Nonfiction Picture Book: Let’s Get Motivated!

It’s been fun to hear from each of you who wants to do a nonfiction picture book step-by-step here on my blog. (And Chris, I won’t forget your interest in writing a fiction story to submit to Highlights…that might be fun to do together next!)

But now! Hip hip hooray! We’re going to go through the process of writing an 800-word nonfiction picture book together. We’re going to have lots of fun plus learn important techniques along the way. And at the end of the journey, whether or not we’ve been able to write the quality of manuscript that can get published in today’s market, we will have grown as writers. We’ll be moving forward in our career. We’ll be actually factually making steps to pursue our dreams as writers.

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SPECIAL NOTE: If you want to follow along and take your time doing this, just follow the upcoming posts from today’s date until March 27, 2014. But if you want to speed ahead and go through the process in just 3 weeks instead of 3-4 months, CLICK HERE to hop forward to the March 27 post where I get us started on the 3-week track for writing a nonfiction picture book.

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Now, at the beginning of a new project, I like to make a commitment to follow through until the end. If I approach it with a ho-hum attitude, I’ll never make it to the finish line.

If you’ve never written an 800 nonfiction picture book before, you might not know what’s ahead. Basically, there will be research and chunks of writing and outlining/plotting and chunks of writing and more research and chunks of writing and reading other nonfiction picture books and revising and more chunks of writing.

I’m planning on spending the next two to three months working on this project together with you here on my blog where we’ll each write our own picture book while you follow along with the steps I actually take.

And just for a note of encouragement…you CAN do this. An 800 word first draft can be written in less than an hour. Of course, it will needs lots of research and revision, but that’s how quickly it can be done. Because it’s a first draft.

We’re going to take lots of strategic steps, however, and write our nonfiction picture books in chunks and paragraphs and sections with careful planning. That’s why we’ll be taking 2 or 3 months to do it. But it will still only be 800 words. And it will still be a first draft, so it will still probably be pretty lousy. That’s because it will be a first draft.

But then, after we finish the first draft from beginning to end, I’ll give you some tips on how to edit it and polish it after the first draft is written until it’s the best you know how to write at this point of your writing journey.

Each one of us has different things on our plates and each one of us has different things that motivate us.

So first I want to hear from you. Are you making a commitment to write the first draft of this 800-word nonfiction book from beginning to end? If so, post a comment here and let us know. Accountability is always a good way to get motivated.