Step By Step

If you get stuck every time you try to write your book, which of these scenarios do you recognize?

• You’re so determined to make your book really good that the thought of it becomes overwhelming?
• You can’t organize all the thoughts in your head?
• You can’t figure out the order to put them on paper?
• Your planning goes round in circles but you never get to writing?
• If you do write something, the words don't seem as good on paper as they sound in your head?
• You keep revising what you've written, so you get stuck on Chapter 1?
• You write page after page, because you're frightened that you'll miss something out?

These are common challenges for authors who have been thinking about their book for a long time.

The problems come down to being too ambitious. No one can write a book about everything that they know. No one can organize all their thoughts into a coherent structure. No one can write exactly as they think unless they've had a lot of practice, like a professional writer.

If you try to do all those things, you'll never get past the start. The authors who get to the end of their books are the ones who choose what part of the story to tell, rather than trying to tell the whole story.

It's like running a marathon. No runner sets out thinking about mile 26. You start by thinking about mile one. When you're through mile one, you start thinking about mile two.

That’s how you'll write your book. Decide the story you want to tell above the others. And tell it step by step.