Two Skills I've Learned...

I've learned a lot about myself as writer over the month and a half (or so) I've been working on this book.

I have discovered that I'm much more prolific, proficient and efficient at the actual writing when I have a detailed outline to follow.

I've discovered I can write just fine with a football or basketball game on TV in the background but cannot do a single page if Law & Order is on.

I'm discovering that the more I have to do during the day in terms of work or appointments or meetings, I often have higher word-per-day outputs than days when I have no structure (interesting!).

And I've found two amazingly useful tools to use when writing a massive draft (280 page book, for one) to help keep me organized and heads-up: Word's Document Map and a separate Word document for all the worksheets and samples I'm including in my book.

I've played with Document Map before (the little paper-with-a-magnifying-glass icon on your Word toolbar) with one or two of my novels. If you use headers for chapters, Doc Map is a phenomenally easy, fast way to get to places you need to go in your document without having to scroll through 140 pages. It puts a "map" on the left side of your window that makes finding your place as easy as clicking.

And the separate worksheet document...genius. Just started it here in Chapter 8 because I needed to simply list all the things I'm promising in this chapter (HR & hiring) to the reader so I go back and create them. Set up a document using Doc Map with all the chapters and just type the title of the worksheet below the proper chapter, highlight that baby and make it a Heading 2. AWesome. Too bad I didn't think about that for chapters 1-7...ah well...live, write and learn...

Back to the nonfiction. Today's goal is to hit 32,000 words...halfway to 65K...or close enough that I can sleep in tomorrow!