On productivity and how I possibly fit in writing a book
Notes on hitting my word count and fitting in the rest of life
There’s no secret to writing a book. Yes it’s hard work, and costs a lot of mental energy but it’s also about showing up, every. single. day. A lot of the below could apply to anything you need or want to get done, whether it’s a DIY project, a book or learning a new language. Prioritisation and showing up are the two main things that keep me on target.
A curious thing starts to happen too, the more I become immersed in a topic the more the words start to flow and patterns emerge, linking research topics together in unexpected ways. I begin to see relevance in many everyday interactions too, regularly recording voice notes to myself. I also have a brilliant editor to bounce ideas off, so when I’m tempted to go on a tangent, she helps steer me back on course.
Lots of people have been asking me how I can fit in writing a book with my job and busy family life. I just read the bestseller Atomic Habits and realised that a lot of what James Clear writes about I have already adopted in how I work. I procrastinate too, I’m by no means especially disciplined, but as long as I follow the rules below, it gives me leeway to take plenty of breaks. Before my unexpected surgery I also went running 3-4 times a week, something I plan to get back to soon. Running often helps me to think through topics I am writing about, and gets me through my audiobook list too.
The maths
The first thing I do is work backwards from my deadline. A non-fiction book is acquired on proposal, so by that point, I had already written about 18,000 words: - a sample chapter and a summary of the other chapters. Crucially I then had a rough notion of exactly what research I needed to look at for the rest.
Word count
Next, I consider how many words I have to write, in my case it’s about 70,000. By the time my book was confirmed with my publishers I had about seven months to deliver the manuscript. I chose an earlier deadline to hit a 2025 publication date, summer 2024, leaving me seven months. I left off a month for extra editing and finessing too (I don’t want to be writing right until the last day).
Roughly speaking then, I had to write 52,000 words in six months. This works out as 2,100 words a week. I split that down further thinking about it as writing 500 words in four or five evenings a week. Put that way it feels much more manageable and I know that any evening I go over word count gives me some breathing room. Of course sometimes I write more than that, sometimes I write nothing but spend an hour interviewing an expert, reading a paper or editing a previous section. It all evens out eventually.
In actuality in my case I massively overcompensated, and found I often wrote 1,000 words several evenings in a row. During the Christmas break I had additional time thanks to a lot of childcare support from the in-laws and was able to write every morning and evening. Life gets in the way of course, so having gone over at Christmas meant my nine day hospital stay didn’t put me far behind.
I’ve now hit 80,000 words with over three months to go, but the downside of my productivity means I have a lot of self editing and repetition to weed out. I don’t edit as I go, opting instead to get words on the page first, so those words are far from polished and still need a lot of work.
Timing
I write between 7.30pm-10.30pm, and on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I write on holidays and weekends. It feels more rewarding than watching TV and I’m fuelled ever onwards by a looming deadline, mixed with the fact that writing books has always been an ambition, so it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ in the traditional sense.
Considering that I wrote my last book on maternity leave in between naps, this time I’m sleeping much more so it actually feels comparably easier.
Sacrifices
There’s always a cost benefit. My evenings are spent writing rather than relaxing. I fit in housework when my kids are around rather than when they are asleep - sometimes I get them to help with mixed results but is something I hope to encourage more of (any tips, send my way please). I barely watch any TV. The books I read are mostly for research purposes (audiobooks whilst cooking etc) and we often split childcare at the weekend meaning my ‘free time’ is actually writing time. My friends and family have to listen to all the latest insights I’m writing about, and the topic means I am constantly challenging the structures and patterns of society, in a hopefully productive way.
But is it worth it, yes it is.
In a year or two will I regret all those evenings spent writing, absolutely not.
If you’ve got any productivity tips that work for you (BIG OR SMALL), do send them my way and I’ll aim to publish a few. Simply hit reply, I try to read all responses.
My book The Motherhood Complex is available from most book stores. The Kindle edition is only £2.99.
Links: Hive, Waterstones, Foyles or Amazon links here. It’s also on e-book and audiobook. Read it? I would love to know what you think, or even better, leave me an Amazon review (you can do this regardless of where it was bought) - this really helps first time authors like me.
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