You are probably a member of one of my projected book’s three target audiences:
(a) As yet unpublished writers in search of a more certain way to get published who are willing to explore the possibilities of collaborating with an expert—but don’t know how to go about doing this successfully.
(b) Published writers seeking greater professional success.
(c) Experts in some topic (often a new niche within a larger subject) who want to publish a book without having to grind out the whole thing by themselves.
We’ll talk about writers first.
If you’re an aspiring but as yet unpublished writer, get ready to give your drive toward publication a tremendous boost. Do that by pounding the four commitments that appear below into your skull. Write them down. Paste them in your hat, on the mirror in your bathroom and on the 3 x 5 cards you’ve snapped a rubber band around so they’re handy to review in spare moments:
(a) I write at least an hour every day.
If it’s impossible for me to sit at a computer, I still write at for least an hour. If I can’t do it in one shot, I write for at least 20-minutes three times a day—longhand or shorthand. (There’s a third way to seize precious writing periods from your busy day: get organized so you can dictate to a recorder during the otherwise dead time when you’re driving somewhere. See more about writing via dictation in Chapter ###.
(b) I avoid writer’s block and write fast when I’m ready to capture words because during every unstressed moment of the day, I think about what I’m going to write tonight after work or tomorrow before work.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? Don’t quit your day job until you have enough cash coming in to carry yourself and your responsibilities. Tom Clancy kept his insurance agency going after THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER became a great success. Not until his second book also hit the bestseller lists did Clancy cut loose from his day job.
(c) I want writing success, which I’ve never had. Therefore, I must do things I’ve never done.*
* With thanks to my friend in Florida, James Amps III, a dynamic keynoter and public speaker, who says, “If you want something you’ve never had, do something you’ve never done.”
((d) Every day I not only write, I also read something that will improve my writing skills or knowledge of the writing industry.
