#305: Writing Well: 3 Ways to Write a 10,000 Word Book

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Have you been wanting to write a book, but you're just not sure how you're going to fit it in or how you're going to have time to do it? I'm going to share with you three ways to finish a 10,000 word book. My name is Shelly Hitz and I have been mentoring writers and an author coach for over a decade. And my husband and I, between the two of us, we've written and published 68 books. And over and over I see people getting stuck in that stage of trying to write their first draft. And what I have found is there's three main categories that you may fit in and you can actually get your book done and your first draft out of your head and onto paper in a much faster time than you ever imagined. So the first way we're going to talk about is by being a consistent writer. So this is probably what you think of more often than not that you're a consistent writer. You're writing a little bit every day or most days a week, but let's just say you're writing five days a week over your lunch hour. This is exactly how Tim Riordan, one of my Christian Book Academy members, has written and published many books. I think he's up to eight or nine books now, but he writes over his lunch hour consistently. So let's just do a little math. Let's say we do five days a week and, and let's say you're doing it for one hour, and let's say you do 500 words for that hour. So if you're doing it for a month, five times four is 20. So for 20 days of writing about 500 words a day, that's going to give you your 10,000 words. And you might think that's not enough words for a book, but I will tell you, a lot of our books are short books and people like that, they're busy in information overload. And if you can give somebody encouragement, inspiration, help solve a problem in a shorter amount of time, a lot of times your ideal readers are going to love that. So that's number one. Number two is by being a chunk writer. Now, I will admit I am more of a chunk writer. I like to block off a chunk of time, get in the flow and just get it done. So this could mean that you're taking, let's say a week long vacation or you're taking a three day writing retreat. So either way could work. But let's go ahead and do the math for both. Let's say you're doing a five day vacation. And so let's just do five days.

And let's say that you're going to get about 2,000 words a day.

Then that's going to give you your 10,000 word book. And.

This is your first draft. So remember, your first draft is never your final draft, but you got to get that first draft out of your head and onto paper. So if you are always like short on time, you have no idea how you can even fit 15 minutes into your day for writing, this might be a good option. Just take some vacation and get that book out of your head and onto paper. You can also do a three day weekend or writing retreat. And that way you're going to need to be getting about 3,333 words and that's going to give you a 10,000 word book. Now, we have different writing retreats that we host. Inside Christian Book Academy. It's just called a virtual writing retreat. We host it for two days, four hours of writing the first day, four hours on the second day. I've had multiple people that finish their first drafts in those two days. Rebecca Livermore finished 11,000 words just in two days of our writing retreat. And Kim Steadman finished her children's book. Plus she finished editing five chapters, plus she finished outlining the the images and all of that in just two days. So you can get a lot done when you're really focused and you set aside that time. So the first was the consistent writer maybe considering writing on your lunch break or your lunch hour or getting up 15 minutes early each day. The second one is a chunk writer considering taking a vacation or setting aside a two to three day retreat. And the third option is, is for those of you that may think I could never write. That's not for me, it's too hard. Well, I want to tell you, you can speak your book. And when I have told people this at writers conferences, when I'm sharing and I'm speaking, someone came up to me afterwards one time, she's like, Shelley, this is life changing. I had no idea that I could do this. She said, I finally feel like writing a book is doable for me. And so there's different options to do this. But one way you know, you really want to have a good outline and then you could record.

About one hour, maybe one to two hours and then you're going to have that transcribed. I recommend Rev.com and that could equal a 10,000 word book. And so how do I know that? I know that because I did it. So when I was writing my book procrastination to publication, I did this very thing because I'm more of a speaker than a writer. Even though I help writers and I mentor writers. My husband is more of the typical writer Persona. I am more of a speaker. And so I had my detailed outline, then I sat down and because I knew my content so well, I was able to record that in an hour. I had it transcribed@rev.com and then my first draft was done. Now after I edited it and added a few things, it became a 12,000 word book. But this is doable. You can do this. You are able to get a 10,000 word book done in multiple ways. Number one, as a consistent writer writing at least 15 minutes a day. But if you can devote an hour, five days a week to, you could have your 10,000 word book done in a month. Number two, a chunk writer. If you set aside a three day weekend or you go away for a week vacation, you could have your 10,000 word book done or you could speak your book. So this takes a little more preparation up front because you really have to have more detailed outline. But then you can have it transcribed, then you can have your 10,000 word book. You can also dictate books. That's another way to speak your book. I had one of my Christian Book Academy members, he wrote his first draft by dictating into his phone when he would take walks. So there are so many ways and so many options. I hope that you got a ton of value from this video. If you're ready to get your book out of your head and onto paper, I invite you to join my workshop, bookwritinglab.com there you'll learn my three proven book writing formulas that I've taken hundreds of writers just like you through to be able to finish your first draft. You'll choose your book topic, you'll create a basic outline and then you'll create a plan to get that first draft done. So I would just be so honored and privileged to help you in that process. And again, let me know below, what kind of writer are you and which way would you use to write a 10,000 word book? The consistent, the chunk or speaking your book.

Thank you for listening to this episode. Of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy, where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.