How to Write a Book in Six Months (Without Losing Your Sanity)

If you’d told me six months ago I’d ever write a book, I’d have laughed in your face. Hard. The thought couldn’t have been further from my mind. And yet, on the 31st of December 2019, I finished writing it. This is how I managed it without going completely insane in the process.

(Now, I’m not saying I wrote a good book, jury’s still out on that, but I did write a lot, so that’s something, I guess.)

Since that happened, I found out that a few friends of mine have “WRITE BOOK” as one of their New Year’s resolutions — every year. So I thought I’d share what worked for me, in the hope of helping anyone stuck in that hole.

Step 1: What to Write About

This part was surprisingly easy. I had toyed with the idea of working with decision-making and habit optimisation, but the thought of writing a book on those subjects sent me into a cold sweat. That told me a lot: if I didn’t think I knew enough about the topic to either write a slim book on it or spend the time researching it, perhaps that’s not something I’m passionate enough about.

That made me run screaming towards what I am passionate about: public speaking. Telling stories that are as universal as they are personal. Humour. I could write a book on those, sure.

My advice here would be: find something you can either talk about for hours (or write for months) or something you’d love to spend a lot of time learning.

Step 2: Write the Introduction (with a Chapter Outline)

I’ve had invasive medical procedures that were more fun than those first 1,000 words. It’s not as if I don’t write speeches regularly, and that was hardly much longer. But as soon as I knew I was writing the beginning of “my book”, I became unable to string a coherent sentence together. Everything sounded awful, and by the end of the first hour, I was sure the project was doomed (and a little relieved about it).

Then I remembered reading somewhere that you should write as if you were sending an email to a close friend, and just tell them about your book. That got me going, and soon I remembered how a few words become a sentence, and that a full paragraph is not an insurmountable challenge.

That introduction wasn’t the best piece of prose I ever wrote, but it achieved three critical things:

It clarified what I wanted to write about, and why I thought it was worth sharing it.

It made me think of how many chapters the book would have and put down a brief description of what each would be. That proved invaluable: it gave me a roadmap to follow, and it forced me to think of a logical progression for the content.

Finally, I had something I could send to some (very trusted) friends to get some brutally honest feedback about how much it sucked — and if they had any interest in reading more.

Looking back, this was the hardest step in the whole process. Everything got easier (and more fun) afterwards.

Step 3: List Content Ideas & Quotes

Once I knew what each chapter would cover, I made long lists of every possible thing I felt I could write for each one. I also looked up quotes on each topic, which gave me more ideas, and also helped to enhance the content with humour, credibility, all that good stuff.

I consulted that list every time I sat down to write and kept adding to it. By the end, I was cutting things from it as it became obvious it was simply too much to cover.

Step 4: Tell Stories

Good books tell stories. That’s the case with fiction, clearly, but it’s also the case with non-fiction books (like mine). Take many best-selling authors, like Malcolm Gladwell, or Simon Sinek. What most of their chapters look like is this: a random (but interesting) story or anecdote, at first completely unrelated to whatever they were talking about, followed by some hard content. As they explain their theories, connections to the story become evident — and make the reading significantly more pleasurable (and memorable) than if they just dumped the information on us. That will mean one long story for much of the book, or a smaller one to open each chapter. To wit, one of mine:

I became a boy scout hoping to get laid. Not the most obvious approach for a young straight male, but perhaps I should clarify that in Brazil the scout troops are not separated by sex. The only concession to the risks of pubescent shenanigans is a prohibition to bed down with the girls on camping trips (as if zipping down a tent flap was such a challenging obstacle). In spite of all that, it wasn’t meant to be. The scouts teach you many skills, but if making yourself attractive to women was one of them, I never got that badge. What I got instead was an education in openness.

All you’re doing is finding colourful metaphors to what you’re trying to communicate. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Or you can also take the opposite approach: research (or remember) real stories, and then tease out the connections from there. Gladwell explained in an interview with Joe Rogan that his most recent book, Talking to Strangers, came out of all the questions he couldn’t answer after reporting on one story.

We live surrounded by stories, and the more personal, the better. Think of how they connect with the subjects that interest you, and you’ll have no shortage of material. And, if no story comes to you, just write what you want to share. Maybe a story will come to mind later, and perhaps it won’t. Sometimes content stands better on its own, without any adornments.

Step 5: Find Your Style

Writing is hard enough without trying to sound like someone you’re not. You can keep it up for a page or two, but you won’t go through a whole book like that — and, even if you do, it will be no fun for you or anyone else. We’re attracted to authenticity, and that is a tough thing to fake. You just have to trust that your style will resonate with enough people.

I have a peculiar sense of humour, which means lines like this one below come out often:

You should look at one person at a time, for roughly three to five seconds. That’s enough for them to feel included, but not sexually harassed.

I realise that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but so what? Sometimes coming across moronic (but authentic) might beat intelligent (but focus-grouped) rhetoric (the last US election comes to mind). You’ll find your fans if you stop trying to please everyone.

Step 6: Sit Down and Write

This one should be the most obvious, yet it still eludes most: to write a book, you need to put down an obscene amount of words, and that won’t (usually) happen in a drunken fit of inspiration. It will happen little by little, day after day.

When I started to flounder, my friend (and published author) Ian Gibbs advised me to write at least 500 words a day, every day. That’s not much. It might take you no more than half an hour to get to that many, and then you’ll spend another 30 minutes rewriting it so it sounds less terrible. That’s hardly time most people can’t find in their day (spending less time on social media seems to help).

It’s worth mentioning writing was by no means my full-time occupation: I’ve got a job, have started a speaking career on top of it (hence the book), and have a 3-year old daughter unsympathetic to my artistic pretensions.

Did I write every day? No, I didn’t. In the first two or three months, I probably managed five days a week, at most. But then as time went by I wrote more and more every time I did it, and the challenge eventually became what to cut, and not what to add.

What I learned after a while is what every professional writer (or journalist) knows: the creative process is more about transpiration than inspiration. Every time you write, you’re training the mental muscles that connect thoughts, find interesting patterns and remember stories. Do it often, and you won’t run out of things to talk about — you’ll be drowning in them. Not everything you put down on the page will be brilliant or funny, but keep at it long enough, and you’ll hit upon something worthwhile sooner or later.

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If you’d told me six months ago that I would not only write one book but enjoy the process so much I’d be thinking of writing more, I’d worry about your mental sanity. All of that is true, so maybe I should worry about mine. After almost 40 years, I can still surprise myself. How little we know who we are, eh? Hm, perhaps there’s a book in that…

(Shameless plug: my book “Bare: A Guide to Brutally Honest Public Speaking” is now out on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2IBAAFw)