Don’t beat yourself up or give up on your book, I have some tips that have helped inspire me to finish my books.

1. Set a timer

If you’re finding it hard to stay focused when it’s time to write, try writing in intervals. There are different ways to do this, but one of the easiest ways is called the Pomodoro Method. You simply set a timer to write for 25 minutes. Choose one specific thing you want to focus on writing during that time, whether it’s your book outline, your first paragraph, or a specific scene. Don’t do anything else during that time.

After the 25 minutes is up, take a 5 minute break, then rinse and repeat. I love this method because 25 minutes is short enough that I can commit to doing it, but it’s just long enough to get into my writing. I’m usually excited to keep going for 3 or 4 intervals, which equals 75-100 minutes of highly focused writing time. When I don’t use this method, it’s very easy for me to be distracted by emails, text messages, and social media notifications so setting distraction-free time blocks for my writing has been a huge strategy I have used to finish my books.

2. Start with the title and description

Before I ever write a word of my books, I already know the title. I start each book with the title in mind and it really speeds up my writing process and helps me finish. I think that having a title makes the book seem more real for me and motivates me to get it done so that I can bring it to life.

I have one book that I started without a title, It’s still unpublished 4 years later…

3. Have a draft cover created

You can take the concept of making your book seem more real one step further by having a draft cover created. There are freelance sites such as Fiverr where you can get a cover made for less than $30. You’d be surprised how having a visualization of what your book could look like can really inspire you to finish it. I think of it as having the same benefits as when people create a vision board. Having a visual reminder of your book can truly be the daily kick you need to get it done!

4. Set a countdown

Set a date to finish your book. Download a countdown app to your phone, set the date, and you’ll get a daily reminder of how many days you have to achieve your goal. The daily countdown will be like a fitness coach, reminding you to put in your writing workout for the day!

5. Join writer’s communities

One of the best ways to get inspiration to finish your book is to surround yourself with other authors who are in the same boat as you. Seeing them post their own daily struggles and wins will definitely motivate you to get your book done. In my own Facebook group of nearly 6,000 authors, one of the main things people post is that seeing other people’s wins motivated them to finish their books so they could be celebrated by the group. Even writers need a village.

Crystal Swain-Bates is a celebrated children’s book author and the owner of Goldest Karat Publishing. Fed up with the lack of Black children’s books on the market, Crystal founded Goldest Karat Publishing to address the lack of diversity in children’s literature. Crystal has written and published 12 children’s books, which have been seen on platforms including CNN and Huffington Post and used as props for hit television shows such as BET’s “Being Mary Jane” and “The Game.” Her book Big Hair, Don’t Care is one of Amazon’s most highly reviewed black children’s books on the market.

The post #5onFri: Five Tips to Finish Your Book in 2021 appeared first on DIY MFA.

Today I’m delighted to welcome back the founder and principal of Book Architecture, Stuart Horwitz, and his collaborator Dave Stebenne. You can listen to my previous interview with Stuart here.

Stuart has spent over fifteen years helping writers become authors and his clients have reached wow-worthy levels of success. You can read the details in his bio below. More personally, though, Stuart is also a trusted colleague of mine and a good friend. When we first met over drinks at a Writer’s Digest Conference back in 2013, I knew right away that I had met a fellow writer and writing teacher whose perspective both aligns with and complemented my own.

Stuart’s books are among my top go-to resources, both ones that I recommend to my students and that I use for my own writing. The newest installment of the Book Architecture trilogy–Finish Your Book in Three Drafts: How to Write a Book, Revise a Book, and Complete a Book While You Still Love It–just might be my favorite one yet.

For this book, he teamed up with Dave Stebenne who created the stop-motion shorts to accompany the Book Architecture 5-year tour to create a cross between a non-fiction how-to guide and graphic novel. The result is nothing short of awesome.

In this episode Stuart, Dave, and I discuss:

• How the idea for this book came about
• The importance of both spontaneity and planning in writing
• Form, function, and continuity in the development of an idea
• Creating something that has a life beyond you

Plus, Stuart’s and Dave’s #1 tips for writers.

About Stuart Horwitz

Stuart has spent over fifteen years helping writers become authors. His clients have signed with top literary agencies, sealed deals with coveted publishing houses, or forged a successful path as indie authors. Book Architecture’s clients have reached the New York Times best-seller list in both fiction and nonfiction, and have appeared on Oprah!, The Today Show, The Tonight Show, and in the most prestigious journals in their respective fields.

Stuart’s approach is a synthesis of academic theories of narrative structure and his hands-on experience as an independent editor, book coach and ghostwriter. He has written three highly acclaimed books which together comprise the Book Architecture trilogy (affiliate links):

• Blueprint Your Bestseller: Organize and Revise any Manuscript with the Book Architecture Method
• Book Architecture: How to Plot and Outline Without Using a Formula
• Finish Your Book in Three Drafts: How to Write a Book, Revise a Book, and Complete a Book While You Still Love It

Stuart is an award-winning essayist and poet, who has toured the Book Architecture Method through over seventy venues in North America and taught writing at Grub Street of Boston and Brown University. He holds two master’s degrees—one in Literary Aesthetics from NYU, which helps him a lot with this work—and one in East Asian Studies from Harvard with a concentration in Medieval Japanese Buddhism, which helps him get out of bed in the morning. To learn more about Stuart and his work, visit his website, or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

About Dave Stebenne

Dave is a 23-year veteran of the creative business, as an art director, editor and animator. Dave is responsible for the stop-motion shorts featuring action figures that are hands-down the best part of the Book Architecture 5-year tour. Having worked in broadcast media, the toy industry, advertising, publishing, and the corporate design world, he has a wide base of expertise to draw from in his work with Chick ’n Coop Pictures. He and his wife, the photographer Kristin Stebenne, live in Lincoln, RI with their two incredibly cool, sweet and adorable kids. Dave is responsible for the stop-motion shorts featuring action figures that are hands-down the best part of the Book Architecture 5-year tour.

Link to Episode 102

(Right-click to download.)

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 102: Finish Your Book in Three Drafts – Interview with Stuart Horwitz and Dave Stebenne appeared first on DIY MFA.