How I Mapped Out My Next Book In 30 Minutes
The most productive half-hour of my week
This week I’ve been attending Bookfest with Shaa Wasmund. It’s a free, pop-up, get-your-book-written event on Facebook.
One of the sessions encouraged us to map out our book in 30 minutes. I scoffed, and (in an effort to prove the impossibility of such a thing) set a timer.
Half an hour later, I was overjoyed if a little egg-faced. My book was mapped out. Start to finish. I even had chapter titles. There’s a lot of work still to do, but the first step is complete.
Here’s how I did it, following Shaa’s advice.
I spat it out
Not what it sounds like. I just took ALL the ideas (good and bad) related to my book idea, out of my head and put them onto paper.
I brought it together
That is, I took all the ideas and put them into a logical order (according to topics, themes, linked ideas etc.)
I mind mapped
This involved taking each theme/topic/set of ideas and mind mapping what I actually want to say about each one.
I created a chapter structure
From my messy mind map. Which mostly involved deciding what goes where, in which section and in which chapter.
At this point I decided on (a lot of) chapter names. That wasn’t even part of the assignment. I’m giving myself bonus credit for that one.
If this is something you want to attempt I strongly suggest you sign up for Bookfest, hop into the Facebook group and watch the trainings.
I’m not involved or affiliated with it in any way so can’t tell you how long the replays will be there, but they’re still there as I write this. See you over there.
Some thoughts from others I’ve been enjoying this week
How to Repurpose Your Writing on Substack in 3 Simple Steps by
&7 steps to writing a newsletter or article with less stress and more fluidity by Alex Mathers
Grow Your Email List And Sell More Books by @J. R. Hiembigner
What else I’ve been up to this week
Reading: Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon
Watching: Book Fest trainings
Enjoying: The Substack x Publishing Sparkle Summit with
andAlso Enjoying: Medium Day (not sure how long this info will stay up either, but check it out if it’s still there)
This week’s Medium posts
(Friend links, as always, so you can read for free - and this week’s are ‘atomic posts’ so they’ll only take around a minute or so to read.)
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I like the “spit it out” for the outline. That’s how I do my first drafts—spit all ideas into 60-80k words and worry about structuring later.
Oh, and I used to mind map on paper. Now I prefer my ReMarkable 2 writing tablet. But if I didn’t have one, I’d be using paper. It’s just an intermediate step after all. And easier to expand in weird ways than software. Even if you have to tack on another sheet of paper.