How to Write a Book a Week

You don’t need AI to be a fast writer

Writing quickly and well is something that most writers can learn. I wasn’t born being able to write a book a week, but I learned how through a lot of trial and error and — to be honest — mistakes along the way.

So, in the interests of helping you avoid those mistakes and figure out what works best for you, I’m here to tell you the 3 steps to how I came to write a book a week, and how you can too.

Practice, Practice, Practice

My advice to the young writer is likely to be unpalatable in an age of instant successes and meteoric falls. I tell the neophyte: Write a million words — the absolute the best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin.

— David Eddings

Okay, this might seem like an obvious one. Practice. But it’s much harder than it seems, since the idea is to NOT write something that will sell. The sole purpose of this is to figure out two things:

• Your voice.
• Your message.

Every writer has a unique voice and a cause célèbre. Sometimes, especially when you’re flailing around at the beginning of your writing career, it’s easy to get too influenced by other writers. “Should I write more like Stephen King or like Margaret Atwood? Should I talk more about my culture or my family?”

Part of being able to write quickly is to know what tone you’re going to employ and what you want readers to take away from the story you’re writing. And the only way to be able to do that is to practice different aspects of your writing FIRST before tackling a project that challenges you, such as writing a book a week.

One job I have is as a ghostwriter. For different clients, I have to be able to portray their voice and what they’re trying to impart to their readers. I can’t write in a literary style for a humor piece and vice versa… or I’d get fired.

So, start out by just putting down your words on paper to discover who you are as a writer. Find a list of prompts that challenge you to really push yourself. Set a timer — say, fifteen minutes — and see what you can produce in that time. And then increase the timing by 5 minutes a day and see what happens.

Time Management

It’s all in the timing, isn’t it? There are three ideas that are important here.

1. Finding out how quickly you can write.
2. Discovering your limits on how much you can write per day (which will increase with practice).
3. Making writing a regular habit.

The key thing to know about fast writing is that it’s like a business. You have to do it regularly and treat it like your job — because it is.

Knowing how fast you can write is the key to knowing how many words you can produce per day. It’s simple math.

For example, depending on the genre, I can write about 1k-2k words an hour. That means to write 10,000 words, I need about 6–10 hours a day. My usual schedule is to write from 8 a.m. to noon, stop for lunch, then 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. If I need longer afterward, I might write a couple hours at night after my kids are in bed. If I need less time, then I write an article on Medium (ahem).

Keeping to this schedule, that’s 4–6 days of writing to produce a novel of 40k-80k. 7 days if I’m slow or if the book’s longer than 80k. Either, way a week’s worth of work = 1 book written.

Preparation

Conventional wisdom is that there are 2 types of writers — plotters and pantsers. (The term “pantser” means that you write by the seat of your pants without planning ahead.)

I used to be a pantser. I was still a fast writer, but it would take me longer because I was spending so much time trying to figure out where I was going next in the story. And then I was spending even more time having to fix/rewrite the book when I went in the wrong direction. And there’s nothing that I hate more than needing to scrap whole sections of what I’ve written and write it fresh.

When I started ghostwriting for clients, I had to throw away my old ways and become organized. I had to turn in full chapter-by-chapter outlines and stick within a certain wordcount per chapter. It provided a lot of focus and actually made it a whole heck of a lot easier to stay on target. I didn’t have to guess where I was going, since I’d already paved the way.

I don’t know how I could pants my way through writing a whole novel in a week. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I’ve learned my lesson. Every book I write now has not only the synopsis completed ahead of time, but a chapter-by-chapter outline, list of characters and their traits, and images I pull from online for what the characters look like (to me) and what the main settings are.

For example, for a novel, I might find pictures of what I feel the two main characters look like, plus any important secondary characters, such as best friends or family. Then I’d also find pictures for how I see their houses/apartments, as well as the neighborhoods they live in. I’d have a separate file with all these notes in it BEFORE I actually start writing, so all I have to do is follow the plan.

This still allows plenty of creativity when I’m coming up with the story’s outline, but it allows me a roadmap that lets me spend less time daydreaming where I’m going to send my characters next, and more time just to send them there.

Mistakes Along the Way

I did mention mistakes along the way, didn’t I? Well, there are several I’ve made and I’d recommend avoiding.

Distractions

Yep, you know what I’m talking about. That email that needs to be answered, the TikTok video that just needs to be watched. Before you know it, the whole day is gone.

I have very stringent rules of operation, but you’ll have to find what works for you. The important way to avoid distractions is to create a “writing environment” that works for you. That way, when you have these conditions met in your environment, your brain already knows: “It’s time to write!”

These are the four conditions that I try to make happen in order to work at my breakneck pace:

• Earplugs — No, I’m not kidding. Whether you like to listen to music when writing or need earplugs like me, it’s a great way to just create a controlled environment that avoids you from getting distracted. Turn off your phone, if you can, and only check it when you take a break. Don’t be signed into email. Make sure you can shut out the outside world for a stretch of time when you’re writing. It’ll still be there when you’re done.
• Professional setting — Whatever this means to you, find a place where you go to write. I have an office now, but I used to have my desk in the middle of my living room where my kids played (thus the earplugs). It might be a place away from your home — a coffeeshop, a library, etc. But find a place that says to you: I’ve got to write!
• Beverage — This might seem silly, but I always like to have a hot drink available, preferably with caffeine. My writing drink of choice is chai, and so every time I brew a cup, just the smell of it will put me in the mindset of getting to work. Chai time is writing time.
• Timing — I write the same time every day, so that when I get my butt in the chair, my mind’s ready to go. While life isn’t perfect and sometimes other things get in the way — doctor’s appointments, school trips, etc. — at least I know what I’m doing when 8 a.m. rolls around most days.

Procrastination

Related to distractions, but I think procrastination is a distinct category all of its own. Most writers I know are procrastinators, myself included. And even when I desperately want to write, it’s sometimes hard to sit down and make myself. Not because I can’t, not because of any particular reason, but because when I NEED to do something, I generally don’t WANT to do it.

But I’ve found different ways to trick myself. These are what work for me:

• Schedule — By creating a regular writing schedule, I’ll be sitting at my desk and have the file open and ready to go. Then I have nothing else to to do but what’s scheduled on my calendar.
• Deadlines — Creating both real and artificial deadlines can be helpful. There are certain dates that my publisher wants my books, and certain dates that my clients want their words delivered. By working toward deadlines, it helps me regulate my time better to accomplish it.
• Milestones — Breaking a big project into smaller, achievable milestones with rewards is the best way to make the overall project seem less intimidating. If I tell myself I have to write a book in a week, it seems daunting. But if I tell myself — oh, just a couple hours of writing here, a couple there… it doesn’t seem like such a slog. And giving myself a reward afterwards is a key way that helps me operate. “I’ll write 2 hours, then take a walk.” Or, “I’ll write 4 hours and eat a piece of chocolate.” Yes, I’m a simple creature, but having small bursts of work followed by a reward is a great way to get through the many hours it takes to write a book.
• Comparison — If there’s something else hanging over my head that I like WAY worse — such as vacuuming — then getting my brain into writing is the lesser of two evils. I point my natural procrastination impulse towards a different target that I really DON’T want to do, so I can therefore get my writing done much easier. And it’s always great motivation to tell myself: Hey, at least I’m not vacuuming.
• DON’T EDIT — This is the #1 way that I procrastinate… by going back and editing written work before I’ve finished the whole book. This is the knell of death!!! The way I avoid getting sucked into, “Oh, I’ll just fix this little part here… and then here… and then here…” is by LOCKING away what I’ve already written. If you have to, have 2 files that you save for each project — one is your working chapter each day, one is the rest of the book. Once you finish writing a chapter, transfer it to the other document and DON’T GO BACK to it. Once the writing is put down on the page, it’s in the vault. Only go forward, not backward.

Conclusion

Fast writers are created, not born. If you can learn to be a writer, you can learn to do it quickly and well. Follow these simple steps, avoid procrastinating, and you’ll be well on your way to perhaps writing a book a week, like I do.

If you’d like to find out more about my journey to writing a book a week, check out “Author Versus AI” below — where my mission came from, how it started, and where it’s going to take me in 2024.