The Intuitive Way to Plan During Preptober (for NaNoWriMo)
We’re halfway through October (also known as preptober in the writing world), and heading fast toward November — NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month.
While many business owners are all too familiar with all the writing that comes with running a business — website copy, sales emails, blog content, podcast show notes, social media captions, proposals, email newsletters… so much writing!
Business owners decide to write books for many reasons. A book can serve as a calling card for their business or perhaps it’s a personal passion project. Writing for a big project like a book is a different beast for a few reasons.
How do you plan to write a book?
Every November, inside my writing community, we like to play with NaNoWriMo. I say “play” because, as an intuitive writing coach, I encourage my clients to do things on their terms — like writing 50,000 words of content instead of a fiction novel. Or writing 20,000 words of content and 30,000 words for a book.
Sovereign writers make their own rules.
Now that I’m nearing the light at the end of the tunnel on my book writing project — which I first drafted during NaNoWriMo in 2017 — (yes, three years ago), it’s a different project than writing weekly blog content. It requires a different approach and mindset.
And, if you’ve gotten the hang of writing for your business, then writing a bigger project is totally doable, too.
A business owner inside my writing community recently asked this:
How is a big project like a book different from writing a blog post? How can you be more creative about writing longer pieces?
There are many nuances to writing a book, and having published a mini-book and a memoir/self-development book, and drafted another book, I have some experience.
When you’re writing your first book, it can feel super challenging. It’s because you haven’t yet created the neurological container for writing a book. And once you DO write your book — you’ve proved to your unconscious mind, that yes, you are an author — making writing the next book 99% easier.
If you decided at the last minute to write a book or simply hate planning, the good news is that you can take the unfussy road to book writing and fly by the seat of your pants. Prepare to be flexible! You can totally do this.
Here’s an intuitive approach to planning for preptober (and then writing and revising your book):
1. Preptober Planning.
In October 2017, I planned. I had a rough idea of the topics I wanted to write about. I grabbed 30 index cards, pulled out my Sharpies, and cranked Metallica with the goal of 1 topic on each card. The whole process took 15 minutes.
2. Getting ahead on content creation.
Because I knew that I’d spend November writing 1,667 words a day on my book, I didn’t want my blogging to be an afterthought. And I had been blogging pretty consistently for five years at this point. I planned out my blog topics for November and wrote them all over the course of a week in October. Here is what my process looked like:
Monday - draft blog 1
Tuesday - edit blog 1 and schedule, draft blog 2
Wednesday - edit blog 2 and schedule, draft blog 3
Thursday - edit blog 3 and schedule, draft blog 4
Friday - edit and schedule blog 4
That’s a month’s worth of content written in a week in 1-2 hours a day. Another approach you can take if you plan ahead is to work on November content starting in September.
3. Shitty first draft (SFD) book writing.
Within the container of NaNoWriMo, knowing I had 30 chapters (and would later combine or scrap some), I created a spreadsheet to track each chapter. Each morning (mostly in the morning anyway), I’d either choose a topic randomly or flip through the list of topics, chose the one I felt most excited or energized to write about in the moment and write as fast as I could, SFD style to get to 1,667 words or more. Sometimes, I’d write for 30 minutes and come back to it in the evening. Sometimes, I’d write for an hour. No editing, no revising, no revisiting. I barfed it out, closed the Google doc, and moved on to client work for the day.
4. Repeat 29 times.
And then the next day, I did the same thing, I didn't go back and edit, I didn't look at them, I just got the shitty first draft out of my brain, and then got to the next day and did the next one. I did that for 30 days and then went back in, revisited everything, and did some edits.
5. Putting it all together.
I created a separate Google Doc for each chapter. So when it came time to put it all together, I could put it in the order that made sense. I still reordered it many times later, which is totally fine. And then, I put it all into one big document as chapters to do a few more full revisions.
What I’ll do differently when planning my next book.
What I wished I would have done was start editing that December, but sometimes you need to create some distance between yourself and a project. I waited a year. Not on purpose necessarily, but it just wasn’t ready, so I didn’t force it.
I used NaNoWriMo in November 2018 to edit and then worked with an editor beginning in January 2019 to help shape it.
The theme later clicked, and then I rewrote most of it, put 20,000 words in a scratch pile (I’ll use them to pull from to write other books and blog content), and kept moving.
Update for 2021: My book is finally in the world! Order Unfussy Life: An Intuitive Approach to Navigating Change.
My next book will be about writing, and for that one, I’m going to work with a book coach before I start writing to help me map it out, and then begin writing. So I’ll do a little more planning and less pants-ing next round.
If you have a big writing project or a bunch of little ones that just feel big, join us inside the Writing Community.
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