Welcome to day five of our 28-day book writing challenge. I’m just checking in with you today. Some of you may be writing books along with me. Others of you may just be watching the journey as I go along.
If you remember, the last time I talked to you, I was a little bit behind. So I want to tell you what’s going on now This is day five. Normally I would be writing my first chapter today, but what I did instead was some catching up.
Review
I had mentioned last time that I had done some research and some brainstorming. So I had the notes from some of the best-selling books, and also two pages of brainstorming. Then I went through and grouped similar items together.
Today’s Progress
Today what I did was go through and title those groups. As I was titling the groups I saw some that were quite similar. And so I came up with similar titles. And I saw that those would make suitable chapters for the rest of my book. So I did that.
Then I came around and I put the titles in the best order for me. List and where I came up with the names of the titles and then I had rearranged the order that I wanted and then one more change.
I started with chapter eight because I already had enough information for the first seven chapters. So when I started numbering these today, I numbered them chapters eight through chapter 16. The last change that I made was I had a title for chapter 16 called “Valuing Combats Fear and Shame” and then I had another chapter called “Valuing Makes Marriage Enjoyable.” I decided to switch those two so the last chapter would have a little more positive title.
Chapter Titles
Here are the chapter titles that I have come up with:
Chapter 8: Valuing Produces Trust (I changed that to Relates to)
Chapter 9: Valuing Encourages Both Husband and Wife
Chapter 10: Valuing Recognizes Each Other’s Love Languages
Chapter 11: Valuing Enhances Motivation
Chapter 12: Valuing Can Affair-Proof Your Marriage
Chapter 13: Valuing Combats Fear and Shame
Chapter 14: Valuing Gives Children Security
Chapter 15: Valuing Shows Gratitude
Chapter 16: Valuing Makes Marriage Enjoyable
Chapter Plan
Next, I started working on the chapter writing plan for each of the chapters, and I came up with 12 ideas for chapter eight. If you studied those blog posts (www.randysblogs.com) that I talked about last time, which started on January 25, and they ended on March 2, the advice was to come up with anywhere from 12 to 18 ideas for your chapter.
So for Chapter 8, I came up with 12 ideas. Then I did what I was supposed to do and eliminated three. This just stimulates your brain and causes you to think and sometimes you can combine ideas. This also helps you get rid of some of the weaker ideas that you had.
So I eliminated three. In this case, I actually eliminated three of them, and I didn’t combine any. That left me with nine chapter ideas. Then, beside them I put numbers, arranging them in the best order for me and hopefully, for my readers.
Next, I turned those ideas into questions. For each question, I came up with three trigger words or phrases that would stimulate my brain into thinking about how to answer each of those questions.
Trigger Words and Phrases
So here is the chapter outline writing plan for chapter eight “Valuing Relates to Trust”:
1. When does building trust start?
As a child
Before marriage
Early in marriage
2. Why is feeling trusted important to men?
Men don’t like to feel like failures
Motivated
Reciprocal
3. Why does trusting her husband build the wife’s security?
Affair
Alone
Provision
4. How does seeing your spouse come through for you build trust?
Brings closer
Confidence
Happiness
5. How does being on the same page about money relate to trust?
Eliminates fear
Being OK with some spending
Giving
6. Why is risk-taking important and how will trust help?
Sometimes your job involves risk-taking.
Sometimes delving into ministry involves risk-taking.
You can trust God
7. How does the trust that comes from being valued help when both of you are going to be in an area where you’re around the opposite sex?
Relaxed
Free
Not jealous
8. How do policies about not being alone with members of the opposite sex build trust?
No opportunity
Stop before starting
It can be difficult
9. Why will it take extra effort to restore trust if it has been broken in a marriage?
Betrayal
Again
Fear
Free-Flow Writing
This is the secret to free-flow writing. I simply read the question, look at the trigger words, start the timer for five minutes and write as quickly as I can, answering those questions using those trigger words as prompts. If I get finished early, I’ll just force myself to keep writing.
In the editing stage, I’ll probably get rid of some of that, but sometimes you get really good ideas when you force yourself to keep writing. If I fall short, I’ll just put an ellipsis (…) there and I will finish it later on in the editing stage. So that’s where we’re going with this.
I haven’t written chapter 8 yet, but I’m ready to go with that and I’m motivated. For tomorrow, I’m going to start coming up with 12 to 18 ideas for each of the other chapters and I’m going to start coming up with the writing plans for each chapter. But I especially want to do writing plans for chapters nine and ten. I if I do not write chapter eight tonight, then tomorrow my goal is to write chapter eight and chapter nine and if that happens, at that point, I will be caught up.
How’s it going for you? Leave some comments and let me know what you’re doing. What’s your idea for your book? How far are along are you getting? Do you have some questions?
Well, I hope you have a great day and until the next time in the 28-day writing challenge, I encourage you to remember YOU CAN WRITE A BOOK.