Write Any Book in 28 Days

Reviewer's Bookwatch, April, 2005 by Magdalena Ball

This course presents a very effective way to break through writers block, and will take that very daunting task of writing a whole book, and make it seem both achievable, and even relatively straightforward. It is. Daws is absolutely right in suggesting that there is nothing mystical or elite about writing a full length book. A book model can make the drafting process much easier and using a few mental tricks and tips can help flesh out the parts, just the same way as if you were using a fill in the blank software system like New Novelist. Of course, the first draft is only just the start--a very difficult lesson for first time book writers, and one which will most certainly sort the wheat from the chaff. The fast editing chapter does grossly simplify and underestimate the multi-drafting process of writing good literary quality fiction and non-fiction (though, and I'm showing my biases here, it may be perfectly fine for formulaic romance, chick-lit, thriller or sci fi genres). The advice and techniques given in this course are all sound ones, which actually cover a fair amount of territory for the small number of words used. In other words, it is a concise, but reasonably solid course which will get writers writing, in a structured and organised way. I am aware of two other products which are reasonably similar to this one on the market, Steve Manning's Write a Book Now, which sells for a whopping $297 (plus $19.95 shipping!), and Rob Parnell's Easy Way to Write which sells for $29.95. Parnell's e-book is pithier in content, but while it covers similar ground, it doesn't have the same funky HTML course-like format, which may work better for some people, so the $49.95 price for Write Any Book is probably not a bad investment for a new novelist or author. As an outline and motivational guide for writing a first draft, the course delivers reasonable value. However, a first draft is still a long way off the kind of work that needs to be written in order to find a commercial publisher (obviously anyone can publish their own e-book, or use a vanity press, without worrying about the quality of their final work). The real work, and the real craft, especially in a novel, is in the re-writing, and after your 28 days is up, there is going to be plenty of additional hard yakka. There's no point in glossing this over. That said, the first draft is still a good starting point, and it is still exciting to finish the draft and have a good clear understanding of what you are trying to say and how you are planning to say it. This book will help get you there.

The course comes with a number of "bonuses". These include a list of high paying short story markets in the US and UK, a list of some US and UK publishers, a list of websites for posting screenplays, a list of some potential book titles (you might like to come up with something relevant to your own book though!)--these are all one pagers of mostly publicly available information. There is also a copy of Script Smart Gold script templates for the US and UK, WriteSparks Lite (which is also available free from http://ewritersplace.com), and Cynergy Script Editor.