Full Free Book! The 8-Minute Writing Habit by USA Today Bestselling Author Monica Leonelle

Introduction. As a novelist, you are both the artist and the producer of a product. Most novelists focus on the art of telling a story, but don't worry too much about how they get the art into written format and into the real world. This book is not for most novelists. Instead, it's for novelists who are ready to figure out a solid and repeatable production process for their many product. Fiction stories packaged as books. I can help you improve your production skills in several areas. Section 1: Mindset. What's truly blocking you from establishing the consistent writing habit that you know you want? Section 2: Habits. The literature and theory behind establishing habits and how to apply that to a consistent writing habit —regardless of your current challenges. Section 3: Challenge: Take everything you've learned in the book and test-drive it for 8 days to figure out what will work for you. It's an honor to share what I know about each of these topics with you in this book. Where this book originated and what's changed in this edition. This book was originally published in 2015 as part of the Growth Hacking for Storytellers series. Much of the text in this edition is pulled and rewritten from the original book, so if you already own it, this book will serve as a refresher of what you've already read. If you don't own the previous version already, you are in the perfect place to learn a ton about improving your writing habits and increasing your writing speed, as the content in this book has now been tested by thousands of novelists just like you. While writing better, faster, smarter, more and more consistently has always been in demand for novelists, a lot has changed since I wrote the original book. I've added a new chapter to share my story around writing habits and how I've evolved over the years, and two new author blocks to the mindset section. I've also updated the 8x8 Challenge and a few other sections so that they translate better to audiobook. Finally, I've changed the format of the— this book and others in the Productive Novelist series to better reflect the need to pause and digest information. This is done through journaling prompts. Feel free to grab a notebook and jot down your answers to the journaling prompts to aid in your understanding of the information and desire to take action on it. How to use this book. This book is best read straight through as each section builds on the last. That said, the first two sections is broken into chapters that can also be read as standalone essays, so if you have a specific chapter you'd like to dig into first, feel free to jump to that spot. Each chapter also contains journaling prompts, so you can use the Writing Productivity Companion Workbook alongside, to aid in implementation. This companion workbook covers all 3 of my writing productivity books: The 8-Minute Writing Habit, Write Better, Faster, and Dictate Your Book. I highly recommend using the journaling prompts, as they will help you process and implement the information you just read. Who are you? My name is Monica Leonelle, and I have been publishing fiction since 2011. I write young adult fantasy, science fiction, and romance under Solo Storm and a few other pen names. Between my pen names, I have about 20 books. My urban fantasy novella The Last Daughter hit the USA Today bestseller list in 2017 as part of a boxed set. I've also written over 10 nonfiction books about writing, editing, publishing, marketing, and business. You can learn more about my work at theworldneedsyourbook.com. That's not much of an introduction, I know, but I also know that many of you are here to start a writing habit, not to hear my life story. I've shared my story around learning how to write regularly, and how to absolutely love doing it, in the next section, but feel free to skip past it if you want to get to the meat of the content right away. Ready? Why I Wrote The 8-Minute Writing Habit. I once struggled with every aspect of writing. I wrote slowly and took forever to get any project done. I liked having written, but I didn't really enjoy writing and struggled to take action consistently. I had goals and project ideas, but actually doing them felt impossible. I had no process for creating a book, and often went off track, or struggled to finish anything significant. All of that changed in 2012, when I figured out how to write a 30,000-word novella in just a few days, using productivity techniques. Or at least I thought it changed. But almost another year passed, and I noticed. I can write faster but I'm still not writing. I literally hadn't published any additional books since that novella, despite having huge plans and dreams. Although I was clearly failing at hitting my goals, I still didn't believe I needed a writing habit. In fact, I had learned how to write fast to just get it over with and escape having a writing habit. I had a number of personal hang-ups that were holding me back. I believed that I didn't have time to write. I genuinely believed that I, a single late 20s woman with no major responsibilities aside taking care of a pet dog, was busier than most people. I just didn't see how others were doing it. Writing faster would get me there. I thought speed would be enough to accomplish my goals and figured if I can write X hash of words in Y hours, then there's no way to fail. I couldn't force myself to write if I wasn't inspired. Habits? Uh. I didn't want to stifle my creativity by writing on command. And wouldn't the words be bad anyway? Writing was hard and unpleasant. I didn't usually like writing, so why would that change with habits? Wouldn't it just make me miserable? Getting writing done required a huge time block. I didn't believe something small like 8 minutes of writing could add up to anything substantial. My writing career and my dreams were basically dead in the water. As I looked at the prospect of not getting any books out for another year, something shifted in me. Determined to find a solution, I tried to recapture the magic of those blissful few days. When I created an entire novella. But I struggled, as I didn't know what specifically I had done to get such good results in so little time. That's when I decided I needed to dissect my efforts. I documented everything with a daily-ish journal so I could break through my resistance to writing once and for all. And it worked. In the next 2 months, I wrote 50,000 words per month and made gains on my writing speed, quadrupling it. I also fell in love with writing because it became easier for me. When you write 100,000 words in 2 months, you learn how to show up and get things done even when you're not feeling like it. I share more of my story around this in Write Better, Faster. The 2 months where I wrote 50,000 words per month and what I learned during that time is the foundation of the framework in that book. The 8-Minute Writing Habit came out of all the emails I received with feedback on Write Better Faster. A number of people told me, "When I sit down to write, I can write faster, but I can't sit down regularly." My readers had many of the same struggles I had faced in the years before, along with additional ones around having challenging schedules. Many of my readers had full-time jobs, children, health issues, sick parents, and school. How could they find time to write when their lives were so chaotic? I sent out a survey to these readers and wrote this book and dictate your book entirely from the questions people wanted me to answer about writing productivity. And while I'm sure you would be thrilled to publish 8 books in the next year like I did when I got into this work, my goal for writing this book is to help people move from writing is optional to writing is easy and enjoyable, and I want to do it regardless of what else is happening in my life. How to get the most out of this book. The 8-Minute Writing Habit is a great book on its own, and you can completely transform your writing habits with this quick read. I've also put together some companion resources in case they are helpful to you. The Writing Productivity Companion Workbook and Companion Deck. The Writing Productivity Companion Workbook is a collection of workbook pages that follow the journaling prompts in my books, The 8-Minute Writing Habit, Write Better, Faster, and Dictate Your Book. It's 100+ pages of bullet journal style layouts in 8.5 by 11 inches letter sizing. It's ideal for writers who love visual data organization or love getting creative with colors and art supplies. The book also doubles as a coloring book of sorts, with lots of line art that you can color in, allowing you to meditate as you percolate on your outline. The Writing Productivity Companion Deck is a square card deck with tips and inspiration to keep you writing. You can do a daily card reading when you need to get motivated for your writing session. Pull one card and reflect on it if you like to skip around in the material, or use the cards like flashcards to remind yourself of important concepts after reading. You can also stick these to a board or wall in your house or in your favorite notebook to create your own visual layout. If you do this, send pictures, please. The card deck can also be used with the other decks for other books in the Productive Novelist series. You can learn more about how to grab your own copies of these two resources at theworldneedsyourbook.com/shop. The Write Better, Faster Course. The Write Better, Faster Course is 8 video lessons that help you drastically improve your writing speed, writing habits, and writing processes. It is the perfect addition to the content in this book, plus my two other books on writing productivity: Write Better, Faster, and Dictate Your Book. Learn more at theworldneedsyourbook.com/shop. The Productive Novelist Series. The Productive Novelist Series has 14 books spanning many independent publishing topics, including outlining, writing, editing, publishing, marketing, selling, business strategy, and mindset. You can read the books in order, or skip around based on where you're at in your writing and publishing journey. Learn more about the Productive Novelist Series here: theworldneedsyourbook.com/books. Section 1: Mindset. Imagine you are trying to navigate a minefield. You have two choices. Scenario A: You start walking a path that seems good and hope you don't step on a mine. Scenario B: You take a few extra days to identify the mines and avoid them or remove them from your path. Then you walk across the field. Which did you choose? Now, imagine you are navigating your fears, questions, negative self-talk, limiting beliefs, and blockers toward sitting down to write. You have two choices. Scenario A: You put butt in chair to write and hope you don't get stuck. Scenario B: You take a few extra days to identify these fears, questions, negative self-talk, limiting beliefs or blockers and avoid them or remove them from your mindset. Then you sit down and write. I have personally tried both Scenario A and Scenario B. In Scenario A, I spent 5 years, 2009 to 2013, writing and releasing 1 book every year. In Scenario B, I released 8 books and 1 short story the first year, 2014, and have released about 8 to 10 books per year since, aside from a few years where I purposely took time off. The difference wasn't "butt in chair." I can assure you, I spent a lot of time sitting in front of a computer from 2009 to 2013, trying to type all of the things. The real difference is that right before I entered 2014, I spent time getting to the root of my issues toward writing, which had nothing to do with lack of time, lack of effort or lack of desire. Many of them were rooted in my emotional state, my fears, my anxiety, which was why implementing the strategy butt in chair didn't work. Journaling prompt: What's blocking you from writing your book? From writing regularly? From writing at all? Have you ever noticed that two people can implement the same information and see wildly different results? A great example of this is maintaining a healthy body weight. Everyone knows the secret: burn more calories than you consume. Yet you probably know some people who use that information to stay at their high school weight, other people who know that information but continue to balloon up through the years, and lots of people in the middle of the two extremes. The difference again is uprooting the deeper cause of the problem. With physique, we might call this "emotional eating" or something similar. Yet, writers don't have a phrase for this same phenomenon. Perhaps "emotional procrastination" describes it best? Before I ran my 2-month experiment to establish a consistent writing habit in 2013, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I hadn't yet uncovered my emotional procrastination triggers. I hadn't yet identified and cleared many of the blocks—I call them author blocks—that were actually holding me back from implementing the best writing productivity tips with success. If you have ever experienced that feeling of being stuck with writing, it is not because you haven't put your butt in a chair. It's because you are suffering from emotional procrastination toward writing. The cure is to clear the author blocks that are blocking your path to a consistent writing habit. You need to clear them before you can navigate the minefield of showing up to your writing sessions every day. We really need to remove all the obstacles that might be holding you back. This chapter is going to help you clear your author blocks toward writing. And hopefully when we are done, we'll never have to talk about your butt again. Fair warning: throughout this section, we may be digging deep into some tough or touchy issues. If something is resonating deeply with you, it's a good place to start exploring for root causes. If it helps, you can keep a journal or notepad of the blockers you think you might have, so you can start to address and clear them. Blocker #1: Writing Might Not Pay Off. One of the most painful author blocks to get past is uncertainty, or the question of whether writing is ever going to pay off for you. You can spin over this question for days, months, years. You may find yourself asking more than once why writing is a priority for you in the first place. Should you be investing your time and energy into writing, Or is there something more productive you could be doing? What if you sink all this money into producing your book, and it never pays off? What if you work hard on your masterpiece, and no one reads it? You can tell if you have this block because you are focused heavily on the outcome, or what you can gain from the work, rather than the joy of doing the work. This is an issue of control, and like many things in life, We don't always have control over our book's reception, sales, or trajectory. So when you start spinning on this question and realize you don't have control over the outcome, you find reasons to procrastinate on your writing goals. The cure for this author block is a 4-step process. Step 1: Decouple the work from the outcome. You probably have several outcomes you hope to gain from writing. Here are some of the, the most popular ones. I want to quit my job and become a full-time author. I want to become a bestseller. I want to make a lot of money. I want to have a flexible schedule so I have more time with my friends and family. I want to have my dream job making money from my passion. I want people to read my ideas. I want critical praise. I want to leave a legacy. All of these outcomes are lovely, noble goals to pursue. You shouldn't feel bad or guilty for wanting them to manifest. However, none of these outcomes are guaranteed. Even if you do manifest them, it's unlikely that any will happen right away in your author career. Journaling prompt: Which of these outcomes do you hope for? What is missing from the list? How would you feel if you didn't hit one of these outcomes? Sometimes, outcomes represent something we're struggling with in our current lives. For example, if you want to become a full-time author, it could be that you really just hate going into your office every day. If you want people to read your ideas, it could be that you feel unheard or unnoticed in your personal life or at work. Check in with yourself and dig into the why of the outcome you are seeking. Journaling Prompt: Look at the outcomes you're seeking. Is it mirrored in your personal life? What is the why behind the outcome you're seeking? You may also find that you see writing as a solution to a major problem in your life. For example, if you have a ton of debt, you may be looking for another stream of income. If you want to leave a legacy, you may be worried about your health, or you may have a fear of death. Once you identify the root of your problem, you'll see that the issue has nothing to do with writing at all, but rather a different area of your life. As you consider the source of why you want this specific outcome, Ask yourself if writing is the only way to get the result. If you hate your job, can you change jobs, change your attitude toward your job, or quit your job and do something else? If you want bestseller recognition to prove to your family that you're worthwhile, can you get a promotion at work instead? If you need money, can you find a full-time or contract job that pays now? If you want to get your message into the world, can you start a blog or a vlog and let them read it for free? If you need a flexible schedule, can you talk to your boss about your hours or negotiate remote work? Once you see that writing is not the only solution to that thing that has you hating life right now, you may find less attachment to that outcome you were hoping for. Journaling prompt: How can you meet that why in a different way unrelated to writing? When you take away the expectation of outcome, or worse, the need for a certain outcome to happen—if this book doesn't sell, I can't make rent—you'll find that the writing comes much easier. Finally, there are some challenges that are going to threaten your writing habit that you should address first. For example, you can't write consistently if you aren't eating, sleeping, and paying all of your bills. Solve your cash flow problem first, then come back to writing. You can't write consistently if you are using the praise of your writing to fill a gap in your self-esteem. That's going to leave you on a roller coaster of elation and depression, which isn't healthy in the slightest. You can't write consistently if you aren't physically healthy. Your diet, your stress management, and your movement routines all play a huge factor in your energy levels. No energy, no writing. These are just 3 examples of poor habits that will kill your writing habit before it starts. Check in with yourself to see if you have a habit that is a major blocker to your writing habit, and address that first. Journaling Prompt: Is there something you need to handle before you can commit to a writing habit? What small step can you take toward fixing that problem? Step 2: Reevaluate Your Goal. Once you decouple the outcome from the work and strip your expectations away, you can see whether you truly want to write this book or not. Assuming you never make a profit, never reach the bestseller lists, and never get a 5-star review, does this book still matter to you? Don't feel bad if the answer is no. I remember a goal I had for years: to learn to play guitar. I loved the idea of being able to sing and play my own instrumental at house parties. Just pick up a guitar and start. I would be the life of the party. But when I stripped away that outcome, I realized that I didn't enjoy playing the guitar at all. It's been collecting dust next to my nightstand for the last 10 years as a reminder that sometimes it's okay to drop a goal or hobby that isn't right for you. Journaling prompt: Assuming you never make a profit, never reach the bestseller lists, and never get a 5-star review, does this book still matter to you? Why or why not? Step 3: Reignite what made you passionate about writing in the first place. You likely wanted to be a writer because you had a story to tell or a message to share. Writing was a natural medium for you to express yourself. In order to start writing again, you need to tap into whatever inspired you to come up with your story or idea to begin with. There are dozens of ways to do this. Here are a few: Touch base with a colleague, coworker, or client who inspired your original ideas. Start talking about your fiction story to everyone you know. Send a first chapter of your book to an author friend. Join a critique or accountability writing group to stay motivated, in person or online, either works. Write down your notes for your idea or story in outline form or another structure, like a mind map or timeline. Pick up some books similar to the one you want to write, and go on a reading binge. If you've already written one book in the series, reread it. Attend a writer's conference, a book signing, or even just take a visit to the library or a bookstore. Give a speech, make a video, or write a blog post on your topic. When you reinspire yourself, you activate your inner "why." This is an incredibly powerful motivator that should at least get you started. From there, the strategies I'll share in Part 2 should fall into place easily and keep you going. Journaling prompt: How can you get reinspired about your book or your writing? Step 4: Experiment freely with no expectations. Usually when we learn new things, we expect to be bad at them for a while. For example, if you have never kicked a soccer ball before, you probably wouldn't expect to walk onto Manchester United's turf and kick it halfway across the field, right between the goalposts. Yet, for some reason, writers approach an author career as if their first book launch is going to land them movie deals and make them rich. Journaling Prompt: Get Realistic About Where You Are in Your Author Career. What can you reasonably accomplish? How can you reset expectations, or better yet, go into your work with no expectations? If you approach your author career as one big, fun experiment, however, then you will never have to question whether it will pay off again. Experiments always have a payoff because they help you learn and grow. They also help you detach from outcome because every outcome is acceptable. You are merely collecting data on what works and what doesn't, so every outcome meets your goal. I've fallen flat on my face dozens of times during my indie career, and it hasn't killed my opportunities or my sales yet. I've launched books that have gotten terrible reviews, I've sent annoying emails, I've set release dates that I couldn't hit, I've said the wrong thing on blogs and podcasts. Anything worth doing in life is going to have opportunities to fail. Think of every move you make in your author career as an experiment, and embrace any failures or setbacks you might come up against. Journaling Prompt: How does the idea of approaching your author career as an experiment feel to you? What does it bring up for you, and how can you shift your mindset around it? Blocker #2: Writing is like buying a lottery ticket. The myth of the starving artist has been perpetuated among your circle of friends for decades. When you tell people about your dream of writing a book, they urge you to be "realistic" and follow a traditional or proper path in life. You feel like you simply aren't lucky enough to make writing your full-time career. Sound familiar? You know you have this author block because you look at a writing career as having a low return on investment. You see the "lucky ones" who are making a full-time living at it and assume they've won the golden ticket. You may be obsessed with negative publishing industry statistics, like the fact that the average book sells fewer than 500 copies. Whatever the hang-up, it leads you to believe that an author career is not something you can achieve through hard work, persistence, marketing, and good business sense. The cure for this author block is a 3-step process. Step 1: Surround yourself with successful authors. When I first went down this path of becoming a full-time writer, there were people in my life who seemed to think that being a prosperous creative was like winning the lottery. It just didn't happen to "people like us." If this is something that you believe as well, or if it's something that you're hearing from the people around you, you need to get a new "us." Among the people I spend most of my time with now, there are a ton of supposed lottery winners. In fact, almost all of us are working on our writing businesses full-time, and also paying all of our bills. Somehow we all chose the lucky numbers, I guess. The best way to overturn this limiting belief is to start surrounding yourself with people who know that this is not a lottery game. You can start by reading my books and watch my YouTube channel. The world needs your book. This alone will help you get into the mindset of someone who is working on her dreams full-time And when you dig into my messy business, you'll see that I'm truly no different than you. I struggled with many of the same issues you are probably struggling with now, and I was able to overcome them. I am not the only one, either. There are hundreds of authors who write books, post blogs, and record podcasts about their successes and struggles as authors. I personally love podcasts where the authors go behind the scenes of their business, or dig into other authors' businesses through interviews. A few you can start with: The Creative Penn Podcast by Joanna Penn. The Sell More Books Show by Bryan Cohen and Claire Taylor. Spa Girls by Cheryl Phipps, Char Barrett, Trudy J., and Wendy Vella. Six Figure Authors by Lindsay Barocher, Joseph Lalo, and Andrea Pearson. Wish I'd Known Then for Writers by Jamie Albright and Sarah Rosett. The Productive Novelist by Monica Leonelle, me. You should of course seek out your own preferred stories, both successes and struggles. Both are important. Journaling prompt: Who are some authors you admire? How can you follow the stories of their careers to better understand their paths? Can you reach out to them with your questions? When you surround yourself with these stories, you'll find that luck plays a very small factor in your overall trajectory as a writer. The more important attributes of a successful writer are: building systems and processes, working harder than the wannabes, being strategic in your decisions, Experimenting, tweaking, and optimizing every aspect of your business. Persisting for years, if needed. Yes, there is always some element of luck to anything, which means it took a bit of luck to do whatever you've been doing for most of your adult life. If you look at where you're at now, you would probably agree with the quote by Seneca: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Writing and becoming an author is no different. Assume the little bit of luck you need is on your side, and develop your skills in the factors that truly matter. Journaling prompt: What can you do to be prepared for opportunities that come your way? How can you work with luck to make your author dreams happen sooner? Step 2: Learn the Playbook and See the Path. The path to becoming a full-time author, with actual money coming in, is as well-tread as any other modern-day profession. If you wanted to be a doctor, you would understand that you have to get an undergraduate degree, preferably in the sciences, then you'd have to take the MCAT, then you'd have to apply to medical schools, then you'd have to land a residency and so on. The path doesn't look easy, but it's certainly straightforward. And the same is true of being a full-time author, only for some reason the path in our profession isn't shared or taught in schools. It's impossible to believe in your career path if you can't see all the pieces you need to eventually have in place. But once you see the path to getting more books out and growing your audience, you'll find that it's just as straightforward as any other career plan you might create. Not easy but straightforward. How do you learn this secret playbook? Just like any other profession, you find mentors in your field and study their paths. You ask lots of questions. And don't stress over not knowing any authors personally. You can find hundreds of mentors and take up none of their time simply by reading books. Books written by smart people are my absolute favorite mentors because I can learn so much with such a small investment of both my time and money. Another good source for newer writers is to start listening to podcasts. Just search iTunes and you'll find dozens just on publishing, writing, and authorship. Journaling prompt: Who do you want as a mentor in your author career? How can you get into their mindset through books, podcasts, courses, workshops, events, or something else? Step 3: Look at the very next step only. The steps to succeed as an author, or even to get a single book out, are overwhelming. You have to plan the book. You have to write the book. You have to edit the book. You have to package the book. You have to publish the book. You have to distribute the book. You have to market the book. You have to sell the book. You have to set up the business that manages the book. You have to update the book. You have to maintain the book sales. Each of these steps involves a cross set of skills that you either have to outsource or learn yourself. It's enough to give anyone major anxiety that is going to stop you dead in your tracks when you sit down to write. But here's the thing: you don't need to worry about marketing your product until you actually have a product to market. You don't need to worry about setting up your business properly until you have several titles earning a tidy income. You don't need to worry about editing until the first draft is done. Journaling Prompt: What is the very next step you need to do? How can you break that down into even smaller steps, each ideally taking 30 minutes or less? You may be able to see the big picture and have a grand plan with the help of your mentors, but the next step is still right in front of you. Once you've researched the big picture enough and have figured out a reasonable sequence of tasks to do in a reasonable order, it's time to break that plan down into actions. Figure out the very next step, and ignore everything else. Do that next step. It helps to stop filling your head with crap that can't help you do that next step. That means don't listen to marketing podcasts if you don't have a book yet. Don't worry about writing your draft until you have a solid outline. Don't look for an editor until your draft is done. Don't set up your website until you know your book's release date. And on and on and on. Thinking that writing is a lottery is an easy way to wash away the details, or even to let yourself off the hook of following this dream. But believing it's achievable for you can help you actually take action, starting with a consistent writing habit. Journaling Prompt: Given the step you are currently at, what do you need to quit? What topics can you quit learning about temporarily, until you are further into the process? Blocker #3: I'm not good enough to be a writer. Who exactly are you to have this goal of writing books? You may have asked yourself this question in the past, but the real question is, why wouldn't you have this goal? You know you have this author block if you feel a persistent self-doubt over your abilities to pursue writing as a hobby or a career. The cure for this author block is a 3-step process. Step 1: Make a list of your past successes. Consider your current career. Remind yourself of everything it took you to get to where you are: years of education, years of climbing the ladder, tons of new skill sets learned over time, and more. If you aren't a careerist, consider the area of your life that you devote most of your time to. For example, if you're a parent, consider how much effort you've put into caring for your children over the years. If you've been playing chess since high school, consider how many tournaments you had to compete in to get to the level you're at. You've likely already had incredibly difficult goals in the past, and you always found ways to reach them. This goal is no different, and with the right mentorship and community, you can find the answers to any questions or challenges you could possibly have while pursuing this goal. You are worthy of becoming a full-time writer, and you're perfectly capable of living this dream. You've done similar stuff like this before. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. But if you're willing to give yourself the time and space, and if you're willing to invest your energy and maybe some of your resources into the dream, you will be able to do it. It's really just a matter of time. You've got this. Journaling prompt: What are your past successes? How did you achieve those successes? Which skills could be transferable? Step 2: Invest time and energy into your skill set. The best way to improve your confidence at anything is to improve your skill at it. So you don't feel like a great writer? Grab every writing book you can get your hands on and start studying. Practice, practice, practice. Exchange your work with other authors for critique, enlist beta readers who will give you valuable feedback, post your work on a blog, and send the links out to everyone you know. When you work on your skill set and see measurable improvement against your past self, you know your ability. Working like a dog at something is a huge confidence booster. Know your craft, and you will start to see external confirmation of what you already know. You are an awesome writer with worthy things to say. Journaling prompt: What can you do to improve your skill sets? Is there a course or book or free resource that you should be studying, or have been meaning to study? Step 3: Focus on adding value to others. Once you are confident in your skill set, the final step is to look for ways to add value to others. It doesn't have to be hard. Write a short story that everybody loves, teach a skill that can help someone get a job, and in general try to improve people's lives. Even as a fiction author, you can make a big difference to someone. For example, I have this silly revenge-esque romance series, and to be honest, I thought for sure there was nothing noble about writing this story down. Yet, I recently received an email from a cancer patient who said the books helped her get through her chemo treatment, and that she's desperate for the last 3 in the series. This meant the world to me, and kept me motivated to finish the series as soon as possible, because there is nothing that adds value like touching someone's life when they're in need of your support. You can and will make a difference in people's lives when when you put your work out there. This will give you external confirmation that what you write contributes to this world in a positive way. It's hard to argue with that kind of evidence. Journaling prompt: What are some ways you know you can add value to others through your books? Blocker #4: I'm distracted by life/family/work. You likely have categories of your life that are very important to you—family, friends, work, and more. If any of these important areas of your life went up against writing in a boxing match, who would win? The answer is no one. If you found yourself choosing one category over the other, it's no surprise that writing falls to the wayside in the face of your other priorities. Writing should never be in a boxing match against these other areas in the first place. You know you have this author block if you feel like you have to choose between something important to you and writing. For example, if you have to choose between spending time with your spouse and writing, or if you have to choose between working late and writing. The cure is to get buy-in from your most important people, Right now, you are probably pitting your writing goals against all the other important things in your life, and writing is losing every time. The trick is to stop pitting them against each other. That's a recipe for failure and will cause resentment to build not only for you, but also for the people you love. If you want a consistent writing habit, you have to integrate writing into your life. It needs to flow along with the natural state of the rest of your life. Your spouse needs to be on board, your kids need to be on board, and your boss and coworkers need to be on board. Getting buy-in from your favorite people is easier than it sounds. Step 1: Share your larger vision with the people who need to know. You may want to spend more time writing because it's always been your dream. You may need to do it because you want to leave a legacy. You may need to do it because you see this as a full-time career opportunity someday. The people who are going to be affected by your decisions need to understand your "why" behind writing before they can fully support you. For example, when I was trying to get my boyfriend on board as I pursued a full-time fiction career, I talked to him a lot about how I felt I needed to opt out of the workforce. Before I started writing, I was working from 9 to 7 every weekday, and I often had to be online later in the evenings to chat with my boss or handle something time-sensitive. On the weekends, I often had plenty of work obligations that took up my time, even if they were meant to be social or to build bonding with the team. I told Patrick that my long-term vision was to build a business that I could scale back when needed so that I would have time and attention to give to our future potential children. I also talked a lot about the income ceiling that I had already hit in my career. I was making six figures at age 27, and I knew that the next level was going to take up a huge amount of energy and commitment that I wasn't willing to give to a company that was not my own. Journaling prompt: Who do you need to talk to in your life? Make a list. What do you need to say to them to get them on board? Write a script or outline some important points for each person. How can you share your larger vision with the people you love? Step 2: Ask for what you need. If you need 20 minutes to write every day, perhaps you can ask your spouse to keep the kids occupied during that time. Or, maybe you can write before the family wakes up, or after the family goes to sleep. You may need to talk to your boss about leaving work on time, or you may need tell your coworkers you can't do lunch with them because you need that time to write. Sometimes, you need to negotiate a trade-off. You could make a deal with your spouse that he or she entertains the kids for 20 minutes every night, and you in return entertain the kids for a different 20 minutes, so your spouse can have a break. In my negotiation, I asked my boyfriend to pay more on the apartment because he made a lot more than me, in exchange for me doing most of the cleaning and cooking. I also told him that I needed to work nights and weekends because I was trying to build a business before we had a family. He struggled with these needs at first because they weren't what he envisioned for us, but we eventually worked it out by talking it through. Journaling prompt: What do you need? Who do you need to ask for support on making this happen consistently? Who can you hire to make it happen consistently? Step 3: Honor your commitments to your important people and keep them updated on your progress. It's natural for spouses, parents, friends, and bosses to be skeptical about your big dream. They don't have all the details, they haven't read all the success stories, and they don't live and breathe this world. But the best way to reinforce their support is to do what you say you're going to do and report back. If you asked your spouse to watch the kids so you can write, report back that you hit 500 words on your manuscript. If you asked your coworkers to go to lunch without you, let them know that you had a productive lunch. This last step is extremely important. My boyfriend didn't really believe this path was possible for me until he saw that I was going to follow through on everything that I was selling him on. When he saw that I was making $500 a month on Amazon, he started paying more attention and giving my dreams more credibility. I would say to him things like, if I'm making $500 now, 'When I write more books, I could be making $1,000 or $2,000.' It was only when he was able to see the entire path laid out and see that I had taken substantial steps down that path already that he realized that this was truly a viable option. Journaling prompt: Do you report back to family and friends about the sacrifices they are making for your dream? When you do this, what is their reaction? When you don't take this extra step, what is their reaction? Blocker #5: I'm stuck in the planning/writing/editing phase. Do you find yourself sitting down to write, but nothing comes out? Do you ever try to wrangle your notes or your manuscript into something that's publishable, but you don't know where to start? Do you have trouble knowing when you're done with one phase of writing, for example, when you're done with edits. You can tell that this is an author block for you if you feel it within your body. It feels like butterflies in your stomach, a tug in your chest, a weight on your shoulders every time you sit down to write. The fear is there because you know what you want to do, but you're struggling with how to do it. That makes you wonder why you bothered to sit down in the first place. The cure is to create a system for processing your workload. For example, when you open your email inbox, you probably don't flail around, not knowing what to do. You probably have a system of rules for processing email like: scan all messages from top to bottom, if I don't need to read the message, archive it automatically, If I need to respond to the message, add a star for later. If the information is just FYI, read immediately then archive. If the message has an important file attachment, download the file to the proper folder. And so on. Even though creating a book is a much more complicated project than checking email, You can apply the same high-level principles to it and develop a process for completing the work needed. Journaling prompt: What is your system for writing a book? Where does it need improvement? How can you let go of your inner perfectionist and create an ending point at each stage of the process? Step 1: Always have a document you're working on. You may be thinking, "Right, isn't that just the draft of my book?" In my opinion, it is much easier to write a book when you create a larger paper trail of your process. Although this seems like more work in the short term, it actually helps you finish your book faster, because you can break down your process into manageable steps. For example, when I produce an outline, I often start by just writing down 1 or 2 sentences for each of my scenes by hand. Next, I move that to Google Docs and paste additional notes into each chapter. I go to each individual chapter and write my beats. I then sketch out each beat and delete the beat as I go. This helps me visualize how much I have left. When all the beats are done, I have a rough scene. Finally, I add transitions to that same document. And there's my rough draft. During the editing phase, I switch documents again. I'll often print out a copy and go through it by hand with a pen. I also compile copies for my Kindle so I can experience the book as a reader will. Each of these different documents helps me view my story through a fresh lens. Finally, I'll put the finished draft into formatting through InDesign and read it all the way through, chapter by chapter. This helps me give it one last read before it goes to print and ebook. You don't need to follow this same process at all, but it is helpful to have a process like this that lets you complete a document and move forward. Different phases of your project will require different types of documents. Journaling prompt: What is your process for writing? Where do you want to tweak or improve it? If you don't have a process, how can you put one in place? Step 2: Give your phase an endpoint. You should never be asking yourself the question, "How do I know I'm done with this?" Once you've defined the phases of your project, you should give each phase a clear and definitive endpoint so that anyone could tell that this phase is done. Here are my endpoints at the moment, as an example: Outline: I have written at least 2 sentences about each chapter. Beats: I have written out 5 paragraphs about what happens in that chapter. Sketches: Every scene in my chapter is fleshed out. Draft: All the transitions between scenes are there, there are no half-finished sentences, and the manuscript makes sense. Revisions: There are no errors from dictation or misspelled words. Editing: I have gone through my editing checklist of things to watch for in every chapter. Proofing: I have compiled the book for my Kindle and read it through there, highlighting any issues. I have corrected those issues in the original Scrivener file. Publishing: The book is available in ebook format on Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Barnes Noble, Google Play, and Draft2Digital in print book available through Lightning Source, Kindle Direct Publishing, and Nook Press, and in audiobook available through Audible, iBooks, Amazon, Kobo, and Draft2Digital. The endpoint itself doesn't matter because the systems and processes you use to produce books will evolve over time. For example, my publishing process has grown tremendously since I first started, and now includes more distributors for ebooks and print, plus the addition of audiobooks. As I find more opportunities for distribution, I'll be sure to add those into that step as well. I strongly believe that having a crappy system is better than having no system at all. You must start somewhere, and it usually won't be with your fully realized perfect vision of how things should be done. As long as you have a system, you can start making changes and improving it over time, and as you learn new things and add new skill sets to your arsenal. Journaling prompt: Where can you add endpoints to your writing process? Step 3: Practice getting feedback on your work. If you still feel anxiety despite the new system you've put in place for processing your workload,, it's most likely due to fear of feedback on your manuscript. You may be frozen while putting words on the page, because your mind is overthinking all the ways that others are going to crap all over your work. This has held me back during all phases of the writing process: planning, drafting, editing, and publishing, and it's completely normal. The thing that has helped me most, is to seek small amounts of feedback on my work throughout the process. This could be a critique partner you trust, a close friend who reads your genre, your small team of beta readers, or the smart editor you hired. Dig into your current process and look for opportunities to ask for feedback. For example, after I finish my first draft, I sometimes send it to an author friend of mine for feedback. After I get a book published on pre-order, I usually send it to a team of beta readers who catch little errors or inconsistencies before the book officially goes out into the world. As I got used to receiving both positive and negative feedback, it prepared me for the inevitable starred reviews from strangers on sites like Goodreads and Amazon. I don't always like or understand what I read, but I don't let it influence me anymore because I understand more about how people form their opinions. It's usually not personal. Journaling prompt: How can you incorporate more opportunities for feedback into your writing process? Blocker #6: It's harder for me to write because— I have gotten stuck in a case of comparisonitis several times in my author career, and I've also been on the receiving end of the phrase, "Maybe that works for you, but my situation is. Let's start with the former. I have often found myself comparing myself to other people on this author journey. First, I compared myself to people who seemingly wrote a lot more often than I did. I would think, well, but I'm so busy, or, but I have a full-time job and I'm going through a divorce. Later into my career, I would notice people who seem to have immediate or quick success and would think they must have money, or their spouse helps them with everything in their business and mine doesn't get it. And finally, when I got pregnant with my first child after years of fertility problems, I thought, I literally can't find the energy to get out of bed right now, and can't they see that I'm a total meatball and thus couldn't possibly write, and do they think I have time? Hello, nursing a newborn over here. If you couldn't tell, my comparisonitis during pregnancy expanded at about the same rate as my stomach. I've also been on the receiving end of this author block, mostly because I teach people how to reach their goals. People have said to me, "You must be superhuman. My personality type makes that impossible for me," and even, "That's great for someone who has so much time, but I—" Being on the receiving end of clear comparisonitis has helped me understand and recognize this block more easily. When someone tells me that I'm superhuman, or my personality type makes it easier for me, or I have so much more time and energy than them, I get curious. In marketing and sales, this is known as one of the top 5 classic objections: "I don't doubt it works for some people, but it probably won't work for me." It's human nature to believe that unless someone looks very similar to you in youthfulness, situation, talents, skill set, and personality, then they probably don't know much about how to help you. But it's simply not true. Every problem under the sun, from how to get your baby to sleep through the night, to how to lose 20 pounds, to how to find a suitable marital partner, to how to make money and build a business, has been a challenge to someone, and usually many someones who came before you. Journaling prompt: What writing challenges are you experiencing that feel impossible or unsolvable? Who else might have struggled in the same way as you, but overcome it? I have spoken to literally hundreds of authors about why they don't write, and the themes are all the same. I can guarantee that for whatever reasons you are not writing at the levels that you want, There has been someone who came before you with a near-exact challenge who has solved their problems and become successful in spite of them. Here are some of the extraordinary situations that should have kept writers from working, but didn't. Taking 4 children on a 29-state road trip. Having a brand-new baby and a young child, she wrote 4,000 words per day on her phone. Having cancer and going through regular chemotherapy treatments. Caring for an elderly parent with Alzheimer's disease without any support. Being partially immobile and having little use of their hands and fingers to type. Working a full-time and part-time job at the same time. Being in crippling debt, unemployed, and unsure of how rent will be paid. Dealing with depression and living alone, away from family. Working through a death, or several, in the family. Suffering through chronic disease that leaves them in bed for several days at a time. Journaling prompt: Are there any inspirational writer stories that motivate you to succeed despite your personal challenges? Maybe whatever you're going through is similar to one or several of these situations. If so, you're truly not alone. The cure for this author block is a 4-step process. Step 1: Realize that everyone has strengths. You may know your strengths or you may not. Becca Syme has several books and programs on how you can use your personality type to better craft your writing routines and processes. If you already know your strengths, make sure you are playing to them. As you continue through this book, ask yourself what from it truly resonates with you and what is likely to work for your personality and situation. It's far easier to go with the flow of the river than to tread against it, so be your own compass. My strengths in writing are that I'm a natural productivity hacker and optimizer, that I am great at pattern matching, and that I am extremely persistent at my goals. My productivity hacking skills made it easy for me to drastically improve my writing speed and habits once I put my mind to it. I am good at testing and tweaking. My affinity for pattern matching helped me hack story structure so I could create extremely detailed outlines that had the marketing for the book baked in. And my persistence makes it easy for me to continue writing, because I know I'll get to where I want to be, no matter how many times I fall. I currently have a series of novels that's going into its fourth set of revisions and re-releases. With every revision, the series gets better, and I know it'll be a flagship series someday. Journaling prompt: What are your greatest strengths? How can you lean into them to improve your writing habits? Step 2: Realize that everyone has struggles. No one finds writing books and building an author business easy and straightforward. Everyone who has achieved success in this area has worked very, very hard through many challenges. It's truly humbling and inspiring when you think about it. Whenever I find myself in the "it's harder for me than them" mentality, I ask myself, "What did they have to overcome to get to this point?" I start with the assumption that they have a massive challenge behind the scenes and ignore my own urges to make excuses for myself. If I have the chance, I actually ask them the question. This helps keep me inspired and gets me over my own internal drama. My struggles over the years have been not being very organized in business, especially around money. I'm changing that. Not being a consistent writer and writing in bursts of energy instead, and being a procrastinating, just-a-hairline-under-the-deadline worker. Ironically, it was actually leaning into my strengths that improved my weaknesses. What happened was that I simply started playing to my strengths., and the struggles I was having started to disappear. I started making more money, and thus desired to get a handle on it, and direct it usefully. I learned to write in bursts of energy, and when I had my first child, was already able to write in spurts at unpredictable times, and using whatever I had in front of me. I found my ideal writer process just by writing more in the way that felt natural to me, and became really good at predicting how long a book would take me to write. The sooner you start cranking out words regularly, the faster you'll be able to do so, in spite of whatever else is happening in your life. This is what being a professional writer truly means. This book can help you learn how to write, no matter how your circumstances are changing and evolving throughout your career. Journaling prompt: What are the positive sides of some of your challenges? How can you work around the things you aren't good at? Step 3: Accept that your struggles are not unique. I once did marketing for a company that pretty much didn't let me do my job. Every time I wanted to try something new, the founder of the company would come back with some excuse, usually in the form of, "We tried that and it didn't work," or, "That can't work for our business and our industry." I felt frustrated by this, but at the time didn't have the words to deal with this objection. The questions I wanted to ask included: But did you? Did you really try it? Did you implement it correctly? Did you follow the instructions? Did you give it your all? Did you try it, but with the hope that it wouldn't work so you wouldn't have to continue? Has anything changed since the last time you tried it? Is there hidden resistance to trying it? What is so fundamentally different about your business that marketing best practices can't work? I feel very similarly when people talk to me about their writing productivity, habits, and processes. Artists tend to buy into the idea that they must be original, innovative, special, and unique to succeed. While that may be helpful in your art, however, not necessary to succeed, it will not be helpful in your view of your challenges. Believe that there are many general solutions, that work for you. Begin a new mantra: maybe not everything will work, but much will. Be willing to humble yourself to learning and trying things that could help you succeed. Journaling prompt: What do you need to try again? Where your resistance to trying truly coming from? What could you gain by trying to do it the way everyone else is doing it? Step 4: Accept your responsibility in finding solutions. The biggest issue with saying, "It's harder for me to write because..." is that there is no solution. The only information given is why you can't write. But the solution requires what you are going to do to write more. And that requires you to learn more and try more general solutions. You will have to experiment and tailor general solutions to your situation. There's no one secret answer to your situation. It's not wrong to consider personality, situation, energy levels, desires, and more in seeking solutions. Just don't take it to the extreme of being a special snowflake who needs to reinvent the wheel. The people who seem to solve their challenges are the people who are willing to give anything a real try. They read everything they can get their hands on, try all the books and courses and coaching and conferences, and ask questions until they move forward. Journaling prompt: What do you need to feel comfortable with experimenting with different solutions? How can you release attachment to the outcome of these experiments? Blocker #7: Life Has Sapped All of My Creativity. I'm writing this section in the middle of a global pandemic, and after the most contentious United States election in its history. It's not dramatic to say that this year has been a clusterfck, and most of us are not entirely okay right now. As writers, this seems to be doubly so as most of us are empathetic, thoughtful, and care deeply about the world around us and humanity in general. It's normal during this time to be struggling through your writing. This section is timely, but it's also evergreen and universal. At some point in your writing career, you are likely to deal with depression, winter blues, burnout, or personal challenge—breakups, deaths, job loss, financial struggles, health scares, accidents, and more. There will be periods of not writing. Journaling prompt: Do you have an idea of why life has sapped all of your creativity? Can you articulate it? Putting words to your situation is a helpful way to begin to solve the problem. The cure for this author block is a 3-step process. Step 1: Deal with the underlying cause. You likely know why you are feeling uncreative. Let yourself deal with and process any feelings you need to work through. Deal with the real-life situations that have interrupted your life or changed your life irrevocably. You'll know when it's time to continue because you'll feel the call in your heart. I don't recommend writing again until you're ready or unless it helps you process your feelings. The rest of these steps are for when you have moved beyond true crisis and into procrastination, lethargy, and "I'm not sure why I'm still not doing what I need to do" territory. They are for when you know it's time to get back to writing. Journaling Prompt: Do you need more time to deal with life stuff? Are you truly ready to move forward but struggling to figure out how? Step 2: Focus on your energy, not your time. Have you heard the phrase, "Everyone has the same 24 hours in the day"? I used to think that time was the barrier to productivity, but as I've gained more experience in life, I've realized that energy is the ultimate predictor to how much you can get done. I confirmed this in my own life after giving birth to my child. For the first 5-6 months, I was barely working. I simply couldn't focus and take care of my child during a global pandemic at the same time. Then I started working smarter and spending my limited time wisely instead of bemoaning how little time I actually had. I found myself working at about 75% of my old capacity, meaning where I could once get 100% of my work done in 16 waking hours a day, I could now get about 75% of that same work done with only 2 to 4 hours a day. Once my child was a year old, I noticed that I was easily at 100% of my work done at only 2 to 4 hours of actually working per day. And now I'm pretty sure I'm more productive than I was before I had a child and on far fewer hours of work. How can this be? As Brendon Burchard, author of High Performance Habits, says, the power plant doesn't have energy, it generates it. I chalk up the productivity gains to tight time boxing and the fact that my energy levels are so solid these days. I do not allow myself to spin out in drama or make excuses for myself. I do not involve myself in other people's lives. I do not worry about who I'm pissing off or annoying. I do not indulge excessively in any of the things that suck my energy and numb me out, like watching endless hours of television, playing games on my phone, snacking on unhealthy foods, listening to friends drone on about gossip or drama, or shopping and spending online. I just don't have time anymore, but more importantly, I don't have the energy to spare on it anymore. Naturally, my advice in this section is to have another baby. Not. You can achieve the exact same results and boost your own energy levels by making two lists. The first is a list of things that provide you energy. The second is a list of things that drain your energy. For example, on my list of things that provide me energy, I have cooking, cleaning, snuggling with my child, date nights with my husband, watching really good, well-written television, reading, writing, and working on my businesses, brainstorming, drawing, learning Spanish, taking a bubble bath, having deep and juicy conversations with friends and family, journaling, creating videos, podcasts, and other media, and playing with my tarot decks. On my list of things that drain my energy, I have all of the things I listed earlier, plus gossip magazines or news, boring exercise routines, scrolling on most social networks, paperwork, stressing out over deadlines, and dealing with tech issues. I minimize these things as much as possible in my life and limit them to when I know I have an excess of energy and can easily handle them. Journaling prompt: What's on your gives me energy list and what's on your drains my energy list? How can you keep your energy up? Step 3: Cross-Train in Creativity. If you have energy and you're still struggling to write, and you've implemented the habits section of this book, you may be feeling a lack of creativity. It's normal to feel uncreative, and even more normal for that to play out in the exact arena you need it to not play out: your writing. I restore my creativity through cross-training in other creative areas. Give it a try. Some of my favorite creative areas to help me cross-train are cooking, pencil art, graphic design, hip-hop dance, singing, and gardening. I also cross-train by having multiple pen names with different projects under each. Journaling prompt: What cross-training creative activities do you already know you love and where is there opportunity to take up a new hobby at your own pace? Section 2: Habits. Writing fast is a valuable skill, but only if you sit yourself down and actually do it. For the longest time, I focused heavily on optimizing word count and trying to get as many words as possible in as little time as possible. My attitude was, I can work on this for 2 hours a day, get the same results as someone working 8 hours a day, and then spend the other 6 hours doing something else, which is classic Tim Ferriss, 4-Hour Workweek mentality. Now I barely track word count because I spend plenty of time each day sitting down writing. It took me a while to shift to this perspective, but I finally realized, what else do I want to be doing with my time besides writing my stories? Sure, I could watch a few extra hours of television, but did that make me happy, fulfilled, or inspired? Instead of trying to optimize my hours, I then decided to focus on making writing more fun for myself, which has actually led to several 15K days, more so than my original pushes used to. Some days I write slower than 3,500 words per hour,, but I write for many more hours, and that gives better results. Other days, I need to churn out articles or get through rough draft scenes to hit a deadline, so I fall back on my skill set, do my focused Pomodoros, and get it done. I want to stress that no matter what writing speed you end up hitting, this skill works best when paired with putting in the hours. If you aren't getting results, the latter could be a good place to start making adjustments. As an analogy, consider diet and exercise. Most professionals says that diet will get you 80% of the weight loss results, and exercise will get you the other 20%. Writing fast is in the 20%; having a writing habit is the 80%. Just like exercise can get you ripped and take you to a whole different level of athleticism that diet can't help you with, Writing fast can help you go professional, but it's not going to work if you're simultaneously stuffing your face, not making time to write. In this section, I've condensed my own experiences and those of dozens of other authors, most of whom are either entrepreneurs, freelancers, or full-time authors, to give you the 9 best tips that authors are using right now to improve their writing habits. Most of these authors are at an intermediate or advanced level, and are making money off of their books. However, that doesn't mean you can't learn and implement some of their fantastic strategies for getting results. Many of these writers also have children, bills, a second business they're running, or health issues that could be distracting them from their goals. Still, these writers are being professional and producing their consistent word counts, no matter how they feel each day or what else is going on in their lives. As you go through a section, you might find that not all of these strategies apply to you or work for you. Again, if you want to create a plan that is customized to your own personal needs and desires, I recommend that you check out Write Better, Faster to see how experimentation and tracking can help you quickly advance and see huge results. But if you're just trying to get a few extra tips that are going to help you implement a new writing habit starting right now, then this cheat sheet of 9 different strategies that professional authors are using is going to get you off to a great start. As you work your way through the section, I encourage you to select one strategy at a time and implement it right away. If you're feeling any emotional procrastination over which strategy to select, Just go in the order they are listed in the book and try to implement each one in turn. Journaling prompt: Are you interested in improving your writing habits? What could a solid writing habit do for your writing and book goals? Strategy #1: Write for an 8-minute timed session. The Pomodoro method, which is a timed session of focused writing lasting 25 minutes, followed by a timed break of 5 minutes, is one of the most popular methods that professional authors use to force themselves to write words. Some authors take to Pomodoros easily, finding that the strategy helps them get more done in less time. Other authors adjust their session length to match the time it takes them to write a chapter or a scene. And some authors still find it hard to fit an entire Pomodoro into their schedules, which leaves them not doing any writing at all. In the 8-minute timed session, you write for only 8 minutes, one time a day. Why 8 minutes, you wonder? What's so special about it? There are 3 reasons why I picked this number specifically. 8 minutes is long enough to produce something substantial, but short enough that anyone can do it. No matter how busy you are, it's hard to argue that you can't find 8 minutes to do something that you've said is a priority. Most of us easily spend 8 minutes a day stuck in traffic, responding to a pointless social media update from one of our doofus Facebook acquaintances, or playing Candy Crush—or actually, all 3 of these at the same time. We can easily direct 8 minutes of that time toward something productive that we actually want to do. At the same time, 8 minutes is plenty of time to make a substantial contribution to your writing goal and manuscript word count. I have heard numerous accounts from authors who can write 500 to 750 words in 8 minutes. If you were able to do even half of that during your 8-minute session, you would add 250 words to your manuscript every day. Over the course of 1 year, you would have 90,000 words, or 1 full-length novel. Most people who are struggling with finding time to write would be pretty happy with that result. Furthermore, you will write at much faster speeds if you only give yourself 8 minutes. Have you ever heard the saying that "work expands to fill the time you allot it"? During my experiment in 2013 to write 50,000 words in a month, I found that my highest writing speeds happened when I only did a single timed session for that day. Sometimes, when you have a small amount of time, you are more motivated to really make it count. If you are still thinking, "Ah, 8 minutes a day, why even bother?" I want you to take a look at your real numbers. First, find a scrap piece of paper next to you or pull out your phone, and open a blank note in your favorite app. Next, write down an estimate of how many words you've written in the last month. Break that down by day, divide by 30 to keep things simple, and take a look at that number. Is it more than 250 words? I can't tell you how many times I ask someone this, and their number is zero or close to it. No judgment. In fact, I have a ton of empathy for you because my number used to be 0 too. All I'm saying is maybe what you've been doing isn't working. Let's try something different for a bit and see if that works better for you. Most writers who implement the 8-minute writing habit will end up writing more words per month than someone who writes in sporadic hours here and there. So never get stuck in the mindset that 8 minutes is not enough. And let's make next month's average better than this month's. Journaling Prompt: How many words could you get with an 8-minute writing habit? Test it! Set a timer for 8 minutes, and see how many words you can get. The 8-minute writing habit can be tacked onto or hooked into your current morning, Afternoon or Evening Routine. The beauty of writing only 8 minutes a day is that it's so easy to incorporate into a routine that you already have. Most people already have morning routines that include things like showering, getting dressed, brushing your teeth, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, and more. Most people also already have lunch routines that consist of waiting in line to buy food, sitting with coworkers and chatting, or eating at a desk while checking email or watching Netflix. And finally, a lot of people have evening routines, including things like cooking a homemade dinner, working out, putting the kids to sleep at a certain time, and reading in bed. A full Pomodoro would be very difficult to work into any of these currently established routines. It's not easy, for example, to wake up 30 minutes early, But an 8-minute writing session is different. It feels more manageable because it is, and using this concept is going to allow you to work your writing into any of the previously established routines you already have. This is going to help you develop a consistent writing habit without having to change your entire life around. If you want to build your 8-minute writing habit into your current routine, B.J. Fogg, a Stanford professor and expert at building habits, suggests starting with something as simple as possible. He uses the trigger-action-reward framework, which is easy to implement with the 8-minute writing habit. In this case, you would pick a trigger that's already in one of your routines, and then you would do your 8-minute writing habit right afterward. For example, if you eat a salad at lunch every day, you would do your 8-minute writing habit right after you rinse your fork in the lunchroom. I highly recommend BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits program. You can learn more about it at bjfogg.com. Journaling Prompt: Where can you fit an 8-minute writing habit into your current routines? How could getting work done as part of your routine positively affect your life? Small habits grow over time. The 8-minute writing habit is purposely a small, easy-to-implement writing session. That's because I know from researching habits that you are going to get addicted to it and build upon it in the future. An 8-minute writing habit is by no means your set point for the rest of your life. It's merely a baseline. Small habits tend to grow over time, as long as you are consistent with them. The 8-minute writing habit allows you to get super consistent with writing regularly, which is the first step to achieving your larger goals. During my experiment to write 50,000 words in 1 month, I started out trying to write fast, but learned over the course of my experiment that consistency was far more important than speed. You may only be able to write for 8 minutes today, but over time, as you start to build up a streak, you will be able to add 2 sessions per day, 3 sessions per day, and so on. When you pair the 8-minute writing habit with the other 8 strategies in the section, you'll see your results stack up. Remember, the 8-minute writing habit is just the baseline; you can always do more on the days you have time. Journaling prompt: What is your end goal for how many hours a day you want to write? How could the 8-minute writing habit get you there? Strategy #2: Write in the Morning. One of the most common pieces of advice about establishing a writing habit is to move your writing sessions around throughout the day, to find the time when you are an optimal writer. If you don't have time to test this, however, you should know that the result of this experiment for most writers is to get one session done in the morning. Now that you know about the 8-minute writing habit, you can supercharge it by pairing it with the second strategy, which is to move your first writing session of the day to the morning hours. If possible, you should make your first writing session the very first thing you do when you wake up. Nearly every professional writer I know uses the strategy for a number of reasons. You should do your most important task first thing. If you've ever studied habits, then you probably already know that you should do the most important thing in your day as your very first activity of the day. This helps you be productive right away and helps you check items off your list for the rest of the day. You probably also already know that you should put your number one priority in its proper spot: first thing. If you are interested in more of the research behind this, you can grab the book Willpower by John Tierney and Roy Baumeister. Journaling prompt: When has it helped you in the past to get something important done first thing in the morning? How could you replicate those results with a small early morning writing habit? You'll write more throughout the day. If you write first thing in the morning, you connect to your manuscript very early on, and that stays with you throughout your day. Even if your brain is not actively working on it anymore, it is subconsciously working out plot problems and characterization issues in the background. 8 minutes is not a long time to write, so once you get into the groove during that first session,, you'll probably have the ideas flowing. This will give you more motivation to work on your manuscript throughout the day. This means that if you want to add a second session on your lunch break, you're more likely to follow through. It also means that by the time evening rolls around, you've probably been thinking about your manuscript all day. This makes it easier to get some writing done in the evening too. Journaling prompt: Have you experienced a day where you started writing and didn't want to stop? Where your mind was working on your novel or story in the background? What could an 8-minute writing habit do for your motivation around writing more consistently and faster? You'll boost your creative energy. Of the hundreds of busy writers I talk to, The number one thing they tell me is that their day job sucks away all their energy and makes it impossible for them to do anything but veg out by the evening. Writing in the morning means that you will not only bypass that challenge, but you may even be able to boost your energy throughout the day. You'll already be on a roll after your morning session, and your brain will feel woken up and ready to go. I've also heard from writers who found that they are able to write at night if and only if they do their 8-minute session in the morning. So even if you have always written better in the evenings, you can still activate your mind in the morning to make sure you get those evening sessions done. I've tested this theory both on myself and with other full-time writers in some of my mastermind groups. All have reported results that they ended up writing more when they did their single Pomodoro session at the beginning of their day. If you're able to get in a full 25-minute Pomodoro in the morning, great! But the results will still hold even if you're only able to do your 8-minute session. I've seen it work for both myself and for others, but if you have any doubts, then just give it a try for a week. If it's not helping you write more, switch back. Journaling prompt: How could 8 minutes in the morning help you be creative throughout the day? Strategy #3: Take Your Writing Mobile. A lot of well-meaning writers will tell you that you need a specific desk, a specific chair, a specific keyboard, and specific equipment to get your writing done. I believe this is one way to do things, but my personal experience and what I've learned from talking to multiple full-time authors is that having "perfect setup syndrome" can actually be incredibly counterproductive to getting your writing done. Plenty of full-time authors are not so specific about their writing routines, and instead are willing to write anywhere and any way. There are 3 ways that mobility and flexibility can help you get more words. It takes the fussiness out of writing. If you can write anywhere, on the go, on any device you own, then there is really no excuse to not get a bit of writing in. Too often we attach a lot of drama to writing and make it a bigger deal than it is. At the end of the day, it's just one word after the other. Too often we think of books in chapters and scenes. But really, you can easily spend a few minutes on the go, writing up a paragraph or two at a time of your book. Mobility forces us to utilize small pockets of time and imperfect tools to accomplish what we need. Journaling prompt: Where do you feel drama around your writing efforts? What do you find prevents you from using in-between moments to further your writing goals or or your book? How can you write on the go, so you don't have an excuse for not getting words in? It allows you to use spare moments for writing sprint sessions. Most of us think we have very little free time, but we all know that we have little pockets of spare time throughout our day. We have long, frustrating commutes, boring waits in lines, and unexpected changes in plans that add up to hundreds of wasted minutes throughout the month. Going mobile allows us to utilize that spare time and do something productive instead. You can get very creative about getting your 8-minute writing session in just about anywhere. I know authors who write in bed, in the grocery line, on the train, on their lunch break, or during their commute. All those little sessions throughout the day can add up to several thousand words by the end of it. Journaling prompt: What are some wasted times and spaces where you could probably get some writing done, but don't? What would you need to prepare ahead of time to make it happen? It lets you implement the other 8 strategies easily. I mentioned in the last strategy that, if possible, you should get your writing session in as the very first thing you do when you wake up. I know countless authors who have a consistent daily writing habit solely because they keep their laptop right next to their bed. They literally wake up, pull their laptop over, and start typing. They are that dedicated. I used to keep an old iPad with a detachable keyboard on my nightstand next to my bed. In the mornings, I pulled it over and get started typing something for the day. An email, a blog post, or sometimes even a scene from the book I was working on. I only did it for 15-20 minutes, but it made a huge difference in my mood as I approach work for the day. Writing in bed is quirky and not for everyone, but it is pretty cool that you could get your 8-minute writing session done before you even get out of bed. How easy is that? Now, because I'm with my child in the mornings, I write on my phone. It's the only device that I'm able to carry around while with him, but it works especially because it has built-in voice recognition and swipe functionality. These are just a few examples of how these strategies can stack up to help you get much more writing done. So how do you take your writing mobile? You only need to set up 3 things. Have your notes and outlines ready to go in multiple formats. Going mobile does take a bit of pre-planning and having your books outlined ahead of time. You need to be able to pull up your notes quickly and know exactly what you're going to write in your draft. I keep my notes in a Google document in bulleted format, and I type all of my content into the same Google doc. Since I format my books using InDesign, I don't have to worry about messing up my outline. Use a software program like Google Drive, Evernote, or SimpleNote that syncs across multiple devices. It's easier to keep your notes synced and your content all in one place when you use an app that does this automatically. Most major novel writing apps like Scrivener and Word have mobile applications that sync your content across devices. If not, use a writing app to handle your first draft, then move your draft by hand to your preferred program for editing, formatting, and the rest. Learn about input devices other than your keyboard—we'll talk about this in the next section. Journaling Prompt: What are some key factors and habits that would allow you to take your writing mobile? Where are some pockets within your day that you already know would be places and times where you could get words in? Strategy #4: Embrace New Input Devices. Once you've gone mobile with your writing, the next step is to get comfortable with the idea of not using a keyboard as your input device. A lot of writers are resistant to this idea, but the ones who embrace other input devices are writing significantly faster than than the ones who are gun-shy. Here are a few to consider. Predictive text, also known as swipe-to-text. You may be great at texting, or that tiny keyboard on your smartphone may drive you absolutely nuts. There's a new technology called predictive text, which allows you to swipe across your keyboard in a fluid motion to create words. It's already built into many of the newer smartphone models for both iPhone and Android, but you can also download an app called Swype that does the same thing. For professional texters, this technology will have you texting faster, while all the rest of us are just happy that we don't have to peck at minuscule buttons on a 3-inch screen anymore. Journaling prompt: How could you use predictive texting technology to get more words written? Voice recognition or dictation: Even faster than swiping, you can use voice recognition on just about any newer device you own. It's built in. If you don't have built-in functionality, you can download the Dragon Anywhere app for iPhone or Android, which allows you to dictate your content and email it to yourself or sync with Dragon Professional Individual or Dropbox. For your computer, I recommend dictation software by Nuance called Dragon Professional Individual. For Windows only. This software is available for around $300 at any given time and can be downloaded instantly from any major retailer. The reason I got into dictation in the first place is because I found that typing too fast and too often really hurt my hands and became a physical impairment for me. Having an option to give my hands a break has been a lifesaver for me and enabled me to write way more words this year than I would normally have done. The true benefits of dictation, however, are when you go mobile. Because all devices have voice recognition and speech-to-text technology built in, it's really easy to quickly input content to your mobile device. Your phone is also probably one of the best ways to get started with dictation because you can find so many free programs. If you are interested in dictation, it's far too big of a topic to cover in this book. I have a dedicated book to answer all of your questions about dictation called Dictate Your Book. Journaling prompt: Are you interested in learning to use voice recognition software to dictate your book? What time can you dedicate to learning this new skill set? Dictation to a dedicated recorder. If you prefer, you can dictate your content to a dedicated recorder and get it transcribed. It is more expensive to have it professionally transcribed, so my recommendation is to run your saved audio file through your dictation software. It's pretty easy to do if you use Dragon. You simply upload your audio file to their transcription option, and the software produces a document of text for you. This adds mobility to your dictation setup, because normally, you would need to be sitting in front of your computer with a microphone. You probably already have most of the equipment you need to do this, especially now that there are so many recording apps available for $5 or less on most devices you own, including your smartphone, your tablets, and any laptop or desktop that you have. Most devices have a microphone built in as well. If you want to get fancy, the same company that makes the Dragon line of dictation software has recently come out with a dedicated recorder that essentially syncs up your transcription when you plug it into your computer. At the time of writing, it's only available for Windows users. If you're feeling a little resistant to some of this new technology, don't stress—nobody's taking away your keyboard. You don't have to switch over entirely, and the best way to get started is just to take a few simple steps toward learning and getting comfortable with these other input options. For example, instead of dictating your first draft of a book, you may want to try dictating your outline or notes. Journaling Prompt: Would a voice recorder to transcription work for you? What do you need to do to get set up? Of all the strategies that I list in this book, embracing new input devices is the one that I really encourage you to try. Only 30 years ago, we were primarily writing books on typewriters. Before that, people wrote out their ideas by hand. This new technology is not in some far-off future; it's the present. We are moving toward a mobile, hands-free world, and these technologies are only going to become more prominent as our society embraces them in everyday use. Now is the time to be an early adopter and get ahead of the curve. It's good for your future writing career to stay abreast of these technologies. Journaling prompt: What new input devices do you want to use to improve your writing habits? What are the challenges you'll face using these new input devices? What do you need to set up ahead of time to make it happen? Strategy #5: Use the Plan C Method. Even though all of these strategies have made it simple to get your writing in every day, there will still be days where even the smallest of steps seems monumental. These are days when your emotions are in flux, when you wake up and everything seems to be going wrong, or when you're simply exhausted and you just can't do anything more than the baseline commitments. A lot of people get derailed when they have a bad day, though full-time writers know that a single bad day doesn't have to result in a train wreck. To get through my own bad days, I use a simple trick called the Plan C method. We've all heard of Plan A, Plan B, and so on. Plan A is when everything is going perfectly and falling into place exactly as we imagined it. Many of us start out the week this way and have super productive Mondays and Tuesdays before things start to slip on Wednesday. Plan B is the backup plan, which is when we shift things around or cut things out because we aren't able to stick to our original plan. This could be something as easy as moving a Wednesday writing session to Saturday morning, or squeezing in that extra writing session after dinner instead of at its usual time. Plan B is never the ideal situation, nor the most efficient, nor the most optimal, but it allows you some flexibility in your life for when emergencies come up or things have to be adjusted. In most cases, it's better to get in a suboptimal writing session than to have no writing session at all. Plan C is the catastrophe plan, or what to do when things are truly going to shit. This is when you haven't written for 3 days and you are behind on a deadline you set for yourself, and you haven't had a client in a while and work is crazy stressful and the kids are sick. Basically, when it feels like everything in the universe is working against you. How do you get your writing done then? Or, if this has been going on for more than a day, how do you get back on track with writing at all, without letting the entire month pass having produced nothing? Plan C is the barest of bones, It's the least amount you can do to essentially "check the box" for the day. For some of you, Plan C might be that 8-minute writing habit in the morning. For some, it might be for the few minutes you're waiting in line, you speak a paragraph of your draft into your smartphone and email it to yourself. For others, it might be that you open your manuscript and read through the most recent chapter and make a list of all the things you want to add, subtract or change moving forward. Your Plan C can be anything you want, but the important thing is that you have something in place that allows you to check the box. Because even if your life is going crazy and the world is conspiring against you, you're going to feel much better if you're able to check off your writing commitment for the day. As you string together these days of at least hitting your Plan C,, you will find the motivation again to work your way up to Plan B, and then finally to Plan A. My personal Plan C that always brings me back to my regular writing schedule is to write a short blog post or a longer update on Facebook or Instagram. It's a super small commitment for me, and it gets me back into the habit of writing. Every single time, within a few days, I'm back to working on my manuscripts and setting aside more time to build my writing business. A word for the wise: be where you're at in your writing journey. Don't say Plan A is writing 8 hours a day, Plan B is writing 4 hours a day, and Plan C is writing 2 hours a day. Come up with a Plan C that is truly something you could do in just a couple minutes a day that would genuinely help move your writing project forward. Do the same thing with Plan B and Plan A. If you don't have a consistent daily writing habit already, for example, your Plan A should probably be the 8-minute writing habit in the morning. As you build your consistent writing habit, your Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C can change and grow with your abilities. Until then, pick something realistic that is going to make you feel really, really good about yourself when you complete it. Journaling prompt: What is your Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C? Strategy #6: Use the method of descent. Writer's block is one of the things that stops aspiring authors dead in their tracks. But there is a really simple way to avoid writer's block completely and get something down on paper, even if it's not in the form that's going to eventually become your book. Before I get deeper into this strategy, I want to issue a word of warning: Taking notes on your book is not the same as writing the first draft of your book. A first draft is always going to be more valuable, even if it's not a great first draft. That said, there are some days when you simply cannot write that first draft because you're experiencing some sort of writer's block. That's perfectly fine. In cases like these, you can keep yourself on track by using the method of descent. What is the method of descent? It's pretty simple: when you're having trouble writing your first draft, go one level down and write there instead. I use 3 different levels of note-taking below my first draft, and you can customize these levels to anything you want, anything that works particularly well for you. We discussed my personal levels in the chapter on knowledge, but for convenience, here is an overview of my levels. Outline, lowest level. I write 2 sentences to a paragraph per chapter about what will happen in the chapter. Beats. I expand the outline to roughly 5 paragraphs per chapter, this time indicating whether a section is dialogue, description, or internal monologue. Each of these three requires a different writing mindset, and most authors gravitate toward one a little more. Sketches: I turn each beat from tell to show, thinking of them as short instructions for what should be on the page. I don't bother writing in connectors or transitions between the beats, just try to hit between 300-500 words with each beat. Essentially, I sketch out the scene without drawing firm lines. Draft, highest level, and what I'm aiming for. I clean the sketch to what I call compile, which in software terms means that the program actually runs. There are no syntax errors. For the fiction version of compile, I consider it compilable when I could hand it to someone and they could read it with no missing parts. This doesn't necessarily mean that the draft is perfect, but the draft communicates the story well enough that no one would say, Hey, how did they jump from the bedroom to the restaurant? So when I'm struggling to write my draft, I'll go down a level and attempt to write sketches. If I can't write sketches, I'll go down another level and attempt to write beats, and so on. Most professional authors have some sort of method of descent similar to mine, though of course every author is going to customize it to suit his or her own needs. The reason is because it's very easy to get out of the habit of writing. When you feel a bout of writer's block coming on, you might be tempted to skip your writing session for the day, but in the end, it's just going to make the block worse and worse. It's comparable to putting off your taxes all through the month of April. Yes, they may seem complicated on April 1st, but avoiding them for the next 10 days does not make them easier to do on April 11th. Professional authors know that it's much less about what you put on the page than it is about maintaining your consistent habit. Think of writing on a consistent basis as something that you get a pass/fail grade on. If that's the case, then it's better to use the method of descent and drop down to a loose draft or detailed note-taking than it is to skip altogether. The second great thing about the method of descent is not only that you're keeping your habit, but you're also unblocking yourself slowly. As you take your notes, you are actually working out the block at the same time. I always find that even if I drop down to the outline level, within a few days I'm working my way back up. Within less than a week, I'm back to working on my draft again. So use the method of dissent, and experiment with what works for you. You'll truly never have to face debilitating writer's block again. Journaling prompt: How can you apply the method of dissent to your current writing process? Strategy #7: Collaborate with a Fellow Writer. If you're having trouble staying accountable, you can use collaboration with another writer who's at about the same level as you to grow your catalog quickly. Now, of course, it would be great to collaborate with someone who's much further ahead of you, but it might be more challenging to find someone because you won't have much to offer them in terms of either your storytelling skills or your marketing pull. Collaborating with another writer might seem like a sticky challenge you don't want to take on at this point, but for me personally, it was one of the things that truly skyrocketed my author career. I was able to write 8 books and 1 short story in 2014, primarily because I worked with other authors. One of the collaborations I did was on a fresh pen name that was in the romance genre. I collaborated with an author who is still one of my best friends to this day. She and I have complementary skill sets, and she was able to fill in a lot of gaps on those books that I wasn't able to fill in myself. Because we collaborated on the work, we not only learned a ton from each other, but we were able to create a series that made good money and is still available today. That was great in the short term, but in the long term we achieved so much more. We both upped our storytelling game rapidly, and those new skill sets quickly assimilated into our already established established writing styles. When I picked up the series by myself in the later books, I was able to mimic the style that we had established together, and the transition was fairly seamless even though she wasn't writing with me anymore. Another collaboration I did in 2014 was an author anthology that ended up having about 25 short stories total. Without this author collaboration, I wouldn't have met so many of the authors that I talk to on a regular basis still, and I also wouldn't have the short story that I ended up writing from the anthology. That short story is the basis for a future series that I hope to extend in the next couple years. The anthology had tight deadlines and a rigorous peer review process that forced me to stay on the schedule with my short story. Without the help of all these other authors, that short story never would have happened. I'm so grateful to these authors for pushing me to do more in a short period of time. I still participate in 3-4 anthologies or boxed sets a year, including one that hit the USA Today bestseller list in 2017. They can be a good way to build up your stable of novellas and short stories that end up being lead or reader magnets, and you can also make money through royalties on these collaborations. No matter which way you choose to collaborate, the accountability you get from working with other authors is second to none. Other authors are going to motivate you, push you, and teach you new skill sets that are going to be incredibly valuable to you for the rest of your author career. I've seen so many authors use collaboration to launch their careers with great success. Within a year or two, they graduate to working on solo projects with more skills and faster production times than they would have accomplished without the collaborative experience first. Myself included. Journaling prompt: Who could you collaborate with? What does the collaborative writing process look like? What could you gain from a collaboration beyond writing habits and speed? Strategy #8: Get your family involved. We've already discussed how your writing habit needs to work with your current priorities and commitments, rather than in opposition to them. The pro authors that I know actively involve their families in their writing career. This can be done in a variety of ways. Make your family your first audience. You can read your story out loud to them in the evenings, you can send your first draft chapter by chapter to your spouse, and you can even let your spouse or older kids provide feedback and help you edit. Journaling prompt: How can you bring your spouse and kids into your writing habits? How can they support you, or how can you overlap spending time with them with your writing efforts? Talk about your writing, every day. Just like you would ask your children what they did at school that day, you can talk about what you did for your author career that day. This helps you not only get buy-in from your family, but it also helps you stay accountable to them, particularly your spouse, who is likely giving up something in order to help you along. Journaling prompt: Do you talk about your work to your family? What is their reaction? How can you create a positive experience for all by talking about your work to your loved ones? Reward your family for your progress. Your family can help you stay accountable to not only yourself but also to them. Just like you would create a chore chart for your kids, you can create an author career movement chart for the entire family to view. Reward. As you complete specific tasks or milestones, give yourself a gold star and make sure the reward benefits the entire family. For example, if you finish 3 chapters this week, everybody gets to go out for ice cream on Sunday. This will not only help you reward your family for cheering you on, but it will also reward them for respecting the boundaries that you put in place around your writing time. And other activities you need to do to build your author career. It will take a bit of tweaking, but you can apply this same concept to your coworkers, friends, or extended family. Journaling prompt: How can you create accountability for yourself that excites and motivates the people around you as well? How can you create win-win so that when you are working, they are benefiting too? Strategy #9: Set Public Deadlines. Above any of the other patterns and strategies I've called out in this book, the one that every single professional author uses is to have their release schedules set far in advance. Many, including myself, are always working toward a deadline. Some authors in 2015 know exactly what they are writing in 2016, 2017, and even 2018. It's not enough to set a deadline on your Google Calendar that no one else can see. You also have to publicize that deadline. And there's no better way to publicize your deadline than with pre-orders. Now, before you get started with pre-orders, I have to warn you that most of the retailers have strict policies on changing a pre-order date. Amazon, for example, will ban you from their pre-order program for an entire year if you have to move your pre-order date to later due to not having the book done on time. In recent years, they've allowed you to move your pre-order date back once, up to 30 days, but if you seemingly do this for every release, you may annoy your readers. Before you get started with pre-orders, make sure you have a solid idea of what you are writing. Outline and beats if possible, and a reasonable plan with built-in leeway to get it done. For example, I know my production numbers pretty well. I know that I can write 4,000-5,000 words a day without burnout if I spread those words out throughout an entire day. I know that it takes me about the same amount of time to edit a book that it takes me to draft a book. This means that if I have a 75,000-word book, I know it will take me about 19 days to draft and 19 days to edit, given that I'm on my A-game during those days. Of course, that is if I have nothing else planned. Throw in a vacation, a big project, or an emergency, and those numbers go straight out the window. So what I would probably do instead is budget about 2.5 months to work on a project like this, and try to have it completely done and uploaded within the first 6 weeks. Then it would be ready on pre-order, and I could spend that extra month marketing it. While you do really have to know your production abilities to make deadlines work, once you've perfected your system for creating books, you can give yourself deadlines to finish them. I used to hate deadlines, but now I actually love them. I wouldn't get nearly as much done without them because they force me to focus on just a few projects at a time and to get the editing done in a timely manner. I tend to enjoy the drafting part of the process more than the editing part, so this has always been a problem for me in the past. With the deadline in place, I know that every day counts and I'll be in a world of hurt and pulling multiple all-nighters if I don't consistently hit my weekly word count. I put setting deadlines last because it's a tricky one, and potentially best left to more seasoned writers who truly understand their writing and book production processes. It can take a few books under your belt to get this right, and several years to truly optimize what works for you consistently. However, if you thrive on deadlines and know that they will help you stop procrastinating, Go ahead and set one. Just make sure you haven't bitten off more than you can chew because the retailers and your fans will penalize you. Journaling Prompt: How could having a deadline benefit you? How could you create a public deadline that you know you could hit? Section 3: Challenge. Are you curious to put the 8-minute writing habit Into Action. Welcome to the 8x8 Challenge. In this section, I'll explain how to take the 8x8 Challenge, which is 8 days, 8 minutes of writing a day. This challenge will help you take the ideas and concepts you've learned in this book and actually implement them so your writing habits improve. In the challenge, we stack the strategies shared in the previous chapter so you can see major results quickly on only 8 minutes of writing a day. Start the challenge at any time today if possible. When you are done with your 8-minute session, post a pic of yourself, your words, or whatever you want on social media with the hashtag #8MinuteWritingHabit. If you want me to see it, make sure you tag The World Needs Your Book. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and more. So don't be shy and use whatever social channel you want during this challenge. Day 1: 8-minute sprints. Your 8-minute challenge for the day: open the project you are working on and set a timer. Block out all other distractions. Write for 8 minutes starting now. It doesn't matter what you type, all that matters is that you stick through your 8 minutes. You can write just a few words if you want, doesn't matter. The only rule is that you have to spend the full 8 minutes thinking about your project with your fingers to the keyboard. If you've never experienced flow before with writing, you might find yourself entering a dreamlike, low-conscious state as your fingers take over and you forget what you're doing. That's perfectly okay. In fact, it may be fun to close your eyes while the timer is going. Pretend that you're meditating, and let your mind drift and your fingers move to record your thoughts. Journaling prompt: How did it feel to get into flow for 8 minutes? Were you able to? What did you accomplish, and how did it feel to accomplish it? Day 2 to 8-minute switch-up. What did you think of yesterday's exercise? Did you accomplish something? Did you make it all the way through? Did you get words that you think you could use for your book? The most important thing right now is not whether you made progress on your draft. Now, obviously, we eventually do want to make progress on our drafts, but for this challenge, the entire goal for the first day was just to help you realize that you can actually sit and type for 8 minutes. If all has gone well in the 8x8 Challenge, you've shown yourself that you can fit writing into your current schedule, no big deal. So if you completed yesterday's exercise, you've proven to yourself that you have the time, energy, and resources to write for at least 8 minutes every day. That's huge! Before we get to today's exercise, I want you to think a bit about your writing experience from yesterday. What could you have done to make it better? What could you have done to make it feel more productive? What do you want to try next time you do your 8 minutes? Find a sheet of paper and write out by hand some notes on how the 8-minute writing habit felt to you. Some suggestions for next time: You could try dictation instead of typing. You could try working on your manuscript instead of writing an email. You could try writing at your standing desk instead of being slumped over in your chair. You could try writing in the morning before you go to work or deal with the kids instead of writing at the very end of the day. None of these suggestions is any better than the others. These are just a few things that you might want to try. So now that you've gotten all your notes down, let's move on to today's challenge. Today's challenge is I want you to take one of the things you wrote in your notes and implement it today during your 8-minute writing habit session. That's right, I'm going to ask you to write for 8 minutes again. But this time, I want you to change something about your setup just to keep things fresh and interesting. It doesn't matter what you change, and it doesn't matter if you feel like your routine is perfect already. The goal for today is just to get you out of your comfort zone and experimenting with another way of doing things. Who knows, you might find that today's 8-minute session is much better than yesterday's. You might find that the opposite is true, and you much prefer your first day's session. It doesn't matter, because whatever you decide, you'll have learned something interesting about yourself and how you like to write. Journaling prompt: What did you change about your writing session? Did it produce better results, worse results, or about the same? Why? Ready to prep for tomorrow? Your prep for tomorrow is to get yourself set up on mobile. We're going to take your writing routine on the road. We're doing this because one of the major blockers that all writers have is that they want to have this ideal situation for writing. But what I want you to understand during this challenge is that there is no need for an ideal situation. Professional writers are constantly writing, no matter what else is going on around them. They're texting their ideas to themselves via their phones, they're talking on their voice recorders on the way to work, or they're writing out their ideas in a notebook by hand. So before you go to sleep tonight, I want you to figure out how you can take your project on the road. This doesn't have to be hard, and I don't want you to buy any new equipment. What you already own and have in front of you is fine. If you're using Scrivener, for example, I don't want you to go out and get new software that syncs with iPad or to buy a new iPad just for this purpose. Sorry guys. What I want you to do instead is just copy and paste some of your notes into a free app that syncs with your smartphone. If you don't want to download an app, email yourself these notes so you can access them from any computer or device you check from. If you don't have a smartphone, you can also print out the notes for the next chapter of your book and carry them in your handbag or backpack throughout the day. Think of the simplest way possible to make yourself more mobile. If you enjoy checklists, I encourage you to go so mobile that you would be able to write at the grocery store standing in the fresh produce aisle, sitting on your couch, sitting at a nearby park, sitting in your car, on your lunch break at work, laying down in bed Either write as you wake up or write when you are about to sleep. Pack up your system or systems for being able to write the very next part of your book at any of these locations, and I'll see you tomorrow. Journaling prompt: How are you prepping for day 3 of this challenge? What do you need to get into place to have a successful day? How are you feeling about your progress on the 8x8 Challenge so far? And what can be improved for tomorrow. Day 3: 8-Minute Mobile. It's day 3, and as you probably suspected, we're going mobile. But before we do that, I want you to complete your 8-minute writing habit in front of your computer sometime throughout the day. If you're able to do it in the morning, that would be best, but it's not required. Do your 8-minute writing habit in the most comfortable way possible, and then come back to this lesson because we're going to play with writing on the go. Did you do it? Great! Now that you're done with your 8 minutes for the day, we're going to do an extra session that's just for fun. This is going to be the mobile session, and you can feel free to keep doing your sessions mobile throughout the rest of the challenge. Totally optional but really fun, and I'd love to see if you can make it through all 6 for the rest of this challenge. What you will hear below is not just a list, but rather an 8x8 scavenger hunt. How do you play? All you have to do is find some way, any way of your choosing, to get some extra words in at each of these different locations. At the grocery store, standing in the fresh produce aisle. Sitting on your couch. Sitting at a nearby park. Sitting in your car. On your lunch break at work. Laying down in bed, either right as you wake up or right when you are about to sleep. As you complete the hunt, I want you to take a picture of either yourself or your word count for each list item, and post it on your favorite social media channel. Now let's have fun with this for the rest of the challenge, and happy hunting! I'll be hunting your results on every social media channel that I'm available on. All you have to do is post. Journaling prompt: How did today go for you? Where did you enjoy writing, and where did you struggle to write? How can you write more on mobile throughout your day? Prep for tomorrow. Don't be alarmed, but I need you to adjust your alarm so you wake up 15 minutes earlier than normal. I know, I know, but it will be worth it, I promise. See you tomorrow. Day 4: 8-minute morning. Good morning, good morning! How is your scavenger hunt coming? I hope you're having fun trying to hit all the different locations that I gave you. Today's challenge is simple but important. I want you to do your 8-minute writing habit as part of your morning routine today. Yesterday, I had you rearrange your schedule and set an alarm so you could wake up about 15 minutes earlier than you normally would. Now that you are up 15 minutes earlier than usual today, you can do your 8-minute writing habit right now before the day gets away from you. Ready? Go! Keep posting your scavenger hunt pics on social media. Journaling prompt: How did you feel about the early morning writing session? What did it do or not do for your productivity for the day? Is this something you would want to incorporate into your daily morning routine? Prep for tomorrow—don't switch off that alarm just yet. I want you to wake up at the same time tomorrow and get those 8 minutes in first thing again. You can do it! Day 5: 8-Minute Increase. Hey there! Today's challenge is twofold. First, do your 8-minute writing habit with your morning routine today. Make a note of where it fits in. Before shower, after shower, before kids wake up, etc. This will come in handy when the challenge is over. Next, I want you to spend the rest of the day finding little pockets of time in which you can add a bit more to the word counts you already got this morning. It doesn't have to be much, just a sentence or two during your downtime. You can even count any of your mobile check-ins from the scavenger hunt toward this goal. What I would love to see is for you to double whatever your word count was for your first 8-minute writing session throughout the rest of the day. So if you wrote 250 words in your session this morning, I want you to find a couple minutes throughout the rest of the day to write at least 250 more words. You can go way beyond that if you want, but for today, we're just trying to double what we produced this morning and keep our momentum going. And we're trying to do it in our spare time. Don't be shy, and use whatever social channel you want during this challenge. Journaling prompt: Were you able to push yourself even further and increase your word count for the day? If so, how did you do it? How did it feel? Could you do this on a regular basis, and get several hundred extra words per week? Day 6: 8-Minute Accountability. There you are! Day 6, only 2 more to go after this. You can do it, especially because today's challenge is easy. Throughout this challenge, I've been asking you to post your results on social media, and you've maybe or maybe not been doing it. Today, aside from your 8-minute writing session, this is the only other thing you need to do. Why? Because accountability is incredibly important for establishing any type of habit. You can't be accountable to people if you are hiding behind your screen, not telling anyone how awesome you are, can you? So go ahead and post using the hashtag #8MinuteWritingHabit so everyone in the challenge can see that you're getting those sessions done. Don't forget to tag @theworldneedsyourbook if you want me to see it. Journaling prompt: Did you post to social media? Did you get a response on your post? How did it feel to share your goals publicly? Day 7 8-minute planning. Good morning! Go ahead and get your 8-minute writing session in. Then come back and read about today's challenge. Hey there, you're back! Today's challenge requires a bit of math. You now have at least 7 8-minute sessions in the bank, hooray! I want you to write down those word count totals and figure out the average number of words you're getting per session. This doesn't have to be 100% accurate, we just need a ballpark figure. Now, I want you to figure out how many 8-minute writing sessions it will take you to finish the first draft of your current project. 30 sessions? 100 sessions? 300 sessions? You get this number by taking the total word count of your project and dividing it by the average number of words per session. If you aren't sure how long your project might be, you can use these estimates. Full-length novel, 80,000+ words. Novel, 40,000-79,999 words. Novella, 17,500-39,999 words. Novelette, 7,500-17,499 words. Short story 7,499 words or fewer. Lastly, I want you to figure out how many days it will take you to finish the first draft of your current project. You can figure this out assuming one session per day, or you can see what it would be like if you doubled up on sessions a few times a week. Is all of this starting to feel like less of a challenge and more of a solid plan for getting your draft done? Journaling prompt: What is your average number of words per session? How many 8-minute writing sessions will it take you to finish the first draft of your current project? How many days will it take you to finish the first draft of your current project? Day 8 8-minute results. Today is the last day of the challenge. You made it! In honor of the last day, I want to talk about something really important in this challenge: your results. When you are done with your 8-minute writing session today, take an extra few minutes to evaluate what you've accomplished on your writing goals this week. How many words did you get? How many wacky places did you write? How can you keep up the 8-minute writing habit going forward? Reflect on this and let me know your answers. You can post publicly on any social media site and tag The World Needs Your Book so I can see it and congratulate you on a job well done. Journaling prompt: How many words did you get? How many wacky places did you write? How can you keep up the 8-minute writing habit going forward? Journal It: The 8-Minute Challenge. The challenge may be ending, but that doesn't mean your 8-minute writing habit has to. It's so easy to keep going with it, so make sure you do. What will it take to keep your writing habit going, and how will you keep yourself accountable? Next Steps. Thank you so much for listening to this book. To the end. I hope you found the mindset essays, habit-forming strategies, and the 8x8 Challenge helpful in bulletproofing your writing habits. If there's anything you feel is missing from this book, please send your questions and suggestions to my team at team@theworldneedsyourbook.com. I'd love to help you out! Additionally, if you want to go even deeper with writing productivity, you can grab my two other books on the topic. Write Better Faster: How to Triple Your Writing Speed and Write Move Every Day, The Productive Novelist #3, and Dictate Your Book: How to Write Your Book Better, Faster, and Smarter, The Productive Novelist #4. They are available at all retailers. What next? For starters, write your first draft. You are ready. Outside of writing your novel, you may be interested in working with me further. At The World Needs Your Book, I've created numerous resources that can help you draft, edit, publish, and market your book. The Productive Novelist All Access Pass. If you want to work with me through my self-study courses, you may be looking for an All Access Pass. There are 8+ courses in this pass, ranging from storytelling to editing to writing faster to launching and marketing. Through these products, we offer email support via team@theworldneedsyourbook.com plus a general group where we answer questions. To learn more, go to theworldneedsyourbook.com/shop. The Productive Novelist Books. The Productive Novelist series is 14 books spanning all topics related to writing, editing, publishing, and marketing your books. There are also several advanced books in this series for those who intend to make writing a career and want to build their businesses for longevity. The content in this series has been tested by thousands of authors when it was originally published as the Growth Hacking for Storytellers series. We've since updated all the content and added several chapters to the newer editions. To learn more and see what we have to offer, go to theworldneedsyourbook.com/shop. The Productive Novelist Channel, Podcast, and Blog. I share tons of free content on my YouTube channel, podcast, and blog. Some people like to get right to the solution with a course or a book, while others like to receive a drip, drip, drip week to week through my YouTube channel or podcast feed. Please connect with me on my channels. I would love for you to subscribe. TheWorldNeedsYourBook.com/blog. Your feedback, please. My goal for writing this book is to help fiction authors write the best stories they possibly can and work on their craft. There are two ways to leave feedback: reviews If you loved this book, we can always use an honest review on our public retailer pages, where other people looking for the books can see what real people think of them. Choose your retailer and leave a review here. TheWorldNeedsYourBook.com/ReviewPN2 Feedback Form. If you have anything you'd like to share privately, please feel free to fill out our feedback form here. Www.theworldneedsyourbook.com/feedback. All answers are private unless you say we can use the responses publicly in our marketing materials. Heartfelt Thanks and Love. Lastly, I want to say thank you so much for listening to this book. I am fully aware that there are many, many people in the world who are trying to profit by stealing away your time, and distracting you from your goals. As such, I hope your time with me has been entertaining, educational, and productive. Spread the word. Can you think of two people who could use this book in their lives? Maybe a few other fiction writers who want to improve their writing habits? If so, I would love if you could connect them to this book so they too can establish a productive, consistent, and lasting writing habit. Thanks again for listening. Press on, igniter. Acknowledgments. This book is better because thousands of you made it better. I'm so grateful to incorporate all the knowledge, experimenting, and testing you've done over the years, so that together we can help thousands more writers become consistent authors and make their dreams of writing a book dream come true. Pass it along, pay it forward, and never let anyone tell you that it isn't possible. About the author. Monica Leonelle was born in Germany and spent her childhood jet-setting around the world with her American parents. Her travels include most of the United States and Europe, as well as Guam, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines. She is a USA Today bestselling author, best known for her young adult urban fantasy and paranormal romance series, Waters Dark and Deep, writing as Solo Storm. She also teaches writing, publishing, business, and marketing at theworldneedsyourbook.com. Her 3 nonfiction series, Growth Hacking for Storytellers, The Productive Novelist, and Book and Business Coaching, have helped thousands of business owners and aspiring writers write faster, become better storytellers, and find their way to success. Before becoming an independent author, Monica led digital marketing efforts at Inc. 100 companies like Hanson's Natural and Braintree. Monica is a lifetime member of Sigma Pi Sigma Honor fraternity and was a 2007 Chicago Business Fellow, graduating with an MBA from the Chicago Booth School of Business at 25 years old. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a minor in Physics from Truman State University. She's been an avid blogger of marketing and business trends since 2007. Her ideas have been featured in Adage, Forbes Inc., LinkedIn Voices, The Huffington Post, The Amex Open Forum, Gigohome, Mashable, Social Media Today, and the Christian Science Monitor. In 2009, she was named one of the top 25 tweeters in the city of Chicago by Chicago Now, a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune. Visit theworldneedsyourbook.com for email updates and additional resources. We hope you have enjoyed this unabridged production of The 8-Minute Writing Habit The Productive Novelist Book 2. Text copyright 2020 by Monica Leonelle. Production copyright 2022 by Monica Leonelle. All rights reserved.