Nonfiction Picture Book in One Week: The Last Day

Wow, can you believe it?!!! Here we are at the last day of our challenge to write a nonfiction picture book from beginning to end in just one week! I’m here sitting in my office today working away on my laptop. You can see a lot of the research books I own on the bookshelves behind me.

When I wrote my picture book last week, I knew I wouldn’t be able to work on Friday because I already had an all day commitment. I’m sure some of you aren’t able to work on your manuscript straight through for 5 consecutive days as well. So I just worked on my Author’s Note from Thursday, Third Writing Session, off and on all weekend. Plus, over the weekend, I wrote the ending of my story (Friday’s First Writing Session) Then I got back to more of a writing schedule on Monday.

I worked on my Writing Sessions 2 and 3 from 11:10-3:00, with a short break for lunch in the middle.

So at the end of my last day of writing, here’s the state of my manuscript:

The first draft is finished from beginning to end.

It’s about 970 words right now.

Plus there’s the Author’s Note along with its footnotes.

The full bibliography is pretty much done. (Don’t you just love reaching the end of your first draft and the bibliography is up-to-date?!) I just need to make a “Selected Bibliography” to actually include in my book. To do this, I’ll make a second file and delete a bunch of the stuff that’s more for my own personal info and just include the major resources and/or student resources.

I’ve got 16 pages total with all my footnotes and all my sidebars.

Now, if I was on a super tight deadline, I’d just e-mail this puppy into the editor. They understand that this is the best someone can do on such a short deadline. I know it’s not “perfect” and they know it too. There would be some back and forth between the editor and me to help improve it and get it in better shape.

But I’m not on a deadline for this manuscript, and I don’t think you are either. So now I want to continue working on this manuscript and polish it until it shines. That’s what I’m going to do here on this blog in the next couple of weeks.

So if you want to follow along and polish your manuscript along with me, you can join in the fun! Or if you have another nonfiction picture book manuscript you want to work on, grab it and dust it off ’cause we’re going to really get our magnifying glasses out and look for any specks we can work on until it shines!