Regarding when I write...all times of the day and night. In that I am fully self-employed and work out of my home, I have a lot of flexibility on my writing time.
I do write every day. What I write depends on which of the various projects I am working on. I usually write at least one or two articles a week. Sometimes more if there is a specific reason.
Right now I am working on a new eProduct which is requiring a considerable amount of my time. I hope to have it released very soon, so I am writing as much as 8 – 10 hours a day (that’s in addition to doing other things too)
When working on a book or an information eProduct, I tend to spend much more time writing than if I am in between large projects. Sometimes staying focused can be a discipline in that there are always other things I can be doing, like reading emails and other time consumers that may not be the best use of my time when working on a project.
I find some of my best writing is in the middle of the night. This used to bother me because I thought I should sleep like “normal” people. I finally gave up that limiting thought years ago and it works great for me.
Whenever I have company (family and friends) who spend the night, they always think my hours are quite strange.
If I am writing with a partner, the timing can change. For example, when Lori and I wrote the book The Law of Achievement
www.lawofachievement.com we spent many a day writing while her husband was convalescing from his accident.
For those of you who don’t know, the book was inspired by Troy’s accident that left him on death’s door for quite some time.
Actually, at that time, my concern was sharing time with a friend (Lori) and giving her something to do other than the constant focus on her husband’s condition. It worked. During the difficult period of recovery after Troy was released from the hospital, the writing brought a sense of hope and normallacy to Lori and to our friendship and business relationship.
The way we worked on that project is we would meet face-to-face, talk about our philosophy and beliefs about achievement, as one or the other would type. It worked well. At that time I was living about 30 miles from Lori. Now I live 1,200 which makes meeting face-to-face extremely challenging.
It was exciting to see Troy (who at that time, could not walk very well and required a lot of medical care and surgeries) grow excited about what we were doing. He was actually a beam of light for both of us to keep going on the project.
When we first started the project, neither of us knew the potential of the book and all that would open up as a result. It was more just to put our thoughts on paper. It was a very cathartic experience.
Yet, somehow during this period we developed a plan to have EWI involved in the project; including getting short writings from several of the Chapter Presidents, and put together a full marketing plan which included getting lots of JV partners to promote the book and help us take it to bestseller on Amazon.com
How we got the presidents to contribute is I sent a message out explaining what we were doing. Since most of the presidents know Lori and I and were fully aware of Troy’s accident, it didn’t take but asking once to get some incredible contributions that now reside in the book.
As I look back on that time period and all that was going on, I honestly do not know how we did it. Especially Lori and Troy. No doubt we were divinely inspired. No doubt there was inspiration from above.
Almost without fail, before we began writing we would pray, asking for guidance. It always seemed to be there.
Today Troy is doing incredibly well. He is walking and well on his way to a great recovery.
On most of the projects I have had co-authors on I am usually the project manager. I tend to work well when I am in the lead role for the project.
It can be challenging if you work with folks who don’t deliver on time, or the writing style is very different than yours.
This is where a really good editor comes in. If you are keeping separate voices in the writing that is one thing, but if you want the voices to blend it takes a strong editor to be able to pull it all together.
Communication is essential in any project where you co-author with others. Don’t assume everyone is on the same page. Review each other’s work to make sure you are on track with your overall goals.
Hope this information helps. If you have more specific questions, bring it on!
Kathleen
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