How to Write a Book — Quick and Easy.

June 7, 2023, Mount Shasta, CA: Here’s how to write a book. Done this way, it’s rather easy. And surprisingly quick.

This method took me 40 years to figure out, and it works. My proof is that I’ve published 9 books, written over 500 microstories, 50-60 short stories, 3 novels, and hundreds of thousands of pages of operating manuals, business plans, how-to articles, advertising copy and lots, lots more.

This method makes writing a book fairly effortless. (Each of my nine published books was actually created in only about a week, but these were non-fiction, on subjects I know well. Plotting a novel takes longer, but I’m no expert on novel construction.)

Four Steps to Quickly Write a Book

There are only four steps: It may be difficult to believe it’s this simple, but it actually is.

1. Create a “heap” of ideas. This is on paper, and you stick in anything you think might be in the book. Spend absolutely ZERO effort trying to organize anything. DO NOT organize anything. That will work against you. It may be counter-intuitive, but leave it alone and leave it disorganized. This is the key to a “heap.”
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2. Spend at least three days coming back to this heap of ideas, and adding on everything you think should maybe be in there. After 3 days you should have pretty much run dry. (That’s how you know your heap is adequately complete.)
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   NOW you create, from the stuff in the heap, a rough outline. Only now do you start to be analytical at all. Just imagine you were explaining it to somebody you know, and spell it out. Write this very quickly, without a lot of thought. Don’t refine. Just talk it out, as quickly as you can, although you’re actually writing your outline on paper.
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   After you have it, then spend a day or two revising your outline, and in general, it may be best to rewrite the entire thing. Don’t be too picky about it. The end-goal is to have a rough outline of the stuff you’ll discuss from the beginning through the subject to the end. That’s it. It need not be perfect, and it’s counter-productive worrying about it too much or being too picky, as you’ll learn more about the ways it should be tweaked in the next step.
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3. Write the book in longhand, as fast as you can think about it, and it’s my firm belief that this works better if you have yellow paper, but if you don’t have yellow paper, we won’t worry about that. If your subject requires any photos, graphs, or charts, just pencil them in real sloppy. You won’t forget what they are. But don’t waste time making these charts/pix/graphs look pretty or worry about all the detail. Don’t worry about getting the precise word or the slick phrase. Just write and don’t stop. If you do it this way, and you’re working from a *rough* (not precise) outline, you can knock out the book over 3-6 days, most likely. I have, and my books ranged from 80 to 300 printed pages.
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4. Now you have actually written your book. So *now* you type it up. Do *not* polish the text like a John Updike novel. Just go for clarity and simplicity. If you make a joke, you make a joke. But don’t wander from the subject, and make it simple and clear.

Tweaking and Improving Your Book

My guiding rule for either stories or non-fiction books is that, after you have written it, go back through and fix all the crappy parts. You will know what they are, because they leap out and try to bite your nose.

That’s it. If you will break it down into these four steps, you will avoid 99 percent of the eternal hassles, blocks, uncertainties, and delays that plague writers who agonize over the process. It took me 40 years of writing, writing, writing to suddenly see it simply.

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If you want to read some of my quick and easy examples, and see if you think I’m a skillful writer, then just googsearch “adventures of bloggard” and you’ll find a plethora of short micro-stories (funny, poignant, strange), and a bunch of “wisdom log” handy mini-articles. Hope you enjoy them! 🙂

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