Nancy I. Sanders's Blog, page 61

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Week 2

When I get in my writing rhythm, I often include a self-editing session right before I sit down to write. This accomplishes 2 purposes:

1) I do a quick edit of the section I just wrote.

2) It helps my brain dive back into the manuscript.

Your Editing

So today, spend a few minutes going back over the text you wrote yesterday. Tweak any glaring spots to flow better.

Your Mentor Text

For today, read just the “First Half of the Middle” of your mentor text. You should have noted the page numbers of this section on the plot worksheet you filled out on Wednesday last week. Read this section over again to get the flow/voice/format/structure fresh in your writer’s brain.

Your Research

Focus on reading sections of your research books that have to do with the material you need for writing the first half of your middle.

Your Writing Session

Have the plot worksheet and the outline both handy to look at as you’re working on writing, actually writing, this section of your first draft. These two worksheets will be your roadmap, your GPS system, that you follow as you sit down to write. As you write, if you get stuck because you don’t know the research to back up what you’re trying to say, you have a couple of options.

One thing you can do is just type XX and come back to it later so you can continue your writing flow now.

Another option is to just go dig up those resources to give you the info you need. If you choose the second option, however, don’t get lost in the research right now. Your goal is to finish the first half of the middle today, so come back to writing ASAP.

After your writing session is finished, take a few moments and plug in footnotes for each of the facts you stated. I like to highlight facts that need footnotes in red in my manuscript so that I remember to go back in and include at least 3 sources for each of them or 1 trusted primary source.

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Week 2

As we’re starting out on our second week of writing a nonfiction picture book in 3 weeks, I wanted to give you a heads up that this week is a holiday week for many of us. It’s Easter break at my husband’s school and he’ll be home all week. I know I’m going to have to adjust some of these writing sessions to fit my holiday schedule and you might need to as well.

Go ahead and use the blank calendar I provide to readjust the schedule to fit your personal needs. And if you haven’t yet downloaded either the 3-Week Nonfiction Picture Book Calendar or the 3-Week Blank Calendar, you can find both at the link of my writing buddies, “Writing According to Humphrey and Friends.”

This week we’ll be concentrating on writing the actual first draft of our picture book manuscript. I’ve broken the writing into 5 sessions, so for each session you only need to be writing about 200 words or less. You can do this!

Your Mentor Text

For today, read just the “Beginning” of your mentor text. You should have noted the page numbers of this section on the plot worksheet you filled out on Wednesday last week. Read this section over again to get the flow/voice/format/structure fresh in your writer’s brain.

Your Research

Focus on reading sections of your research books that have to do with the material you need for writing your beginning. If you’ve been doing tons of sweeping overviews of your topic, today is the day to focus on the facts behind what you want to say in the beginning of your manuscript.

Your Writing Session

Have the plot worksheet and the outline both handy to look at as you’re working on writing, actually writing, the beginning section of your first draft. These two worksheets will be your roadmap, your GPS system, that you follow as you sit down to write.

At this point, let go of any critical comments your brain might be trying to say and allow your creative side to speak up. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect (It CAN’T be because it’s a first draft!) and try not to stress out about it. Try most of all to enjoy the magic of the moment of bringing the first shining sunbeams of your thoughts to light.

After your writing session is finished, take a few moments and plug in footnotes for each of the facts you stated. I like to highlight facts that need footnotes in red in my manuscript so that I remember to go back in and include at least 3 sources for each of them or 1 trusted primary source.

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Week 1

One more hour of research.

One more time to read your mentor text.

Now you’re ready to make the outline for your own nonfiction picture book. You can download a blank outline to use on the site of my writing buddies, Writing According to Humphrey and Friends. Just scroll down to find the OUTLINE FOR A NONFICTION PICTURE BOOK. It’s available as a one-page worksheet to print out and fill in by hand or you can download it as a document file to type into on your computer.

CLICK HERE for tips on outlining your story’s BEGINNING.

CLICK HERE for tips on outlining your story’s MIDDLE.

CLICK HERE for tips on outlining your story’s ENDING.

By taking time to brainstorm and plan key plot points of your story this week, you’re creating a roadmap to follow next week when you sit down to actually write your story. Don’t feel as if these ideas are written in stone. They’re just here to guide you in the right direction.

If you’ve been diligent about getting this all done and up-to-date, take a breather! Go ahead and relax so you’ll be ready to go again next week. But if your schedule has been hectic and you’re a little behind, go ahead and use this weekend to catch up if you can.

But most of all, have fun!!!!!

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Week 1

By now you’ve got several hours of research under your belt on the topic you will be writing about.

This research will make the next task go so much smoother!

It’s time to chart the plot of your own nonfiction picture book. CLICK HERE for tips on how to do this.

And now it’s time to pick a working title for your manuscript, if you haven’t already done so. For strategies and a worksheet to help you, CLICK HERE.

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Week 1

After you log in an hour of research on your topic, today is a good day to focus on your mentor text.

Read your mentor text again, from beginning to end.

Each time you read this picture book, it trains your brain to write in this format and with this structure and with this type of voice and with this word count.

After you’re done reading, go ahead and plot the chart of your mentor text. Use the Basic Plot Worksheet A you can download here.

CLICK HERE for strategies on how to chart the plot of the picture book, Those Rebels, John and Tom.

CLICK HERE for strategies on how to chart the plot of the picture book, So You Want to Be President.

CLICK HERE for strategies on how to chart the plot of the picture book, The Camping Trip that Changed America.

Use the same strategies to chart the plot and structure of your own mentor text.

And chances are, snippets of phrases or even entire paragraphs of text might be dancing through your thoughts. If they are, go ahead and write these down so you won’t lose them. Don’t try to hold back your brain from creativity just to keep on a calendar’s schedule.

If you’re raring and ready to start writing, go ahead and write the segments that are begging to come forth. Just don’t feel pressured to sit down and write yet if your mind is still like an empty sponge soaking up all the research and facts about your topic. We’ll have time to write next week.

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Week 1

There are three main tasks to focus on today as you’re working on the first draft of your nonfiction picture book.

1) Type up your bibliography.

Many writers save this for last, but I like to do this early in my journey when I’m working on a new book. I just take a stack of books I want to use in my research and build the bibliography right at the start. Often I include a list of all the children’s books I’ve gathered from the library because even if I don’t actually use them for my research, they make great resources to include in the back if I list “Student Resources” or I can recommend them on a website I build if the book gets published. For more tips on creating your bibliography, CLICK HERE.

2) Research 1 hour.

It will really make the actual writing process go much, much better if you pack in at least 1 hour of research every day this week (and next!).

3) Choose Mentor Text

This is the day to decide which nonfiction picture book will be your mentor text. This will be the one you study to learn specific skills about creating a nonfiction picture book. Once you’ve chosen it, type it out word for word. There are so many benefits to doing this.

A) It trains your brain for writing this exact type of book.

B) It helps build your stamina to write this word count when you sit to type it out in one sitting.

C) You can use this Word document to check stats quickly for paragraphs, sections, or pages in the published book for info such as word count and readability level.

Welcome to My World

If you want to join in on some of the fun that’s going on today and tomorrow, you can hop on over to these sites:

I’m helping celebrate the launch of an all-new group blog for children’s writers, GROG! They invited me to share a testimony of how I have landed so many book contracts in my career, so they posted my article, Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? Read the post, get inspired, and cast your vote on which side of the coop you’ve experienced success as a children’s writer.

And tomorrow join me at 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on the awesome Internet radio show, Christian Devotions SPEAK UP! We’ll be talking about one of my books, Depression: What’s a Christian To Do? I hope you’ll join in the fun!!!!!

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Calendars

I’ve posted two calendars at the site of my feline writing buddies, Writing According to Humphrey and Friends. Scroll down to the section marked CALENDARS, then download and print out both of them:

3-week Blank Calendar

3-week Nonfiction Picture Book Calendar

The 3-week Nonfiction Picture Book Calendar features the tasks I’m completing each day, Monday through Friday, for the next three weeks to write the first draft of my nonfiction picture book. You can follow along, too, and get yours done as well!

The Blank Calendar is there for you to use if you want to rearrange some of the tasks to better suit your own personal schedule. For example, you may want to write on the weekend. Or you may have Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to write for 8 or 9 hours and not be available to write on Tuesday or Thursday. You can use the Blank Calendar to regroup the list of tasks to complete on the days that better fit your schedule.

The 3-week Nonfiction Picture Book Calendar

As you can see on this calendar, the very first Sunday lists pre-writing tasks that were important to take before you begin your writing journey.

1. Make a commitment to follow through for the next three weeks to write the first draft of your nonfiction picture book from beginning to end.

2. Do what it takes to get motivated to sit down and actually write!

3. Gather a stack of potential mentor texts, current nonfiction picture books that you want YOUR picture book to look, sound, and feel like.

4. Choose the broad topic you want to write about. My broad topic is the biography of a famous American founding father. I haven’t yet narrowed the topic on what exactly I’ll be writing about, but I chose this broad topic so I can get started on my research.

5. Gather in a stack of potential research books on your broad topic, both books for adults and children’s books.

MONDAY, our first day

SET UP YOUR RESEARCH CENTER

Today, if you haven’t yet done this, set up your research center. That’s a picture of my research center at the top of this post. I actually set it all out on our dining room table to see what books I had to work with, but then I moved it into my office where I can leave it for the next three weeks. On the far left you can see the pocket folder I’m using to organize all my papers. Next to that is my stack of potential mentor texts. You can see the copy of Thomas Jefferson Builds a Library on top. I’m seriously considering using it as my mentor text. And on the right you can see my stack of potential research books, both for adults and for kids.

So have fun setting up your research center, too! Not only is it a lot of fun to see this all put together, it will help us focus and stay organized for the next three weeks.

RESEARCH 1 HOUR

After you’ve got your research center all set up, choose a book or two, and start reading! As you’re reading, focus on the goal of narrowing your topic. In other words, search for one gold nugget about your topic that you want to focus on. You want it to be a fresh and unique angle on your broad topic that also has great kid-appeal and will be of interest in today’s market. Jot down ideas as you research.

NARROW YOUR TOPIC

Now it’s time to actually choose one narrow topic to write about. CLICK HERE to find some tips on this process if you’re having a tricky time with it.

Research Books

I’ve been getting nasty messages on my phone lately.

They are computer generated and they sound like this:

Hell-OO NAN-cee SANN-drs.

THIS IS YUR LIBrary SIS-tem.

YOU HAV OOO-ve-DUE EYE-tems.

PLEES re-TURN them IMMEDIATELY!!!!!

Now, it helps to realize that right now I have stacks of library books on my research table in my one room here at my house. I have more stacks of library books on my computer desk in my office. I have even more stacks of library books near my couch where I’m reading them.

Some are due this week. Some are due next week. And some are due sometime in between.

So I’ve been really trying to be good about my library books because I have so many right now for all the different projects I’m working on.

Saturday my husband Jeff and I went to the library and returned a batch that were due. So on Sunday when I got my first nasty phone message, I felt really worried. I hurried to my computer to log onto my online account. With this many books out, the overdue fines add up quickly!

Whew! No books overdue on my account. Maybe because it’s Sunday they didn’t yet catch the ones I returned, I thought with relief.

But then a few days later, the same nasty message appeared on my phone! Once again, I raced to my computer and logged on. Nope. No overdue books.

But I thought I better look into this.

So I called my local library and talked with a sweet and helpful librarian. She graciously checked my card number. “No over due items!” she happily announced.

But then she uttered a sentence that sent chills running up and down my spine.

“You wouldn’t happen to have another library card associated with this phone number, would you?” she asked.

Uh-oh.

Poor Jeff.

Once again, he had so nicely helped me out by letting me check books out on HIS card, too. But then I’d forgotten about that.

Poor Jeff. The library police have been after him for years. For MY overdue books on his account. They probably even had his card marked with “Bad library patron. Watch out for this guy.”

Needless to say, we returned HIS (I mean MY) books later that day, especially since they wouldn’t let HIM (I mean ME) renew them since they were WAAAAAY overdue.

Ah well…I guess you could just say that we love to support our local library.

Because we do!

Nonfiction Picture Book in 3 Weeks: Prep

There are just a few other things we can be doing right now to prepare for writing the first draft of a nonfiction picture book in three weeks.

For one thing, it helps to get a little peek at what’s ahead. Simply put, I’ll post a 3-week calendar next Monday that we can follow over the next three weeks to get the job done.

I always organize a tight deadline with a calendar. It helps me stay on task.

Basically, in order to accomplish the goal of writing a nonfiction picture book in 3 weeks, it will take about 3 hours each day, five days a week, to accomplish the tasks.

There really aren’t many shortcuts to take. We’ve got to take time to research. We’ve got to take time to study our mentor text. We’ve got to take time to brainstorm ideas and plot the structure and plan the outline. We’ve got to take time to write, actually write, our first draft.

Try to think of it this way…we’ve spent the last four months learning a lot of the steps and techniques it takes to write a nonfiction picture book. It’s as if we’ve been in training for long distance running. But now we’re going to actually step up and do a half marathon by writing the first draft in 3 weeks. And when we drop everything and write a nonfiction picture book in just one week, it’s as if we’re going to run a marathon. It gets pretty intense. But it’s also just a matter of learning how to rearrange your schedule and build your stamina to write full-time. Lots of folks do this, especially those who want to earn an income from writing.

But don’t worry if you look at your calendar for next week and know you don’t have 3 hours every day to write. Just do what you can and keep moving forward as you can. This book isn’t under contract, so you don’t need to stress out if it takes you longer than three weeks.

I’m just showing you how I accomplish a project like this in this amount of time so that one day when you do get a deadline to write a nonfiction project this quickly, you’ll know how to do it. And if you’re offered a thousand dollars a week to write at this pace (as I’ve been and other writers I know have been) you’ll be highly motivated to clear off your calendar and focus on this project!

But for now, here are 2 important steps to take:

Step 1: Make a commitment to follow along in the upcoming weeks and write an 800-word nonfiction picture book from beginning to end.

Step 2: Figure out what will motivate you to follow through and write the first draft of your manuscript from beginning to end.

The best way to stay motivated is to plan now, plan today, plan this exact moment what you’re going to do to stay motivated so that by the end of the journey you’ll have actually written your picture book.

What are you going to plan? That’s for you to decide. It’s important to choose a method that will actually work for YOU.

Would having another writer join in the journey help you stay motivated for the next 3 weeks?

Then call up a writer friend and ask her to come along and join in the fun!

Would blogging about it on your own blog or posting about it on Facebook help you stay motivated to follow through and write this book?

Then start blogging about it right away and share the progress you’re making with all your readers.

Would a deadline help you stay motivated?

Then get out your calendar and circle April 25 in red and make that your deadline and stick with your goal.

Would a calendar help you stay motivated?

Then print out the calendar I’ll be posting here on my blog next Monday and stick with it.

Would a cash prize help you stay motivated for the next 3 weeks?

Then put $100 in an envelope and hide it somewhere you won’t be able to get it until you actually finish that first draft. When you’re done, take a well-deserved shopping spree!

The point is this: By planning ahead now to reach the finish line in 3 weeks, you can make your dream a reality.

You can write a nonfiction book from beginning to end and actually get it done. And in today’s market where nonfiction picture books are hot, this is a fantastic accomplishment to make as a children’s writer.

So how about it? What are you going to do today to make sure you stay motivated for the next 3 weeks to write, actually write, the first draft of your 800-word nonfiction picture book? We’d love to hear and cheer you on!