How to Outline and Write a Book Quickly

I am one of those many writers who wants to get a manuscript published. I know what I want my book to say, I am filled with ideas, but I struggle in figuring out exactly how I want to organize and present them. This makes it difficult for me to sit down and write a book, because I am stuck in a mindset that says I need to do it in "linear fashion" in much the same way I write articles or blog posts.

So what happens? I start to feel overwhelmed, and because I feel like I am standing at the bottom of a mountain looking up, I do something else because it just seems like too much to do right now... and alas the book sits in my brain and not on paper.

The hard truth is a whole book is not going to come out in perfect order without some organization in place. It will have to come in chunks and be arranged later (against my writing grain)

So this is what I have come up with and it is working very well. It breaks the whole process down into "doable" tasks that are actually fun. You get the benefit of free writing where you can explore fully multitudes of ideas because you are not worried about structure.

You can use a free software like "free mind" or use index cards or whatever you feel comfortable with.

The idea is to sit down each morning and write ten ideas - express them well and place them on a card or in your mind map software - even on notebook paper. If you're like me you'll find you don't stop right away and may come up with 20 or 30 "thought capsules" a day. Do this every day and keep the ideas all separated and don't run them together. At the end, you'll be cutting them out into little slips of paper or if you used cards and hand wrote them (something I don't have the patience for) you can simply arrange the cards in a recipe box in order.

Write whatever you like without worries about structure, grammar, spelling etc. and keep it until you are finished (usually a few weeks) and at the end print off your sheets and cut out the ideas and spend a couple of days sorting them. What goes with what? make piles and then those will essentially be your full outline... you'll have them in order and can develop your table of contents from them and all you have to do as you write your chapters is "flesh out" any ideas you didn't fully express in your notes or cards.

You can then retype them and as you do you will likely note any grammatical/spelling awkward wording and can fix that as you write the second time.

This makes a seemingly ginormous task of writing a book - more like some short daily exercises. After all 30 minutes on a treadmill is easier and much less daunting than running a marathon right out of the gate ;).

Good luck with your writing!