It is this major decision. They basically say if you choose the wrong college, your life will be garbage. There's the fear we all face as seniors in high school. Facing this momentous decision is daunting. Choose right and your life will be amazing. Choose wrong and your life will be garbage forever.
I was very overwhelmed because I was taking five advanced placement courses. I did so well in high school that I graduated college in three years instead of four. I skipped a year of college; nobody does that except for me, so I began to use coloring books during my downtime in school.
I was stressed out sometimes and started filling coloring books to decompress. Everyone made fun of me and said that it was ridiculous. And now, 20 years later, it's one of the most popular categories on Amazon. There is a huge market for adult coloring books. People love them, and it's a growing space.
I love that coloring books make art simple. I sometimes talk about paint-by-numbers, but I'd like to use a different metaphor now.
With a coloring book, you have all the lines, and you know to fill in these clearly defined spaces with different colors. The book gives you structure. Coloring books are art with training wheels or scaffolding. Like bowling with the bumpers.
If I give you a very intricate design of mandalas hidden inside a bunch of cats inside of an Egyptian room, you can color with crayons and make it look beautiful. But if I give you a blank piece of paper and ask you to accomplish the same thing, you will fail unless you are an amazing artist.
If you're an amazing artist, you're probably not reading this because you're living off your art, not your writing. Having that scaffolding makes art much easier to enjoy.
By coloring, you will also become a better artist. Coloring books, coloring within the lines and painting by numbers allows you to develop some basic artistic skills. Just like you start your bike with training wheels. My daughter has training wheels on her bike right now.
She probably won't take them off for another year. She just recently learned how to use the pedals, and we are not jumping straight from using the pedals to taking off those extra wheels.
Eventually, we do take off those training wheels as we complete the period of training. We reach that moment we can do everything on our own. Using scaffolding in many areas of life is acceptable, but for some reason, we think that in artistic areas it's a sign of weakness or laziness or something wrong with you, but it's silly to think that way.
23
Scaffolding
We would never build a giant skyscraper without scaffolding; it would fall over. You can't do it. I can't even draw in straight lines.
When writing a book, create the deepest outline you can accomplish. That's phase one, and I go extensively into how to research in my book Breaking Orbit. That book is a lot about my research methodology.
I know this book isn't about research; it is about writing fast. But good research is the foundation for writing fast.
In just a moment, I will share with you a couple of secrets and a couple of techniques, but if you need me to go even deeper into outlining and research, head over to my blog. I cover this extensively in several blog posts and podcast episodes, as well as in Breaking Orbit.
I don't want to force you to read the same material over and over again about my researching process, but I want to give you a big overview so you can replicate on a basic level my structure for preparing to write fast.
24
Action Steps
Remember that it’s ok to use scaffolding as an artist
What is the difference between random and systemic error?
Should you blame your success or lack of success on luck?
Part IV
My Writing History
Time is my greatest enemy.
- Evita Peron
25
How I Sprint
We are going to talk a great deal about writing sprints in this book. When you first start sprinting, you will write for five-minute blocks. In these sessions, you write as much as you can without worrying about mistakes.
Many writers find that small sprints interspersed with small breaks are their ideal writing rhythm. Small sprints are a great way to start and build up your writing stamina, but they are not how I write these days. Five minutes is not nearly enough time for me to get into the zone.
When I hit my stride, I can crank out words for hours at a time without needing a break. I prefer to write until I get tired and then take a longer break. This is true marathon writing and it’s not for the faint of heart. My body determines my finish line, not a stopwatch.
We are going to find the rhythm that works perfectly for you. There is no reason to expect our styles to be identical. I’m a raw marathon writer because that is what gets me the best results. We are going to break down some key strategies for maximizing your daily word counts with smaller sprints later in the book. There are some really cool tracking techniques that I can’t wait to share with you.
When using the sprint method, we can either lengthen sessions or increase the number of sessions to pump up your words per day.
My normal writing rhythm is to take longer breaks when I need them. I don't like to work eight hours straight; that's too much even for me.
When I'm writing, I do maybe a two- to four-hour session in the morning. Then I spend two to three hours relaxing in the middle of the day. I spend this time working on other projects or enjoying a leisurely lunch. Sometimes I like to fit in a movie with the kids or take them out into the ocean.
Later, I'll write for a second three- to four-hour session in the afternoon. This allows me to easily hit twenty thousand words a day and still enjoy my life. That's the rhythm that currently works well for me.
26
Starting this Book
For this project, I'm doing things a little differently. It's very easy for me to sit up in my ivory tower and brag about how fast I write. But that will only make you hate me. Instead, I want to get back into the struggle. Dictating a book is outside my comfort zone, but it's exactly where I need to be. Leading by example.
I was up all night. My son is only seven months old, and he decided to keep me up. He woke up around midnight and started talking. He wasn't crying, and he wasn't upset. He's beginning to talk now, and he's so loud just saying words.
We don't know what he is saying yet because he can't form words at his age. He's just there making all this noise, and it affected my ability to sleep last night. Going into today, I decided that I wanted to get the recording for this book done as quickly as possible.
I would love to finish recording this entire book in one day, but that would cause my throat to start bleeding. It's beyond what my body can handle.
This morning I got up and recorded two full podcast episodes. That's about forty to fifty minutes of recording to start my day. I then worked out a little bit to get the blood flowing. This was followed with a very long meeting with a prospective client. I am really excited about this amazing project.
We spent probably two hours planning out the project and negotiating fees and money and percentages. Discussing all the aspects of the project, including short and long-term goals.
When we finally finished, I spent the rest of my morning responding to email and speaking to all my coaching clients on Skype. It was at that moment that I decided to start this book today.
When I woke up this morning, this book was not a part of my plan for the day. It wasn't on any task manager or calendar.
I made the decision in a moment, and I began moving my notes and outline into Scrivener, which took about an hour. I kept getting distracted; it's a lot of copying and pasting.
For some reason, the outline was really annoying me. I was looking at it and just not feeling it. I didn't like a lot of the structure and decided that I want to make some massive changes. I was just about to start writing in Scrivener when I had a revelation.
I thought to myself, "What am I doing? I don't want to do this; I want to do something
new.” I made the decision to dictate this entire book just today while moving the outline into Scrivener.
I decided to do it in the moment and then realized I needed to get the document onto my iPad so that I could have my outline with me while recording outside.
I am recording into my phone, but I don't want to open a second app and possibly mess up the recording. It's probably fine to open one other application, but I don't want to risk it.
I decided to grab my iPad mini to import my Scrivener document. I had an old app that could read this file format, and I wanted to transfer over my outline. That's when I discovered that the batteries were completely dead. My iPad was still in my video recording case from last week, and the battery drained itself.
I don't like to lose momentum, so I started charging the iPad, and then I went outside, and I recorded for about 40 or 45 minutes. I recorded my introduction chapters and a couple of my big idea sections. I didn't have my outline with me so I recorded lot of personal stories, the introduction, and the engagement part of the book.
I then went back to the house to record some more and I discovered that I couldn't get the other Scrivener app to work right. First, I had to update it, and then I had to sync it with Dropbox.
For some reason, moving this lone document into Dropbox became an absolute nightmare. All my syncing methods were crazy slow today. I tried syncing via cable, web browsers, and Dropbox. All of them were acting terribly.
This is just an outline file I'm trying to move around; it's not some huge video file. But when we want things to be fast is when technology always lets us down. When that app finally synced, I discovered that it wouldn't pull the file into offline storage. Each time I wanted to view the next small section, it downloaded it. That doesn't work for me.
Where I'm sitting right now on my little dock, the Wi-Fi is not that great, because I'm out on the ocean. I don't want to have to be online to look at each section. Every time I open up any part of an outline, I want it to be in front of me off-line with no problems.
Even after recharging the battery and updating the app it still had more problems. I finally bit the bullet and bought the new official app from Scrivener. It's been out for a few months but I haven't really had a need for it until now. It took ages to download because the Internet was acting crazy.
Then I had to wait over forty minutes for my Scrivener folder to sync to the new app. I have so many projects and the app pulled them all in at once. It was annoying, but now I have all of my books with me anywhere I go. I have access to all my current and old projects.
I pull up an old project several times a week, so this is extremely useful for me. Clients lose parts of documents or I want to use something I wrote in the past as a template, and having that data on mobile is a nice bonus.
Now, I'm out finally with my fully-charged brand-new version of Scrivener on my iPad mini. I have all of my sections available even thought I'm not online. I can use this app to look at one tiny section at a time and maintain my focus.
Each of my recording sessions will be about an hour. That's my workflow plan for dictating this book.
Part V
First Step to Writing Faster
You must take the first step. The first steps will take some effort, maybe pain. But after that, everything that has to be done is real-life movement.
- Ben Stein
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Why should I learn to write faster?
When starting a new venture or going through any training course where you are trying to learn a skill, you always want to think about the end result. What's the final benefit for me? Why do I want to go down this path? What is it going to do to help me?
It's very important to go through this step because many of us get shiny object syndrome. We get excited about projects, and we follow a project here and a project there, and then we forget the end goal of that first project.
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The Real Goal
You should not be reading this book simply to write fast; that's not why you're reading it. You have a goal that you want to write faster to achieve. Writing faster is a means to an end.
We want to think about that secondary goal because that will keep you motivated and ensure that you're one of the people who finishes this book. You will directly apply these principles and becomes a successful writer if we focus correctly.
The first benefit of this book is that you will be able to write faster, and you will be able to accomplish more in less time. That means you can get more done every day. It also means you have more time to spend on other things, whether that is working on other projects or simply spending more time doing the things you love.
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The Gift of Life
The more efficient you become with writing, the more of your time you earn back. Time is more valuable than money. When you're a hundred years old, and you're on your deathbed, you aren't going to ask for more money. You will ask for more time, just like everybody else.
I would rather give you more time right now. If you get just as much writing done in two hours as you are doing in four hours right now, I'm giving you back two hours a day. That's ten hours a week.
Five hundred and twenty hours a year is an enormous amount of time to get back! (And that assumes you only write four hours a day and take weekends off.)
Giving you back your life is the ultimate gift.
You can spend that time however you like, including growing and expanding your marketing efforts. So much of marketing these days and the core of my business is content marketing, which means creating information. Creating blog posts, books, courses, and podcast episodes all to get my message out in the world. That's how I find my audience; having a lot of content for them to consume.
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Quantity is a Quality of its Own
This is the third book in the Serve No Master series. I have added a second series called the Habit of Discipline simply because I write so much that I'm always a step ahead. Just in this one Amazon channel, I will put out more than twenty books this year.
That is in addition to the books I write for my three other pen names. That is also in addition to the seven other projects I have going on with different partners in the direct response world. That is in addition to my podcast and all the copywriting work I'm doing now.
Being able to generate a lot of content is very valuable. It allows you to expand quickly. Doubling your writing speed and improving your efficiency also improves your economic situation. Turning that four-hour project into a two-hour project will open up new opportunities.
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Fast and Slow Income Streams
When you double your writing speed, you can spend two hours a day writing for your passion project and two hours a day on ghostwriting projects. You can make more money and pursue your dreams at the same time. Having revenue coming in each day will take the stress off you while writing your novel.
That short-term revenue will pay the bills while you build to that first royalty paycheck. You will get more practice writing. The more words you write, the better you get. Having written, published, and sold well over one hundred million words, I can look back at my previous books and see how much better I've gotten with every single book that I've written.
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Keep Getting Better
Books that I wrote two years ago are not nearly as good as books that I write now. They are beautiful, and I'm proud of the work I've accomplished, but my strong marketing made up for my lack of ability while I developed and honed my writing skills.
Most first novels aren't very good. That's ok. Were you able to tie your shoes the first time you tried? Were you amazing at sports the first time you tried? Of course not.
We develop skills through practice, repetition, and experience. Expecting to hit it out of the park and be perfect the first time you do something is very irrational. We should apply the same rationality to each of our new endeavors, but we don't.
We always assume that th
e first book we write will be a massive success. We expect that we will write easily, write fast, and find the perfect market without effort. But that's not reality. Nobody starts out perfect.
I'm glad that I can look back and see that my previous works were not as good as what I'm doing now. That means that I'm improving. Better books are not a sign of failure but proof that you are a real writer. Your books will continue to get better.
There is no feeling worse than that of being a fading star.
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If this is your first book...you have to write
My improvement is the result of continued writing, even after my first books. The benefit of experience is improvement. The time you spend writing has real value. The faster you write, the sooner you will achieve excellence.
You may have noticed that I'm not the greatest writer in the world. That should inspire you. If someone who writes as poorly as I do can make a living, how much better can someone with your great skill do?
20K a Day: How to Launch More Books and Make More Money Page 4