By: James Martin

By now you’ve got your objectives clearly defined, you know what it is you’re trying to achieve with your book and you know what topics are going in and being left out, preventing the dreaded “mission creep” that can ensure your book never gets finished.

Not only that, but you’ve planned out the stages of your book, each phase following logically from the next much in the manner of a recipe.

So now it’s time to put quill to parchment.

Each of my books began life as a humble Open Office Writer file (reeware version of Microsoft Word for those of us on a budget, and if you’ve done your planning thoroughly, it’s actually not too difficult to get stuck in, you’re simply putting meat on the bones of a framework you’ve already set up.

The best thing to do now, is simply get stuck in, and set yourself an achievable goal in terms of word count – professional writers will tend to target 1000 words per day, but if you’re just starting out it’s advisable to start with something smaller, maybe 2-300, and review at the end of the working day.

It should be an enjoyable process, reading what you’ve written – after all, if you don’t enjoy it, it’s unlikely your prospective customer base will.

It’s important to realise that writing is a skill, just like playing an instrument – the more you do it, the better you’ll get. So your progress will not be linear, in fact you’ll gain momentum as you get more experienced and better able to articulate your thoughts.

Don’t be put off by slow progress at first – this is you finding your voice, just like back in the dim and distant past when you struggled with barre chords.

A good idea is to put in and label gaps in the text file where you’re planning to put a diagram, notation and/or audio clip (more on that later) – and of course, spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck.

You might not be trying to write Shakespeare, but the basics of grammar and spelling are essential to putting together a professional product.

In Pt. 4 – the perils and practicalities of desktop publishing for the newbie.

Click to reach Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 of this series of articles.

This article has been independently supplied by the author and expresses the author’s own views and opinions; the article does not purport to represent RGT’s views or policies.