are no constraints on your creativity, it makes it hard to make decisions because there are too many choices. For instance, when you have an unlimited budget, you can choose any type of door handle you want. But that gives you millions to choose from. In contrast, if you had a tiny budget, you’d probably eliminate 90% of the options.
This is the power of rules to streamline your book writing project so it’s easier to write and finish. It tells you what to focus on and what to ignore. That’s crucial for having the attention and focus you will need to write and finish your book in the easiest way you can.
The key goal here with the rules is to find your best way to create your best book in the easiest possible way.
You want to build focus, eliminate distractions, and streamline your process.
The big lesson here is that you are the author of your own destiny. You have a choice here. They are your rules. You are the one creating them. You are the one living by them.
And remember, your rules are intended to support and streamline your book writing. If you find they’re not working, change them.
If you’re serious about writing your book, here are three related resources that can help:
What rules are you creating for your book project, your book, and your writing process? Add a comment below. I’d love to hear what you have created.
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