Dave Haslett [Haslett - The Fastest Way to Write Your Book

Dave Haslett

For Lorraine

Copyright Dave Haslett 2019

E-book edition published in Great Britain in 2019

by ideas4writers, 19 Crow Green, Cullompton, Devon, EX15 1EW

ideas4writers.com

The right of Dave Haslett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Cover images by Arek Socha and Pixaline from Pixabay
Icons by Dave Gandy and Puppets from flaticon.com

All rights reserved

The contents of this work may not be stored, copied, transmitted, sold, or reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher.

Welcome to the second edition of The Fastest Way to Write Your Book.

Since I wrote the first edition in 2005, Ive written dozens more books using the techniques described here, and I can attest that they work.

Until I wrote that first edition, Id always struggled to find the time to write the long list of books that filled my head. I wrote a novel a year between 1986 and 1988, but then various life events got in the way and I didnt write any books at all for more than fifteen years. I even gave up my day job to become a writer, but I still couldn't find enough time.

Eventually, the urge to write books became so great that I decided to write a full-length book in thirty days or less, regardless of any hurdles that life put in my way. To achieve that feat, I planned to gather together all the speed-writing techniques I could find, adapt from other disciplines, or come up with by myself. And they worked!

I wrote the first edition of this book all 240 pages of it in just twenty-three days. And I was proud of it, especially as it proved that the methods within it actually worked. Readers loved the book too. But heres the thing: I wrote it while I was still learning how to write quickly. If Id known about the techniques from the outset, I could have written it even faster.

Today, I can write a full-length non-fiction book in around fifteen days, going from initial idea to finished second draft. That includes all the brainstorming, research, planning, outlining and writing. I generally write for around two and a half hours per day. A full-length novel takes me about eighteen days from initial idea to finished second draft.

Once the second draft is finished, I put the book away for three months and work on other projects. Then I print it out and go through the text with a red pen to fix all the errors. There are usually a lot of errors I often get through two pens per book.

That whole process, including printing it out, red-penning it to death, and typing in all the corrections and amendments, takes around ten days.

I now have a complete third draft, which I send to a friend to proofread. Hes brilliant at finding the mistakes Ive missed. Then I let a couple of other people read it, as I know I can trust them to spot any remaining errors between them. And thats it: the job is done. The book just needs a good cover, some simple formatting, and its ready for publication.

The most important thing to me at least is that although I write each book in just two or three weeks, most of my readers dont know that. If you use the techniques well discuss shortly, you dont lose any quality in your writing and your style doesnt change. The words you end up with are the ones you would have written anyway. You just write them a heck of a lot faster.

If anyone asks you, I suggest you tell them you spent eight or nine months writing your book. Theyll not only believe you, theyll admire your skill and dedication for doing it. Dont ever tell them it only took you a couple of weeks. Half of them wont believe you, and theyll feel insulted that you lied to them. The other half will criticise your book without reading it, declaring it garbage that you churned out without giving it proper thought.

You might also want to adopt a pen name or several of them. Why? Well, lets think ahead to the end of your third year of writing books the fast way. Lets say you written ten books a year and your thirtieth book is just coming out. And lets say you claimed that each of those thirty books took you nine months to write. If any of your friends are mathematicians, they might start asking questions!

If you release your books under various pen names, and dont tell anyone who knows you what they are, youll avoid those awkward questions about how you managed to produce twenty-two years worth of writing in just three years.

I write under four names. I use my own name for books on writing like this one and I use pen names for books on other subjects, novels, and well, lets just say other projects.

Dave Haslett
July 2019

Heres the plan: were aiming to spend one week coming up with The Big Idea, researching it, planning the book and creating an outline. Well then spend three weeks writing the first draft. Thats zero to finished first draft in under a month. Not bad, eh? Well still have to edit it and polish it of course, so allow another week or two for that. And then we have to sell it as quickly as possible. That, in a nutshell, is what this book is all about.

Im going to guide you through over three hundred techniques that will allow you to write a book in the fastest time possible. The process wont necessarily be an easy one, but I hope youll find it both fun and illuminating. The potential rewards are enormous: imagine writing ten bestselling books in a year. Or twenty in two years!

You wont need to use anywhere near the three-hundred-plus techniques in this book. About twenty should be more than enough, as long as you choose the right ones. Somewhere in this book youll find the perfect combination that will work for you. Its up to you to decide what they are, and to put them into practice.

This book is for:

• Those who would like (or need) to write a book but cant ever seem to find the time.
• Writers who want (or need) to build up a large body of work very quickly.
• Writers who dont want to spend several hours a day slaving over a word processor when they could be doing other things.

But this book wont teach you how to write; there are plenty of excellent writing tutorials and courses available. If youd prefer to let your story develop slowly and find its own way, while you write at a leisurely pace, then this book is not really aimed at you.

Back in the mid 1980s, I wrote three novels. They werent very good, and the three (yes, only three!) publishers I sent them to rejected them. Each of those three books took me nine months to write. Since then Ive started and abandoned two more. And then I finally learnt how to write books properly. The first draft of my fifth novel is just about finished. It needs an extensive rewrite but I dont have time to do it. The whole thing is sitting in my head, getting in the way of other thoughts. I need to get it written and out of my system.

The idea of starting the ideas4writers website was that I would have somewhere to put the hundreds of ideas Id never have the time to use. The plan was that running the website would take no more than a week or two each month, leaving the rest of the time for writing. It didnt work out that way, of course. The website and my various products are in a constant state of development and revision, so I still dont have any time for writing. But at least I now get to choose my working hours.

Meanwhile, not only is this fifth novel cluttering up my brain, but Ive had a great idea for a sixth one too and a seventh and an eighth and a ninth. But novel number six is topical I need to get it written and published before a certain forthcoming event happens.