Julie Broad shares five ways to finish your book: write a bad first draft, find your best writing spot, skip around chapters, reuse your own transcripts and articles, and use timed writing sprints. Start with an outline and know who you're writing for.
If you're writing a book but you're struggling to finish it, then I've got five tips to help you authors with work in progress. This video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers, a full service publishing support team helping you write, publish and promote your book to achieve your goals. I'm working on a new book all about book marketing and I I have found it much more difficult to get the book done than I expected. My last book was Primarily written at 5am but that hasn't worked for this one because my son seems to have a radar and wakes up within 15 minutes of me. So there's no joy in waking up that early to not work on my book. So I've tried to block time off during my workday, but it always seems to get taken by other pressing fires or the need to free up time for calls. So I've started taking out of office days. Where to? Everyone but me. I'm out of office. I don't do calls, I don't do meetings. All I do is write and I only check email at the end of the day. And it's working really well. I'm getting 7,000 to 11,000 words done each time I block a day off. I'd say four or five more of those block days and my draft will be ready for my team to work their magic. But I've also had the challenge of an expanding book. There's so much to think about when you think about book marketing and and I'm having a little trouble drawing the line on certain topics. I know some of you can relate to that. All I'm saying is that if you need some support and tips to get your book done, I feel you. Which is why I rounded up these five tips so we can all get our book done. Now, before I give you those tips, let me lay down the caveat of you first need an outline. And for that outline to be valuable, you need to know who your ideal reader is and what the hook of your book is. But your outline is your guide to where you're going. And even if you don't follow it exactly or it expands like mine, it gives you structure to approach your writing and makes the tips I'm about to share possible to follow. So here we go. Tip number one. Set your sights on a bad first draft. Some call it a vomit draft, but your first goal is content out of your head and onto that page. I'm certain I've repeated some tips or examples or stories I'M not going back to perfect it. That's what my team of editors is for. I'm just getting the content out of my head and giving myself the goal of a bad first draft is helping tremendously. Tip 2 Find your writing zone Test out different locations My go to place for writing my first two books was a Starbucks with a nice little corner table and and I could hide away in there and it just seemed to be a good happy place for me to write when those were closed off to people. In 2020, I found myself writing at home again. I've gotten used to writing at home, but it still doesn't feel the same as how I would get into the groove at Starbucks. I've also had some great writing sessions at the airport lounge when I've had a flight delay or even in a hotel room. So test locations and if you are finding yourself needing to write at home or or the office, then you must do whatever you can to minimize your disturbances. That means turning off your phone, letting people, anything else that might disturb you, know that you are writing because you lose so much time and focus when you're disturbed and interrupted while writing. Tip number three Write your book in whatever order you want. You do not have to write chapter one followed by chapter two. Chapter three. There are chapters that are going to be hard to write, whether it's emotionally hard or just mentally difficult, or you have a lot of work to make it content that's digestible for a reader, and there are good days to tackle that content, and there are days where you just need to get a lot of words out in the time you have. There's no rule that your book must be written in order, so if you're really feeling a subject, sit down and write that out now. Deborah Lloyd, one of my YouTube besties, mentioned that she wrote the last chapter first. That can work. Great. Tip 4 Borrow from yourself don't stare at a blank page Part of what helps me knock out 10,000 words in a day of writing is that I'm taking video scripts and I'm putting them in so I'm not staring at a blank page at the end. There's almost nothing left of the original text in a lot of cases, but my writing went so much faster having material to start with than when I stare at a blank page and ponder what word I'm going to use to start the sentence. So were you on a podcast that you can get transcribed? Have you given a speech that you can get the text from? Did you write an article on the topic Use the material you have to start with because then that gives you something to build from. Tip number 5 use a timer Writing sprints work incredibly well for getting content out of your head onto that page, but I also find a timer helps me maintain focused discipline. Some days I can do a one hour session of focus without doing anything but writing, but most of the time I do the 45 on 15 off. The most important thing is you can't do anything but work on your book until that timer is up. So give it a try and see how much you can get done. But make sure you don't let yourself do anything when that timer is on but write your book. And when it goes off, force yourself to take a break because the break is as important as the focus. But also take it from me, don't use that break to check your email, get off your butt, walk around, grab a snack, get some sun and come back to it. And if all of this isn't working, it might be time to find yourself a writer to help you out. We work with a lot of people who can carve out an hour or two to chat with someone, but sitting in front of a keyboard is not so easy. Writing comes much more easily to some people than it does to others. Know where your strengths are, and if you're spending forever writing when someone else could have it done in three to six months, it might be time to get someone to help you. The thing I keep telling people is your book won't impact anyone so long as it's not published, so you have to get it out of your head and into the world. If you want help with the writing, here's a guide to find a ghostwriter. You can go to booklaunchers.com getaghost I'll put the link in the description, or if you have questions or suggestions, post in the comments below. And of course, when you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win some sweet noboringbooksswag. So make sure you say hello. Now, if you're writing a book, you're probably wondering how to make it interesting. Well, here's some great tips to write a book people actually want to read. And if you've already seen that video, then this video right here is the latest and greatest from the channel, which means it's highly recommended viewing. Either way, you're a delight. So let's hang out a little more. Okay, see you on the next one.
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