January 21

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How to Create a Book-Writing Schedule

Would you like a schedule for writing your next book?

If so, I made a video for you.

A lot of my readers are working on a book.

In our conversations over email, we’ve discussed the most common problems they and I have been facing.

“Staying on track” is a problem that came up a lot.

“Over-editing” and “worrying it’s not any good” were also very common complaints.


Now, my goal is to be helpful, so I thought about how I teach novel-writing, and in particular how I advise aspiring novelists to get started and stay motivated.

I thought about the published writers I know, and how quickly they say they take to write their first drafts. I thought about the most common ways that a book gets derailed, and the most common reasons that a draft never gets finished.

In the end, I came up with this simple idea: if you are writing a novel, your goal should be to write three new scenes a week.

Huh? Three scenes?

Yeah — it’s a bit of an odd idea for a schedule, so I created an animated video to explain what I meant.

The video contains a teenage detective, dragons, and the return of a distracting lover.

Watch it, and then tell me what other schedule-related questions you have.

It’s focused on novelists, but everyone trying to write a book may find the ideas useful.

Let me know what you think. I’ll happily answer your questions by email.

Yours,

Daniel

PS This video is the first in a series of three. If you would like to get an alert when the second one is ready, sign up below:


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