Ep30: 5 Hacks To Write Your Draft Manuscript Inside Six Weeks

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[00:00:00] When I first wrote the six pillars of a rewarding life, it took me three years to write. That was three years of constantly writing, constantly rewriting, trying to figure out what I was actually wanting to write. There was no structure in my book. There was no structure in one-on-one to say. And ultimately. it led to a lot of wasted time. Three years worth of wasted time, to be honest. It wasn't until that I took preparing to write a book seriously.

[00:00:22] When I wrote a volume of skills, I knew that I had to be more prepared. I knew that I had to make sure my book was going to be written in a quick amount of time. Because ultimately, I didn't want to wait another three years to finish a book.

[00:00:35] So today's episode is more specific to writing your draft manuscript. I want to go over five hacks to get your draft manuscript finished in a quick amount of time, because this is the hardest thing. When new writers start to write their book. Is the procrastination too. Understand, whether they're on the right track and how they want to write their book.

[00:00:56] And it leads to a lot of. wasted time, a lot of wasted energy, putting your focus in something that's not going to get done in a quicker amount of time.

[00:01:03] So let's get into these five hacks because these five hacks are what helps me write my draft manuscript for published to impact inside at six weeks. Hack number one is to know exactly how you're going to structure your book.

[00:01:18] This is all about the style of writing. That's going to guide you page after page, having that style that you know, that you can go back and lean on too, because that's how you're setting up the book. It's not your outline, but it is how you structure your book. There's different ways you can structure your book.

[00:01:35] So for example, it could be a chronological narrative. So this is more of a storytelling approach and it presents events in order as they occurred, following a timeline. In this type of structure, you might recount real life events, other people's experiences or any other subject that is in the sequence of which it happened. So this creates a really easily understandable account. Of the storytelling that you're writing. So that is one style and another style is what's called a collective narrative. So this is more of a biography in a sense where it focuses on the stories of multiple individuals or a group. So instead of going deep into the life of one single person collective narrative, explorers, relationships, and shared experiences of a group of people. And it's often within a particular historical or cultural context. This may not be the type of book that you want to write.

[00:02:27] It's not as common. For business owners, for people who have the expertise in a certain area, but it is just an option for your book idea to how to structure it. But it is a structure to a non-fiction book, depending on the type of book you want to write. And the final common structure inside a non-fiction book is called conceptual design. Which I assume.

[00:02:48] is what most people would probably look to. Right. If they own a business, if they want to make an impact, with a book, also, if you have a story to tell and a problem.

[00:02:57] to solve, The conceptual design structured book is.

[00:03:00] where the topic drives the structure.

[00:03:02] So a lot of your self-help, how to books are all about conceptual design.

[00:03:08] So instead of focusing on individuals or events that are in a sequence

[00:03:12] I conceptual design book or a conceptual design structure really explores the topic that you want to write about.

[00:03:18] And it's where you encourage readers to consider new perspectives, but also to problem solve. So examples. of those types of structured books are my book published to impact my book of over your skills. Other books, called atomic habits.

[00:03:31] by James clear, there's the four hour

[00:03:32] workweek by Tim Ferris. And there's also think again by Adam Grant, there's plenty of. how to self-help books. So I would suggest to find destructure in your book before you begin, before you begin writing your draft manuscript, look at other books that you have on your bookshelf and just see which structure appeals to you, because what you're then going to do is you're then going to visualize how your book is going to look how your structure is going to look. Not necessarily what the content is going to be inside your book, but just how it's laid out.

[00:03:58] So before you make your mind up on your structure, you. ultimately want to ask yourself what's the major principle of your book. What does your table of contents look like? Will you have broken headings or recurring chapter layouts. throughout your book?

[00:04:13] How will you present your ideas?

[00:04:15] So I always say nonfiction book is taking your reader on that journey from beginning to end. So where will you begin? How will you end? Also will you include elements? Say how much storytelling of your own experiences we share? And we combine them with how to, or. Or checklists or to do lists stairs. There's a lot of different ways and a lot of different elements you can use throughout your book.

[00:04:37] And that's going to really beef up the content because you have a theme throughout. So you know what the reader's going to expect. So the first hack is to figure out your structure.

[00:04:48] And then this now

[00:04:48] leads into the second hack. The second hack is to make sure you have an outline for your book. This is the most important piece of information I can give you when it comes to writing your draft manuscript in a quick amount of time. Because without an outline, you're going to get lost and there's going to be a whole lot of wasted time writing your book. It's going to get messy and it's going to get to the point where you just want to give up, but with an outline, you know how you're showing up each day, you know what you're writing, you know, what you're going to be writing about

[00:05:18] And

[00:05:19] it's also a powerful way to organize your concepts, your chapters and ideas. So that each time you're sitting down to write, you're not feeling overwhelmed or you're not scrambling to get words on a page. So how do you at one your book though, because it's one thing to tell you that outlining is important, but it's another thing to tell you how to do it. So how you write your outline, that's going to be four parts four step. So how you write your outline is going to be four steps. Of making sure that you have the best outline to write your book in a quick amount of time. So step one is to get clarity in your own ideas and in your own thoughts. So what is your book about on that piece of paper. in two sentences, write a description for your book.

[00:06:00] And you want to make sure you include the message.

[00:06:03] You're trying to send them, read out what problem you're trying to solve, and also why you're writing this book.

[00:06:09] Because that's going to open up more ideas that you have for your book as well, more ideas and more structure in your outline. Step two in your outline is to list the type of structure yours is going to be.

[00:06:20] Like I said to you in a hack one, Is your book going to be a, how to, will it be a memoir style? Is it going to be in parts?

[00:06:27] Once, you know, your structure.

[00:06:29] right out your chapter and some chapter ideas, and you want to organize them in order of importance.

[00:06:35] You then also want to write a draft table of contents.

[00:06:39] Now don't overthink this because your draft, it won't be a final table of contents. So play around with different chapters and figure out where they belong in the journey. Of your radar and in the journey of the story, you're trying to tell the problem you're trying to solve and the impact you want to make inside your book.

[00:06:56] Then step three.

[00:06:57] It's how are you solving the reader's problem? So this is, where the real fun begins because for every chapter. Right down key points related to that chapter's thing.

[00:07:08] What key points in that chapter? Is going to help that reader.

[00:07:13] For example, if your book is about building an online business, and one of your chapters is about digital marketing and identifying a niche, what concepts about those topics will solve the reader's problem? You want to repeat this for each chapter idea? And then once you've laid out all your ideas as to how you're solving the reader's problem, and you've expanded on them list the key points and takeaways of each idea.

[00:07:36] This is going to start creating that real meaty outline that you want. So what do you want your reader to learn? Think of it as like a brief conclusion to the ideas you've already written down. So write down key takeaway points of your chapters, and it gets you in the mindset of thinking how you will start and how you end each chapter. And it's going to help you communicate effectively to the reader, what you have. to say.

[00:07:59] So that is step three. Think about how you're solving the reader's problem. Write down all your concepts and ideas for each chapter eight, some tap. And always remember about that journey. You're taking the reader on. Step four is to write a draft conclusion. And it's going to be a challenge because you haven't even started writing your book yet. But after writing your key takeaway points for each chapter. Write a draft conclusion, just in one paragraph.

[00:08:24] Think about where your rate is ending up. So you've held their hand. You've guided them along for the journey. Where are they now? And it's an important step because when you write your ending, before you even started writing a book, it's going to give you that clarity again, in the message you're trying to convey.

[00:08:39] And what's going to happen is you're going to have that conclusion handy because when it comes time to writing the official ending, you can compare it with the new one you've written.

[00:08:47] And what you're going to see is such an improvement in how far you've come in the writing process. And it's really fun to see. So those are the four steps to writing a draft outline. And I just want to end this hack off with saying as well, make sure you've researched. Make sure you have all your research materials, but don't spend. an overwhelming amount of time researching because it can be easy to get caught in the rabbit hole of research. Remember writing is what's going to get your book done. So if there's something you need to clarify while writing. your book, don't spend too much time chasing it, put a placeholder in and go back to it. When you're proof reading your manuscript, you can always refer back to it. Don't let that research stop you from continuing the writing process.

[00:09:30] All right. Hack number three. Hack number three is all about productivity and your environment. So I'm essentially combining two things here. I would. always suggest rather than try and write for hours in a day. Give yourself an hour, a day, and do that consistently put words down on the page. consistently. What you're going to find is those small wins are going to build up.

[00:09:52] And if you're doing it in an environment that's inviting and that's easy for you to show up, it makes it a hell of a lot.

[00:09:58] Easier to finish your draft very quickly. For example, when I wrote published impact. and evolve your skills, my environments were completely different. Of all of your skills. I was showing up to a cafe every day for an hour. Published impact. I was on a European holiday and I was showing up when I was traveling on the train for an hour. I was making sure that I maintained a consistent writing habit because sometimes what you'll find is. When you're consistent. It becomes a whole lot more manageable and a lot more easier to show up. each day

[00:10:32] And don't get me wrong. There are going to be days where you just can't be bothered. You can't be bothered putting words down on a page. So I'll always recommend finding your environment, showing up consistently and setting yourself a word target. A thousand words per day is something I recommend because it's helped me.

[00:10:49] And no matter how much of a slow typer you or right. You are a thousand words you can write in an hour. A thousand words is essentially four pages of your book. So you can do that consistently and you can show up consistently five times a week to seven times a week to get a thousand words out. So that's between five to 7,000 words a week.

[00:11:08] There's no reason why you can't write your draft manuscript inside 5, 6, 7 weeks. So remember the biggest hack hack you recommend for productivity is to show up consistently and how you do that is to find your right environment, make it easy for yourself to show up and have a word target, have a goal. I know what you're going to achieve that day

[00:11:29] and that's only really going to be helped by having that outline and structure of your book that I've spoken about previously.

[00:11:36] So that's hat number three.

[00:11:38] Now hack number four. What writing tools are you going to use? So what software we use? We will it be Microsoft word. Are you scrubbing a format books, you can use Google docs as well. There's many. different tools available, but don't chop and change between those tools because it's going to slow your productivity down.

[00:11:56] The easiest tool is the best one to use. you don't want to get confused. and you want to have everything all in one spot. I would always recommend. If you're familiar with Microsoft word, or if you're familiar with Google docs. Use what you're familiar with. But what you want to make sure you do is the outline that you've already done.

[00:12:17] You make sure that chapters are always listed out. So, you know, when you're showing up for your writing sessions, You know that that's what you have to write and it's going to help you visualize how your book is going to look as you continue writing, because you got to know exactly what you need to write at that time, so that when you show up. There's less energy on thinking about what you want to write. You can just go ahead and write it.

[00:12:40] And this now leads into the final hack. of writing your draft manuscript in a quick amount of time. So hack number five, it's the best one to give you, because I want you to write your book and this is the most. critical piece of information. I received. And it's the most critical information you'll ever hear when it comes to writing a draft manuscript in a quick amount of time.

[00:13:01] And that hack is. Don't edit as you go. Let me repeat it. Don't edit your work as you write. This is essentially. What I didn't do. When I wrote the six pillars of rewarding life. That's why it took me three years to write, to publish, to figure it all out. When I stopped editing, as I wrote

[00:13:23] it became a hell of a lot easier just to keep moving forward and to keep pushing forward.

[00:13:27] Because when you go back on your work, you start to become a bit of a perfectionist. You want to change things, and then you lose a bit of confidence in your writing. And you're wondering where the story's going, and you'll start to second. guess yourself. as well. So I would never recommend this enough.

[00:13:41] Don't edit your writing as you go.

[00:13:44] Because this is also a rough draft.

[00:13:47] You're writing a rough draft in a short amount of time. At the end of that rough draft, you can then go back and start to edit your work and see how far you've come in the process.

[00:13:57] Sure you might look at chapters and you might not. Feel great about that. But overall you've written a draft manuscript. That's going to feel good and you're going to be more confident to have that manuscript edited, to have that manuscript move forward and, and then eventually published as well. So don't edit your work as you go, because it's going to be, the biggest procrastination.

[00:14:18] Causer when it comes to writing your draft manuscript. Would you rather spend three years writing a draft manuscripts or would you rather write your manuscript in a short period of time? And that period of time is six weeks if you're committed to. showing up one hour a day,

[00:14:32] So there you have it. Those are the five hacks to write your draft manuscript in a quick amount of time. Let's now just recap. because I want to make sure that you are on the right track to get your book written, to get your draft manuscript written inside. What I believe is six weeks, a great time, a quick amount of time and efficient time. Hack number one was to figure out what kind of structure your book is going to take.

[00:14:56] How to look at other books and see. What structure appeals to you?

[00:14:59] Because that's, what's going to set you up for hack number two, which is to create your draft outline. So create an outline for your book. You're going to follow that outline to a T as you write your draft manuscript. It's going to mean that you know exactly what you're going to be showing up for each day.

[00:15:16] You're going to be working on that transformation from beginning to end of what the reader wants and the problem you're solving for the reader. Hack number three. Is all about productivity. Find your right environment to show up at set yourself a word target and show up for you on draft manuscript for an hour a day.

[00:15:36] And make sure you have all your research done prior.

[00:15:40] Hack number four is to figure out what tool you're going to use for writing your draft manuscript. Is it going to be Microsoft word? Is it going to be Google docs, you something. That's going to have everything all in one place and you want to make sure you're laying out your outline inside that writing tool.

[00:15:54] So each time you sit down to write. You know, and you can see, and you can visualize. What you're going to be working on and what's coming next.

[00:16:02] And finally hack number five, which is my very favorite important hack. Do not edit your work as you go. Don't edit your writing as you go. So they have it. Thanks for joining me in today's episode I hope you learned something

[00:16:16] and I want you to write your draft manuscript. I want you to write it in a quick amount of time and not procrastinate. Like I have done on my very first book, because it is possible. You just have to believe it. And I'm hoping I'm giving you the right tools to make that happen. So, thanks for joining me. I'll catch you on another episode until next time. Write that book.