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.
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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: