Plan Slow, Write Fast. Take the Time To Plan Your Book Right.
You decided to write a book. Great! That’s exciting. Writing a book can make a difference in your life and your business. It can make a difference in the lives of people who read it. The process of writing can be a journey of discovery. All of that is true, but none...
How and What To Read To Improve Your Writing
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” ~ Stephen King Stephen King knows a thing or two about writing. He’s written 65 novels selling over 400 million copies, so you should take him seriously when he says...
3 Reasons to Single-Task and Half a Dozen Ways To Get It Right
“Do one thing at a time.” My mother said that long before multitasking became one of the top ineffective behaviors of our age. Mom also said, “You can’t do two things at once. She had it only half right. As Gary Keller said, “You can do two things at once, but you...
How Writing Your Book Is and Is Not Like Qualifying for the Olympics
“I could do that.” The Olympic Games are on. All over the world, people sit on couches watching marvelous athletic performances on their screens and saying to themselves, “I could do that.” That’s one way that qualifying for the Olympics and writing a book are...
We Were Creative Once… And Young
Children act creative. Most adults don’t. Children let their ideas bubble over, making up stories and games as they go. Ask them to think of how to do something, and they’ll likely come up with several ideas. Adults don’t act like that. When children are in groups,...
Writer’s Block: Name It and Tame It
When my friend Rick asked me if I ever had writer's block, I gave him my standard response: “No, not really.” Then I thought about it for a bit. Some knowledgeable people don’t believe there’s such a thing as writer's block. Dr. Robert Boice spent a career studying...
How To Produce More Great Work With the Wallas Cycle
We all want to write better. We strive to produce more great content more easily. That’s more likely to happen if you have a reliable writing process, and that writing process is more likely to be effective if it’s based on tested methods and scientific validation....
How To Make Progress on Your Book When Life Intervenes
Joe, Judy, and Mike were all working steadily on their books. Then life intervened. A crisis in Joe’s business claimed his time and attention. He won’t be able to continue writing every morning at the same time and in the same place for an hour or two. Judy has a...
How To Become a Thought Leader
“You can see by our outfits that we are both cowboys. If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy, too.” Nope. You don’t become a cowboy just by getting an outfit. And you don’t become a thought leader just by saying you are one. Declaring yourself a thought leader...
Getting the Most from Your Reading: Using Kindle Flashcards
Students have used flashcards for years to learn all kinds of things, from multiplication tables and Hebrew vocabulary to matching names with faces. But there’s a slightly different reason you should use them to get value from your business books and research. People...