There are two powerful time tools you can use to write your book: the obsession and the deadline. Both will give you the kind of results you’re looking for but each should be used differently. If you use them, you’re almost guaranteed you’ll never have any problem writing that book of yours in record time. But when you’re learning how to write a book you may not be as familiar with them as you’d like to be. Here’s how to use each one and the amazing results you’ll get with each.
Let’s start with the obsession. This has nothing to do with the muse sitting on your shoulder or the mythical wonder of inspiration. Several months ago, just for a fleeting second, the thought popped into your head that you’d like to write a book about something. Perhaps you had the story idea all fleshed out in your mind. Perhaps the book you want to write is non-fiction and you knew exactly what you wanted to say.
And then the moment was gone.
A few weeks after that, the thought of write a book came back and this time it lingered for a minute or so. A month after that, it was a 20-minute daydream. Recently it has become all you can think of. You’re driven by who knows what, but when you wake in the morning, it’s on your mine, and it stays there even after you fall asleep, haunting your dreams.
This is the obsession of writing your book.
The result of this process is almost magical. One day you’ll sit down in a white hot fever and you’ll arise, refreshed, a few days later, with your entire book completed.
How do you bring this obsession about? It’s not difficult. After you’ve finished reading this article, just think about the book you want to write, if only for a few seconds. Tomorrow, remind yourself to do the same. As well as the day after that, and the day after that.
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Each time, try to think about your book for a longer and longer period. After just a few days, you’ll start to see that the thoughts are coming by themselves, now. And you’re giving them more and more time.
Don’t write, just think. Watch as the thoughts become an interest, the interest into a passion and the passion into an obsession.
This is the kind of technique I hear about when my students tell me they couldn’t believe it but they just sat down and before they know it, the book was nearly half done, or even completely done.
Now on to the deadline for writing your book. Here’s the logic behind this strategy. If you give someone all the time in the world to do something, how long does it usually take them? That’s right, all the time in the world.
Giving yourself until next week to accomplish something is a good start, but I’ve learned that the shorter the deadline, the more impending the goal, the easier it will be to accomplish that goal.
So, instead of saying that you’ve got to finish your book in a few weeks, or this chapter in three days, I tell myself and my students that they have an immediate deadline of five minutes to produce 200 words. They’ll be able to master that only if they have a substantial blueprint for their book, and if they write as quickly as they physically can—both are virtues I want my students to develop. If you write 200 words in five minutes, you’ve got a 10-page chapter in just 75 minutes of writing. That’s progress.
Start using time as you’re ally, rather than your enemy. You can write your book faster than you ever thought possible, if you get control of the time factor and make it happen for yourself.
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