The ABC's of Writing and Publishing: Day One Page One

Here's a wonderful Sneak Peek at the companion textbook coming in October for my ABC's of Writing and Publishing Classes!

CHAPTER FIVE

Day One Page One

So, you’ve got your writing space all set up. Now what you do? How do you start writing? In other words, what are the things you do on “Day One Page One” of each new book?

First of all, I love the first day of writing a new book! It’s truly one of my favorite parts of the entire process. I know that for a lot of people, it’s scarier than Hell. But not for me! And I think after you go through this chapter, you’ll find it just as joy-filled and exciting as I do.

For me, it’s sort of a rite of passage. I’m so full of gratitude for having finished and published the last book I wrote, and I’m thrilled to be ready to crank out the next one! By the time I get to this point, the actual story idea and much of the book itself has been percolating inside my head and heart, waiting for its divine time to spill out onto my pages.

Oh, and for the record, in no way do I know at this point everything there is to know about the story I’m about to write. I’m lucky if I even know half the characters or a few of the universal themes I want to explore. I just start with whatever I’ve got. The rest will appear as I’m working with what I already have figured out.

It doesn’t matter if this is your first book or if it’s the next in a long line of books you’re writing. It’s a magical moment. You’re about to start the birthing process of something that no one has ever seen before, including you! You’re creating a one-of-a-kind piece of art. You have the courage to create, and that’s magical in and of itself.

Let’s start with a few logistics…

I currently write on my laptop, but that doesn’t mean you can’t write your book the old-fashioned way using a pen and paper. It’s whatever works for you.

In fact, for many of my books, I start by handwriting my ideas on paper or whatever happens to be around when the ideas strike me. Case in point, I have a box filled with cocktail napkins, restaurant placemats, scraps of paper and cardboard box pieces because that’s all I’ve had at the time to write on. I’ve even started writing a book in the Notes App on my smart phone.

I type all of my books in Microsoft Word (which is the preferred program for uploading the ebook and print files to Amazon’s KDP). I use the Times New Roman font, and I use 12 for the font size. Again, this is because this the font and size you’ll use when your formatting your book during the publication process.

I single-space my sentences and add a space between each paragraph so it’s easier for me to read as I’m writing and typing. If you’d rather double space the entire thing because it’s easier for you to read that’s fine. You’ll format the entire document later with the correct spacing for both your ebook and print files. Whatever you do, though, DO NOT INDENT the beginnings of each paragraph. I repeat. DO NOT INDENT! For some reason, taking out the indents is not easy when you’re formatting. So, do yourself a favor, and don’t indent to begin with.

Also, I set my Zoom Level at 170% so that it’s easy for me to see what I’ve got on my screen. Keep your eyes happy and comfortable.

When I begin typing on my first day of a new book, I have a little routine that I really enjoy. I like to begin by typing out a lot of the book’s “Front Matter.” The Front Matter includes the Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication and Table of Contents (TOC). I’ve given you a sample of each in the Appendix.

***Note: Even fiction books will have a TOC for the ebook version so that readers can quickly go to whatever chapter they want to.

By starting with the Front Matter, it prevents you from feeling as if you’re staring at a blank document without anything written! I know…it seems like a psychological trick. And it seems that way because it is! But who cares?! It works! Typing out the Front Matter first means you’ve already got several pages done by the time you start on Chapter One or wherever you choose to start writing your book.

***Note: You can start writing your book from whatever point you’d like to. For example, if you know the ending, write that first. Whatever scenes or chapters jump out at you mean that your muses are more than ready to help you with that part of your book. So go for it! You can figure out the order of everything later.

I do write most of my books from Chapter One all the way through to The End, but that’s just what works for me. That said, I often have handwritten notes about entire scenes so that I can pull those out when I’m ready for them. In the Appendix, I also give you a sample of Chapter One Page One as well as a sample Part One, if that’s applicable to your book. For example, often when you’re writing non-fiction, you’ll divide your book into parts or sections (as I did in this book), so you’ll want a separate page denoting the beginning of each part.

Now that you’ve got your Front Matter typed (and yes there’s Back Matter too — for example, your Author Bio and Books by Author — but we’ll get to that later), you’re ready to jump in and write your book!

When you’re finished writing for the day, it’s so So SO important that you SAVE your book in several places. You’ll want to of course save the file on your computer. I also save it to a thumb drive that I keep in my purse. Also, each day, I email myself the most updated version of the story. That way, God forbid, you have a house fire or there’s a tornado, flood, or any other type of natural disaster and your home is gone, and perhaps your purse with the thumb drive in it too, you’ve got a copy of your work online to begin where you left off. Sometimes, I also save the work to a cloud service such as Google Drive. I also backup my entire laptop to an external drive once a month. If you have a safe, you can keep the external drive in your safe.

I’m sure you’re getting the idea by now. You can never have too many copies of your manuscript. You don’t want to lose what you’ve written so do yourself a favor and create a little routine of saving your work to multiple places each and every time you write new pages or edit what you’ve already got. I simply title each day’s work as “(Name of Book) Updated.” I replace the previous day’s file by that name with the new one, and that way I immediately know which file is the latest version of the book.

Once you’ve got your work finished for Day One Page One, and it’s saved in multiple places, it’s time to celebrate! You’ve accomplished a major victory! So many people say they want to write a book, but then never ever begin to actually write one. You just did it! Pamper yourself silly! Perhaps take another Muse Therapy Trip to inspire your muses for Day Two and beyond.

Throughout the entire writing-for-publication process, I’ll encourage you, every single step you achieve, to celebrate. Take time to bask in every accomplishment. That’s one way that you keep the joy at the center of your process.

Every chapter of this book that you read and apply, you’re another step closer to making your dream of being a published author come true. Know that I’m cheering you on every step of the way, and I’m here to answer any questions you have.

If you have questions and/or you’d love to celebrate your achievements with fellow writers working through this process with you, hop on over and "Like" and "Save" my Facebook Page D. D. Scott’s ABC’s of Writing and Publishing . We’ve got a seat saved for you! You’ll learn a lot there and have a great time doing so! Also, I’ll soon have bunches of fantastic online class videos about each step of the writing-for-publication process. Be watching for those right here at Let Love Glow!

Congrats, again! You’ve completed Day One Page One!

Happy Writing --- DD