If you keep listening to that know-all inner critic of yours, she’ll (or he’ll – substitute accordingly here) tell you that:
- the very idea of writing your non-fiction book is ridiculous!
- you’re not the best writer in the world, are you?
- why would anyone want to read what you’ve got to say?
- what a complete and utter waste of time the whole sorry episode will be
- and, pah! You? Write a book? That’s the best laugh I’ve had all day.
So in that vein, let me boost her ego a bit, and tell you how to make sure you write a non-fiction book that’s Grade ‘A’ cr*p.
- Just start writing until you dry up. When you hit a brick wall, just put your work aside and leave it to fester away in a drawer or in a hard to find folder in your laptop.
- Forget about your audience. Don’t even think about who you’re writing the book for because, hey, why narrow it down to a niche (or potentially an exclusively small section of the market) when you could potentially capture so many more with a spray and pray kinda approach?
- Don’t bother with a plan. The time you spend ‘planning’ your book would be much better spent actually writing, wouldn’t it? After all, plans change all the time, don’t they? What you might want now might totally change by the time you’ve written three or four chapters.
- Don’t think about the whole point of writing your book. Don’t put extra pressure on yourself here by trying to think about this. The point of writing your book is to get from beginning to end, isn’t it? So don’t concern yourself with whether it’s going to take your readers on a journey, teach them how to do something or tell them about your entrepreneurial experiences, you can just make a whole mish-mash of anything you like – it’s your book, after all.
- Don’t waste time thinking about the bigger picture or creating a vision for your book. This is just going to eat into your valuable writing time and there’s really no point, is there? The only ‘bigger picture’ or ‘vision’ here is that you’re writing this book and you’ve got to get the darned thing finished. There’s no time for self-indulgence here.
- Leave huge gaps in between your writing sessions. It’s usually best if you can leave at least three or four months between your writing sessions so that any trace of flow disappears, you forget what your intention was for a particular chapter and you just keep vomiting words as quickly as possible.
- Write a book about something you know very little about. That way you’ll get to spend tons of time researching your subject, you’ll get side-tracked constantly, you’ll have to make up bits here and there just to fill up a few pages, and the book will be disjointed from one page to the next – which is precisely the feel you’re going for, remember?
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So, best of luck with writing your cr*p non-fiction book. It’s very easy once you get going, particularly if you have no plan, no idea what you’re writing about or who for, and even better… if you can leave huge gaps in between your writing bursts just to add more bumps and awkward bits. Just remember these 7 secret step (that nobody ever tells you about) and you’ll get the result your inner critic predicts.
If you prefer the flip side, then get in touch with me. I’d love to help you turn your book writing dream into a reality. We can work 1-2-1 or you can join my group programme and discover how to NOT write a cr*p book and throw it right back at that inner critic of yours.
