Lesson 4: Writing Tools for your book

It’s time to organize your book writing ...

There are number of ways to and tools to organize your writing projects. I’m going to give you a few of my favorite, but the key here is to keep it simple and not over complicate it.

For brainstorming:

A moleskin notebook to take notes and play with ideas by hand as you are brainstorming.

Sticky notes. This is an old school method that is wonderful for all of you who love the hands on approach to organizing. Anyone love sticky notes and lots of color? Then this might just be for you! You can use sticky notes of index cards work as well to write chapters and move them around to see how they flow. If you prefer a digital version of this, Miro is awesome!

Here’s how the sticky note lover organizes:

-Write down all your ideas of sticky notes or index cards

-Use a cork board, wall, or whiteboard

-Begin arranging your stickies/ cards in groups that feel aligned or themed

-Once your groups become substantial, begin moving the groups around to create a flow of chapter to chapter.

Mind Map Lover. Mind mapping is great for brainstorming all kinds of things, and also forming book layouts. It’s a visual approach to taking big ideas and whittlings them down to focused thought or action.

Here’s how the Mind Map Lover organizes:

-Draw a big round circle and write my next book in the middle

-add several small circles around the big one and name them chapter 

1 , 2, 3, 4, etc….

-Next to the cloud begin to create a drop down list of what each chapter will include.

-Feel free to name chapters

For book writing:

Google docs is classic and easy to use. You can create a folder and subfolders for chapters to organize.

Pages or Word is great too. This is really easy to use and you can add page numbers and keep track of word count for the process.

Lastly, Scrivener is an amazing writing program for people writing their books! It allows you to organize your thoughts on a virtual cork board and move them around just like you would with sticky notes, as well as organizing your book into chapters. This does have an initial cost for the program and a bit of a learning curve, but it does work great.

Here is the link: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Whichever you choose, be sure to save and then save again. You want to make sure your work is backed up in a few different places so that it cannot be lost.

Before moving on, research and pick the program and tools of your choice. Set up your station for it, so that you are ready to go when you start writing.

Yay! Not that you have that in place, let’s dive into the next session.