A book in 30 days? The power of a 30 day challenge and a community

Some of you may know that in the past two years I have dedicated part of my focus during the month of November to writing. Today I've just penned off on 62,042 words of my latest book. That's about 160 pages. I often get asked by coaches and business owners I know, "What's it like to write a book?" I wanted to shed a little light on the birthing of my latest manuscript (manuscript #4 in the last 7 years) while it is still fresh.


Last November I heard for the first time about NANOWRIMO (which stands for National Novel Writing Month) through a collection of colleagues on Facebook who were going to focus on NABIZWRIMO (National Business Writing Month). I jumped in and pumped out over the course of the month a great manuscript on leadership. I recall my first experience of going from 0 to more than 14 chapters in a month as exciting and quite a bit of work.  As usual work resumed it's normal pace after the November US Thanksgiving lull for me in the month of December 2015 (always a popular month for coaching), so that manuscript has sat and percolated on the side burner since.

With 2016 having been a busy year and a number of commitments in early to mid-November I wasn't sure what the writing process would be like this year. I had a topic in mind and that's about it! The former "planner and project manager" in me loves a plan and in late October I felt that I was a little unprepared but committed to make this happen. On November 1st sat down and drafted out names of the potential chapters (which of course have change). Day 1 I hit 3000 words noticing that it was double the daily amount needed if I wanted to write consistently for 30 days. With the power of the larger virtual NANOWRIMO community as inspiration, along with amazing writing sprints that were streamed on YouTube between November 1 - 15th I was able to hit the 50,000 word mark. That's the goal post set as the monthly goal for the month, and one that was hoping to hit over the month.

When I've had time in the last two weeks I've been able to move the manuscript ahead to a place where it's really taken firm shape. After revising chapters and completing almost a full edit of the text I'm going to celebrate by ordering myself a nifty scarf with part of the text embossed on it.

I'm already planning to square off some time in the first half of 2017 to brush off my 2015 leadership manuscript and get that polished for publication in late 2017 as well.

Now the big question exists. Do I go the traditional publishing route for this new manuscript as I have for my first two books - or do I self-publish? As an experienced author I know that writing the book is only one part of the journey. Now begins the editing, promotion and building a community around it which does take effort as I have seen with Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices for Group and Team Coaching.

It's been a fun month and I am hopeful that this new book is as impactful as my others have been. Stay tuned in the new year for more info as I know many of you will find this another rich compendium to your work.

I know many of you are interested in writing your own books so here are some of my key lessons of the writing a book in a 30 day challenge this November:
1. Create a goal that's important and meaningful to you;
2. Connect with a community that can support you through the process. With how busy the first part of the month was for me with my own work, I can't say how invaluable the word sprints were for me to get focused and get things on paper, especially when I felt I was too tired or busy to write!
3. Undertake daily action, every day, no matter what
4. Trust that the gems will emerge as you find focus and create space for what's important, and what you've committed to
5. Be ruthless in carving out time in your schedule, even if you don't have a plan on how you are going to use it. I've seen how what I call my "15 minute rule" works - set a time for 15 minutes and start writing and usually by the timer goes you'll have a good idea of where your writing is going to take you.

An important reminder for me this month has been how important it is to be part of community and to make sure that I am building in time for myself. As a mom, business owner, and partner/supporter with many, it's easy to have my own needs (beyond regular workouts at the pool) squeezed. The rest of today I'm going to be celebrating in small ways.

Did any of you complete the NANOWRIMO Challenge this year? What was your experience like?
I hope that this post sheds some light "behind the curtains" on the writing process. You'll note in my photo above the three stages completed of the manuscript so far - left is the first draft of approx. 50,000 words, next comes the new chunking of the book into chapters, and the thrid pile on the right are the revisions of the chapters (8 chapters done, 4 to go).

And as an FYI (For Your INFO)..... to anyone who as looked at the amount of paper used in horror....Two fun things -The first two drafts were printed on a whole pile of old 1980s computer paper which had come from my parent's house. Who remembers the old DOS printers with the holes on the side? It was amazing thin paper to print on which meant my briefcase was not as heavy when I had to travel with the first draft!

Second, one of my summer jobs during an undergrad was as a tree planter up the beautiful wilderness of Northern Ontario. While it was a rough job for a young woman in her late teens in early twenties up "in the bush" (as we call it), six weeks of work paid for most of my tuition and expenses during my 4 years of university. We were paid by the tree, and with some days being what we called "highball" days of 1000 new trees in the ground, with 30 days a year, over 4 years, I'm sure some of the paper I used was planted by me or some of the crews I worked with.

Have a great start to your December!

Jennifer


Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCCGroup Coaching Essentials | Potentials Realized  
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-8326
Email: info(at)potentialsrealized(dot)com

PS- The final Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar for 2016 starts tomorrow, Thurs Dec 1st. Consider joining us if you want to launch your own group coaching program in 2017. Calls will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4:15 pm ET on December 1, 6, 8, 13, 15 by zoom. 8.75 CCEs. More info and registration here. 3 spots still open. Cost: $450 US.

Want to carve out some space to move your program plans, business plans or projects forward? I'm hosting at least 2 more Virtual Retreats before the end of the year - join me for one or both. Thursday December 1 from 10-2 pm ET I'll be focusing on Program Planning for 2017, and on Friday December 9th from 1-5pm ET join me for a Get it Done Virtual Retreat where you can focus on business or program planning or a project of your own. Cost: $97/one day  More info here.