I’m assuming that you have chosen the topic of your new book.  If not get on with it or you won’t be able to keep up or get the book ready in time to publish by February.

Next you need to know how to gather the content you will need to write your book.  Research is the key but it becomes a lot easier if you have a layout to work to.

Some people really hate to work to any type of layout or framework for their books.  If you’re one of those, tough.  Suck it up because for these books a framework or layout really makes sure you write just enough and keep it concise.

You don’t need to write 500 pages here, 50 is enough.  If you have stacks of content consider writing several books rather than putting it all in one.

This is the framework you will be using:-

1. Choose your topic.
2. Choose a category.
3. Create a working title.
4. Write a list of 10 things that people might like to know about the category.
5. Fill in the blanks.

What?  Too hard for you?  Too simplistic?  Seriously this works gang busters OK?  So lets just do it.

Begin now, fire up Word, Open Office or whatever and type in the framework as section headers.

Now type in the topic you have chosen.

Type in the category, this could be one of non-fiction, how-to, instructional, inspirational, cookbook, craft, hobby, seasonal, historical etc.

Write a tile, we’ll work on this a bit more later but for now just give it a title that relates to the topic.

Write the list of things people will want to know, start with just the titles for now.  What you are looking to do is guide your reader from no knowledge of the subject to at least a moderate understanding.

So, if your subject is Pruning Roses, category Gardening, working title How to Prune Roses for Maximum Blooms.  Your 10 things might be Tools you need, The reason you prune, How to choose where to prune, What shape to aim for, How to handle the cuttings, How to identify and treat diseases, How to identify and treat insect pests, What to feed your roses, How to apply mulch, How to water for best effect.

Now I know nothing about roses except that they mostly got thorns and if you prune them with a chainsaw they still grow back nicely.  Those of you who do know something about roses will know that I tell the truth.

However, the point is that if you go through this process and fill in the headings like this then you either know you have all the content you need or you know that you need to get some more.

You can now start filling in the blanks by typing in the information required to cover each topic.  The questions you have to answer are who, what, why, where and when.  You may not need to actually answer all of those but make sure you don’t miss one that you need.  By the time you have done that the book is written.

Do you think and write fast?  Then you could have all this completed in about 4 hours.  If you like to think of yourself as a more thoughtful and methodical writer then it might take you a whole 8 hours but this whole process shouldn’t take more than a weekend to complete.

This is not hard to do, don’t complicate it by thinking too much.  Just do it.  And then stop.  Put it aside and wait for my next post, DO NOT READ IT YET.

Before you go back over it you need to get the right information about how to edit this creation and you will need a couple of days break from it to do that step right.

Get writing, you’ve got two days.