I am anxious and scared and excited to begin this book writing project. I’m going to also add slightly intimidated into the mix as well. Why? Well let’s be honest. I’ve only been freelancing since November of last year and I still feel as though maybe I haven’t earned all my stripes yet. Self doubt is an issue that a lot of beginners face and it’s tough to know when you can go from referring to yourself as a “beginner” to just a plain old everyday “freelancer”. It’s not as though there is a rule book that says you need to have written X amount of articles, made X amount of money or been actively pursuing it for X amount of weeks/months/years. I am just taking deep breaths and focusing on one aspect of this project at a time. That’s one of the really great things about this publisher. They are very organized in terms of assigning work to their writers. They provide all kinds of checklists and resources to keep you working on some kind of schedule. As of now here are the basics of the book:
- 65k words
- must create intro, chapters, table of contents and biblio.
- must incorporate anywhere from 10 – 20 case studies into book
- time frame for completion is 3 months (due date is slated for 6/12/08)
- create author (that’s me) bio
- get professional looking author photo for book
I also have to set out my own personal time line for getting the work done. For instance, I’d like to do the reading and research during the week and the actual writing on the weekends when I have free time.
Another thing that I just realized is that while AP gives you a lot of rules regarding format, style, etc. they also give you a lot of leeway with your writing topic. I mean it’s essentially up to me how I will organize the content, what images to include, what questions to ask my interviewees. At the same time, they prepare you with a wealth of useful information which takes a lot of the “scary” factor away. Not to mention the fact that while I do have a substantial amount of writing, I have never written a book and yet they are still giving me this wonderful opportunity to have a go at it and add a great item to my portfolio.
photo courtesy of Jupiter Images
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March 12, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Debra
Good luck with your writing project. It sounds like you/they are taking the sensible approach by breaking it up into manageable chunks.
By the way, I’ve been doing this in one form or another for the past ten years, and I still call myself a beginner sometimes! No matter how much I write, it seems there is always something new left to learn.
March 12, 2008 at 9:09 pm
blueeyegirl
Thanks for the well-wishes. I know exactly what you mean. I think we are too hard on ourselves as writers. we settle for crappy projects with equally crappy pay just because we don’t think that we are worth the bigger, better paying jobs. When will we learn??!!
By the way, I’ve added a link to your blog since I think it may be useful for my readers to check it out. If that’s a problem, let me know.
-L.