Striving For Success Without Hard Work Is Like Trying To Harvest Where You Haven’t Planted.
David Bly
Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint.
Writing a book takes planning on a variety of levels, and it requires concerted effort to bring a book project to fruition.
If you want to write a book and you believe it can be done easily, simply and fast, you’re deluding yourself.
When I worked in the props department of the movie industry we had a saying.
Fast, good, cheap.
You can have any two. You can’t have all three.
The same is true for writing a book. You can get it done easily, fast or good – pick any two. You can’t get all three.
Having completed this process from blank page to published book 49 times, I’ve learned a few things.
One of those things is that the more time and effort I put into creating my detailed outline, the easier writing the book will be.
Every time I try to shortcut the research and outline process, the harder the book is to write.
Put in the time, the sweat equity, to research your book and write a really detailed outline.
This is the hard work of writing – the preparation – just like it was on set. The more time and effort we put into Prep the easier our shoot days were. Always.
Writing a book is no different in that respect.
Planting is the research you do before you write your book.
Planting is also taking all that research and using it to build as detailed an outline as you possibly can.
When you do this hard work up front, you reap an awesome harvest. Writing your book is easy. It feels almost effortless.
But that’s true of pretty much everything in life, right?
Tackle that hard bits first, and the rest is easy.
It ain’t rocket surgery.
Neither is writing a book, especially when you front-load your research so you can start with a detailed outline.
