Creative Non-Fiction: How to Outline and Write A Book In 7 Days | Kari Sayers | Skillshare
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Creative Non-Fiction: How to Outline and Write A Book In 7 Days

teacher avatar Kari Sayers, Mindset + Content Creation

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      4:12

    • 2.

      Pre-Work

      2:34

    • 3.

      Ideal Reader Questions

      9:49

    • 4.

      Days 1-2

      10:45

    • 5.

      Days 3-7

      8:05

    • 6.

      Introduction to Easy Writing Tool

      2:29

    • 7.

      Understanding the Writing Tool Backend

      4:37

    • 8.

      Example Topic and Sub-Topics

      6:51

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About This Class

In this class you will learn how to outline and write a book in 7 days.

How It Works:

Your goal is to write your first 5,000-10,000 word book in 7 days. I will share with you the exact outlining and writing process I have used over and over again when writing my short non-fiction books. It's this very process that took me from having 1 book published in late 2014 to over 20 books published in the first few months of 2015.

Next Steps:

Once you've outlined and written your story, you can learn more about the self-publishing process on TeachandFlourish.co.

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Kari Sayers

Mindset + Content Creation

Teacher

I'm a mom of twins, a wife, an entrepreneur, a learning experience designer, and a few other titles depending on the day of the week :) I help creatives who want to monetize their creativity.

 

A few more things to help you get to know me:

I'm from the Midwest, but I've been living in South Carolina for over a decade now. I lived in Montreal for two years with my family and learned a little French. I'm an omnivert married to an ambivert. My twin boys light up my world and keep me on my toes. I've written a variety of books including romances, personal development, business, science fiction and children's books. Gummy candy is my kryptonite :( I've seen the movies Into The Woods and The Fifth Element about a trillion times. Mindy Kaling, Tina Fey, and Tracee ... See full profile

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: had low Everyone welcome to write a book in seven days. This is a course on creative nonfiction short books. So basically within this course will be talking about how to outline and right Ah, short book within seven days. My name is Carrie Stayers, and I'll be your instructor for this course. And just to let you know a little bit about me, um, earlier this year, I took a challenge and, you know, told myself that I was gonna figure out a way to get more books published. Now, the interesting thing is that prior, um, honestly, prior to last year, I honestly thought that in order to be a published author to be, you know, a really writer I had to write some long, you know, epically long novel, and I mean, honestly, a lot of you probably think that, too. But when I figured out that there were authors and writers out there like SJ Scott and Alex Foster, who were making good income from writing shorter books, it really inspired me. And I set out on a path to figure out OK, you know, how can I make this happen? I absolutely love to write um, love to write for long stints of time. But pushing myself to try to write a 150,000 were novel was really getting me nowhere and making me feel like I wasn't a real writer. But what I eventually came to understand is that if you write your a writer and you know, having that information and having that little you know, inspirational Tibbett constantly in my mind, it pushed me to find this path of getting my message out there through shorter works. So since the beginning of 2015 of actually written and published now over 25 different books now those include short fiction, Children's books, um, nonfiction, self help books, some workbooks and a couple of journals. I'm really loving the writing and publishing process, and being able to teach this course write a book in seven days is just a way for me to share what I've done and what I've learned, especially over this last year, with other writers who are looking to get more of their work out there to share with the world. Now I will let you know that 95% of the publishing I do is on Amazon. So most of the books I write are short works for Ah, Amazon Kendall. But if you are interested in publishing your writing on other sites, you can still take what you learn from this course and apply it to those other, um, those those other sites. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. But to manage expectations, the main goal of this course is to show you how to number one. How to come up with who, exactly your ideal readers are. Okay, that's very important. How to figure out what problems, um and, uh, guess barriers to success that those readers are having. And we'll talk a little bit more about why that's important. And then I'll show you how to outline your book idea and get it written within the seven day period. So if that sounds good to you, if that sounds like something that would really work for you and get you motivated to write more books and publish more books than write a book in seven days is the course for you 2. Pre-Work: before we actually get going with any of the outlining are writing of our book. There's a very important first step, and this is kind of what I call pre work, and that pre work is taking the time to pinpoint and understand who your ideal reader is now. If you've ever had a sales job, are you know if you've ever worked in sales? Most likely you've had some type of training where it teaches you how to better understand your customer. Um, whether that's in, you know, retail, our health care, Whatever it might be, it's very important to understand who your customer is before you begin selling to them now . In my former life as a radio executives, radio advertising executive and as a health care consultant, it was extremely important for me when I was first meeting with a client to sit down and ask questions, ah, to find out what their pain points were, to find out what success looked like to them. The reason for this is because it didn't make sense for me to just, you know, come in trying to sell them solutions, two problems that I don't even you know. I didn't really even know what they were. So when it comes Teoh writing a book, you know, writing a book for your readers. It's equally as important to take the time to ask questions. Okay, and figure out who this ideal reader is now. The differences were not necessarily gonna be going out and asking people questions. Um, in this portion of the course, I have questions that I want you to answer. Okay, I would love for you to grab a pen and a notebook, and as we go through these questions, I want you to write down the answers to them. OK, It's very important that you actually write down these answers because you're gonna need to revisit those for the next portion of the course as we get closer to actually outlining, um, and writing the book. So let's go ahead and go through that list of questions that I've created for you to better understand your ideal reader. 3. Ideal Reader Questions: So the first set of questions that will start with will be kind of more general questions. Okay, Now, remember, you're asking yourself these questions, okay? They are ideal reader questions. And if you dio if you have some people that you want to ask are you know some potential readers in mind and you want to ask, You know, some of these questions of them feel free. But just know that this questionnaire is actually for you as the writer to complete so that you better understand. You know who in your mind it is that you're attempting Teoh Target with your book. First things first. What's your readers gender, you know? Are they male or the female art A transgender like, um, you know it It makes a difference who it is that you're writing, Teoh and what type of writing you'll do for that particular person. Clearly, most books, um, would probably have a difference in whether you're writing in the tone for a woman are toned for a man just from a psychological perspective. Next, what's your ideal readers age? Are you writing for a teenager? Are you writing for you know, a man who's having a midlife crisis. Are you writing for someone you know who's in their sixties or seventies and their baby boomer like know who you're writing for? Is your ideal reader in a relationship? Okay, are are they single? Are they married? Are they recently divorced it? It matters who it is that you're trying to target. Ask yourself, Is your ideal reader someone who has Children? OK, so for those of you taking this course and you have Children, you know, you know, this doesn't matter. Really? What age they're at work is their younger, older like they, you know, they do something to your life and they change things. So if your ideal reader has Children or, you know Vs doesn't have Children, it might be a different tone that you write in for that book. Um, what's their favorite thing to do in their free time? Okay, like, it's it's great to know these kind of hobbies and things that they like to dio. It will help you come up with more ideas on potential topics to write about what's their biggest guilty pleasure. Okay, Does your ideal reader stay up late at night watching? You know, a trashy reality television like Does that make them feel good? I know sometimes it makes me feel good. I don't really like it. But you know what? Tom just can't fight watching one of those shows, but it's, you know, it's just something extra to to really dig in and no, you know what? What are their guilty pleasures? Um, what would their ideal day look like? Would they just love to go on a spa day? You know, our is it someone who they would just love toe have, like, you know, all day, golf day? I know my husband, for one, would love that. That makes a difference in, you know, ideas that you come up with for writing. And what's your ideal reader's personality like Okay, are they? Introverts are the extroverts. Are they super shy and trying to come out of a shell? You know, Are they just super bubbly? Live a life of the party? You know who it is that you're writing for? The next set of questions will require you to dig just a little deeper. Now don't freak out. Don't worry about it. If you can't answer some of these questions, is totally fine. Answer them as best as you can. And remember, hopefully you're actually writing these answers down because I want you. You're gonna need to revisit the's answers for the next portion of the course. So first question what keeps your ideal reader up at night worrying? I'm sure all of you can imagine right now why that would be important to know. Now we're talking about the nitty gritty worth talking about problems, issues that your ideal readers might be having. This is important to know because that means potentially solutions you can write about to help them with ease. Worries. Um, what's your ideal readers? Biggest dream for their life. OK, and there's another question coming up the talks about success. So what does success look like for them? Okay, success is not the same for everyone. Some people were driven by money. Some people were driven by, you know, their love for their families. What's their biggest dream? What would just make them most happy in their life? Are their greatest desires being fulfilled? Are you know, are they love feeling unfulfilled? Okay, what's their biggest desire that's currently unfulfilled? You can imagine why that will be important to know about your reader if they're feeling this emptiness inside. You know, a lot of people go online searching for books and audiobooks because they do feel unfulfilled. So if you know this about your particular reader, it's gonna help you write more, um, right more and come up with more ideas on how to help them. Where they lacking in confidence, you know, are, you know, are your ideal readers people who want to learn how to speak in public right now they lack the confidence to speak in public. They don't think that they can get any speaking gigs. That's you know, that's just one example, but no, where they're lacking in confidence. Okay, where they lacking in clarity. This is a great example. So when I coming up in the next portion of the course when I show you one of my book examples, I particularly, um I specifically, excuse me, targeted people who lacked clarity and how to create a blawg. Okay. I built in her book around how to help someone who was unclear on how to start their first block. What's your ideal readers? Three biggest stressors. Okay, this is a really good. One to write down. Okay. Is there, um is there boss stressing them out at work? If so, Hey, there you go. There's an idea to write about how toe, you know, deal with work. Stress. If that's what you wanted to dio, um Is there husband? Our wife stressing them out. Okay, there's, ah, book you could do on in a relationship advice and, you know, succeeding in relationships. If you wanted to do that, you know, what else is it over having money problems or they, you know, having issues other issues, you know, whatever kind of stresses you could think of. You want to write those down about your ideal reader? What fear? Frustration. Does your ideal reader want to go away? Okay, if they could. If you had a magic wand and you could wave it for them, what would be their biggest frustration That you could help go away for them? Okay. Ask yourself that question right down The answer. What makes your ideal reader feel successful are accomplished. So we kind of talked about this. I'm just a few questions ago. Again, Success is different for everyone. Okay. Some people were driven by money. Some people driven by families and people were driven by love and do driven by being able to help others. So know what would make your ideal reader feel successful. And then one last question that I feel is really you know, good to ask is what? What puts it? Not in your reader stomachs. Okay. Like what just makes them feels so totally sick to think about and they, you know, they don't want to think about it. A big one in this category is like financial stress. Okay, people stress over paying the bills just over how they're going to pay the mortgage. Other car note, um, knowing, you know, knowing what that is will help you come up with more writing solutions for your ideal readers. So what we gonna do with this? After you've written answers to all of these questions, you're going to create a separate list of problems. Okay, That's right. You know, I'm gonna go back to those same notes in circle and Star. No, I want you to take a new sheet of paper and actually list out kind of the main problems. Main topics that you see staring at you from that questionnaire that you just created for yourself. So that was kind of you basically just did a brainstorming session for our about your ideal reader. And from that brainstorming question from answering that questionnaire, you're gonna be able to come up with a list of main problems. Are ha book topics that you can write about for the, you know, for your ideal readers, main problems, book ideas? It's as simple as that. Now, I do want to clarify and, you know, don't make this mistake. A lot of writers feel like they have Teoh take all these ideas and make a catch all book for their readers. But let me just let you know most readers, when they're going online and they're looking for solutions, they're looking for a solution to maybe one or two problems. They're not that. I mean, some people are looking for a catch all book, but most people aren't gonna be. I want to be overwhelmed with too much information. OK, so decide on one or two of those problems and use that to get started on your first book. Okay, Don't take all 50 okay? Don't take 30 of the things you wrote down and try toe, you know, crunch them into one book, take one or two ideas that you can build out further, and I'll show you how to do that in the next videos. So just keep in mind as you're completing your ideal reader questionnaire and answering those questions problems, equal book topics. Okay, you're going to pull out several problems from answering these questions. Okay, several problems that you can then create solutions through your books. 4. Days 1-2: by this point in the course, you should have all of your pre work completed now that pre work consists of completing the questionnaire about your ideal reader, creating a list of problems based on the answers from those questions and then choosing one or maybe two main problems. Main topics that really stood out to you from that list of problems you created. And and now you're ready to use those one or two as your main book topic. OK, so for days, one through two will be brainstorming and outlining, you know, whatever book topic it is that you've chosen and then also writing the introduction portion of your book. So let's move on to the next point. So any book that I start this is the very basic outline that I kind of had in my head. So I mean, I know it looks. It looks so simple here, and it really, really is. And I'll click through and show you how I go about kind of feeling filling in these simple shapes with ideas. So the very first shape here to the left will be your book title. Okay, so you want to start with whatever you're thinking your book title will be. Now there is kind of a science to book titles, especially when it comes to publishing on Amazon. You want to use keywords, but that's kind of outside of the scope of this course. So for now, just make sure, you know, whatever that main problem is that you chose, I'm sure it has a key word in it. You know, add that to your book title here. Now, from there, the way we break this kind of outlined down into easy steps is you're gonna think of five sub topics that deal with whatever it is. Your main topic is, OK, so whatever you've decided, that main topic was, um, you're gonna think of brainstorm five sub topics. Okay, so you have sub topic number one, number 234 and five. That's what we'll go there now for each of these sub topics. Okay, You're gonna write down as many ideas as come to you. Okay? So, you know, walk around If you want to use a little note cards. If you just want to walk around with an actual notebook. So the first day. Generally speaking, I do this on day one. My outline happens day one. Um, I walk around when an idea comes to me for a sub topic. I read it down. Are there have been occasions when I just sit down that literally, like, knock each sub topic out because it just comes to me that quickly and I will show you an example, Um, of kind of an outline I did for one of my books using this very layout. So it will be clear to you how I'm using this and there's no, I mean, you don't have to write, um, hair grafts and Paris is an outline. There's no wrong or right. Just write down some ideas. And the point is, when it gets today's three through seven, when you'll actually be filling out those sub topics and writing the bulk of your book, you wanna have something to start with? Okay, that's what the outline. It's so important. I'm I know a lot of people, just like I said, Wanna just sit down and start writing? But it's important to create an outline, so you have some type of plan in your head on how to get started Now, This last block appear is just the introduction. OK, select, I said on day one. I'm brainstorming ideas for sub topics. Writing down. I do ideas reach of those sub topics. And then I typically on Day two, spend a little time putting together an introduction based on the ideas that I know. I want to get across in each sub topic and including, you know, goals and benefits of the book for the reader. So let's dio a real life example of one of my books. So, as I said before, I like many Anderson of the time I go through and I kind of do that ideal reader questionnaire and write notes on who my ideal reader is for a particulate er book. Now for this book, it's a savvy gales guide to blogging How to kick Start your wordpress blawg. I mentioned in another video. You know, I talked about someone meeting clarity on how to watch their blawg because they wanted toe lunch one but didn't really know how. So that's a problem that someone had, and I took a problem based on doing my ideal reader questions, and I pulled out this one particular problem. People not knowing you know, will really women, you know, women not knowing how to create their own blawg. I made a book about it. So as I was doing, my ideal questions are my ideal reader questions I came up with. You know, my ideal reader might be a woman in her twenties or thirties, raise 20 to 30. I put here interested in starting a blawg, but they don't know how to get started. They might be semi tech savvy, so no, they're, you know, they're not necessarily coding websites and things like that, but they can, you know, they know how to do email, and I go on Facebook. You know how toe, uh you know, maybe they had to know how WordPress works, but, you know, if not, that's OK, but it's what I call semi tech savvy. Um, actually, what I consider myself semi tech savvy, um, blogging would be a creative outlet for them. Okay, So the turkey, the ideal reader that I had in mind, you know, maybe they want to escape. Ah, work like work is just like a downer for them. Or they don't get to be as creative at work. And they blogging could be a creative outlet for them. Or maybe their home life is just very stressful. So creating a blawg would be a way to kind of escape that stress and then possibly just, you know, a woman who wants to make some side income. So I had all these thoughts in mind when I was pulling together, um, ideas to form this particular book about blogging. So again, like I said, with all of my books, I pretty much start with this basic template. And here's how it looked my title, How to build a WordPress blog's. So, of course, that changed as I put in keywords, because again, keywords are important to Amazon publishing process. My very first sub topic. How to decide on a block topic. So I know that this woman she wants to go to Blawg. She wants to write about stuff. But the first thing she needs to do is decide what exactly her blawg topic will be Next up topic. How do you actually choose a name for your block? Okay, so there's things that go into this like, what's your mission? Um, you know, who are you targeting? So all that kind of information really plays into how you actually name your blawg After you decide what is your You know, your blog's as a whole or your website as a whole will be focused on sub Topic number three , understanding the different blogging platforms. Now again, we have the semi tech savvy woman. She's wanting to create her own WordPress blawg. But guess what? There is a lot of different platforms out there when it comes to creating a blawg outside of WordPress. So I thought it would be important to just kind of give some background on those platforms and give more background on the actual WordPress platform. Because there is a difference between wordpress dot org's and wordpress dot com from, for instance, a lot of people don't know that. So it was very important that I have that as a sub topic and be able to build that out. Some topic number four. How to choose Ah, hosting provider and then from there, how to install WordPress. Okay, so there's a whole process that goes around that, and then some type of number five. After you've, you know, chosen your hosting provider and insult wordpress, you need to know how to choose a WordPress theme. So the theme is basically the thing that kind of beautifies your blawg and, you know, styles it. Ah, the way you want it to look and after, You know, when they choose that, once they figure out where to go to find a fame and, um and they choose when they like, they need to know how to install it. So my book, how to build a WordPress blawg focused on thes five sub topics. Okay, if you look at it this way, it really makes the outline process much easier. Okay. I mean, literally you have this main topic and five sub topics, and you're gonna build from there. Off course. Of course, you can build out more than just five sub topics, right? But if you're trying to, you know, get some writing done quickly get in a rhythm where you're writing and publishing more books. It's this process right here that has allowed me to go from having one book out there in 2014 toe having now over 25 books published on Amazon. You're under my name and under various pin names. It's this quick. You know, quick outlining process that help me do that. And of course, this last shape here for my introduction and for me, I typically build my introduction using information on these different, um, some topics. So now you know just how easy it is to outline your book. This is what I use, like, literally like 99% of the time. It's so simple. It's It's so easy. If you think of it in these geometric shapes like this, okay. And you know, right, you know, write it down on the piece of paper laying out just like this. It should help your writing process to go a lot faster. Now, in the next video, I'm gonna lay out what happens on. So this is all on day one and two. Okay, they one and two is when you're creating your this outline like this, you're coming up with the title of five sub topics, writing down ideas for each sub topic and then putting together your introduction. That's all in days one and two. Next, I'll show you what happens on days three through seven and how you get the meat off your book written during those days 5. Days 3-7: So congratulations. By this point in the course, you should have completed your pre work, which is, of course, going through your ideal reader questions coming up with, you know, those answers and from those answers creating a list of problems and from those list of problems picking out basically what will become your main book topic. Okay, after that, you should have created an outline based on whatever it is that main topic that mean problem. Our problems that you chose. So you should have five sub topics. He should have, you know, plethora of ideas surrounding those sub topics and, you know, just a a basic, even if it's messy. Whatever basic, messy outline but an outline nonetheless to get you started. One. Your actual writing process. So for me, days three through seven is when I write, write, write each day I have a plan. I have a goal. You know that goal. At this point, I'm you know, I'm doing pretty good statistic wise on when I sit down for those days to write, I do a pretty good job of, you know, being distraction free and getting it done because I know that you know it's It's 1000 words. That's the goal. It's 1000 words for five days. Okay, Kind of sounds simple, right when you look at it that way. Now, remember, let me let me remind you we're writing short nonfiction books here. We're not writing an epic length novel. You know, I I haven't even tried to do a process like, you know, such as this for for longer books. Right now, I'm focusing on the shorter works because that's what I'm inspired to Dio. And I know for sure that this process works for that. So this is what it looks like when you get ready to get the writing done on your actual sub topics. So Day three is the first day of writing 1000 words on whatever it is. Your first sub topic is. Now, let me say you can get this writing done. However you like, you can write it out by hand in a notebook. You can type it up in, um, you know Microsoft Word. If that's what you want to dio you can you know if some of your using scrivener you can use scrivener personally. I use a software called novel are. I will include kind of Ah, um a walk through a demonstration of how I'm using novel are and show you how to actually use that software tool. I think it's really awesome. It makes my life so easy. My writing life so easy and lays everything out for me. So I will, in a subsequent video of this course, show you how to use novel are. But it doesn't honestly think today doesn't matter how you do it. The goal is just for you to each day have a sub topic in mind and right out of 1000 words on that sub topic. Now, I don't want you editing during this time. Don't go riding and trying to edit at the same time. It will literally will stifle your creativity. It will stop you in your tracks. Leave the editing for later. Now we're not gonna be talking about editing in this course. That's just ah, whole other, um, hello over topic that could be a course on its own to deal with. Just pick your sub topic and right, So there's a four, five, six and seven. Now, remember, I said before you can have more sub topics in this if you like. But the goal of this course was for me to help you write a book in seven days, right, a 5000 to 10,000 word book in seven days. And I say that because okay, if you have 1000 words per five sub topics and let's say in your introduction you have another 1000 words. So that puts you at 6000 words. And let's say, um, you know, let's say in your conclusion you have five or you know, 500 to 1000 words. That's 7000 words just right there. And I'm sure once you get going and you start writing, at least this is what happens for me. Rarely do I ever just stay at the 1000 word mark. You know, usually there's more that I have to say, So I probably found average. I might have a chapter. You know, that's 1213 100 words, sometimes a little more than that, so it will end up making your books even longer than what you probably anticipated it would be, but following this layout, OK, going from day one with your outline. Ah, Day two with your introduction and then day 3456 and seven with actually writing 1000 words per day. This is how you accomplish the task of writing a book in seven days. I mean, there are other ways to do this. Absolutely, absolutely. But this is one surefire way. At least that has worked for me, and I've seen success with it. So I hope that you'll give it a try even, you know, use. Ah, you know, use this kind of layout here, create the two little rectangles for yourself with five circles underneath and, you know, right, your your book title, you know, scribbling introduction and then right in five sub topics. If looking at it kind of in the way of these geometric shapes helps you, it does me. I have no clue why. It's like a little magic me staring at these little golden, you know, golden nuggets of information. It's like magic for me. Um, you could build this out in, um, Power point if you wanted to. Just, you know, kind of put together a little or chart and, um, typing your information that way. Whatever. Whatever works for you. This is the layout on how you can do this in a seven day period. So as promised you from here, if you wanted to, you could just get to, you know, get going on your on your book, Get going on, Creating um, and figuring out who your ideal reader is. Absolutely, if you'd like to do that, but you can also move forward and look at the other videos. In this course where I'll talk about the novel, our software that I use again there's other Softwares out there that you could utilise are just none at all. Maybe it's only use good old word. Go for it. I'm just sharing with you in this course, the different, um processes and Softwares that make my writing life easier and, you know, could possibly make your is easier is low. So I thank you so much for being a part of this course. If you have any questions, please message me are start. Um, you know, you can go into our community section of this course and post a question. I you know, I love to answer student questions or if you're stuck on something, or if maybe something that I said during Ah, one of the videos didn't necessarily make sense to you. Let me know. Would love to answer any questions that you have. Good luck writing your book in seven days. My hope is that you'll be able to use this process and rinse and repeat like I've done and start to build the number of books that you write and that you're able toe publish. 6. Introduction to Easy Writing Tool: in this video module, I am going to give you an introduction to a writing tool that I use called Novel Are Now. Some of you may be familiar with the writing tool called Scrivener, and it's, um I mean, there's other writing tools that people use, um, in the market. But, ah, Scrivener is probably one of the most well known writing tools. And, um, I actually attempted to, you know, I tried scrivener with one of my short stories, um, or short story Siri's that I was writing last year. But to be perfectly honest, I just found it very complicated to use and frustrating. Um, so then I kind of went back to just using word to outline and write My, um you know, right, my different stories, both nonfiction and fiction. But as you know, it's really hard. Um, it's really hard to lay out the information in a format that is, um, helpful and easy on the eyes when you're just working in a plane were document. So, um, novel are I came across it. Um, I don't even remember how. Well, let me just tell you it was a godsend for me because, like I said, Ah, lot of people recommend Scrivener, and there are courses out there to actually teach you how to use scrivener. But it was just Teoh time consuming for me. Novel are is amazing. I came on as a beta user, so I've been, um, using the platform since it. Um, first, I guess, you know, since the early days, and it's really progressed. So currently it's free. Um, but like I said, they've they've progressed, and they've made a lot of awesome changes. And I'll walk you through some, like amazing features that I think are absolutely wonderful for writers. Um, but starting in December, this platform will go to $10 a month. It's still affordable. Um, and I think it's well worth the 10 bucks a month. So give me a moment and we'll get started. I'll give you a walk through of how I'm using Novel are to outline my stories and to, um, basically right, right quickly 7. Understanding the Writing Tool Backend: So now I'm going to give you a walk through of kind of what? The back end. Um, are the admin panel for your, um, your novel, our account? You know what it will look like. So, um, I actually had one more than one novel, our account, because originally, you couldn't write more than one story. Um, in your novel, our account, they were just getting started. So, you know, that's what I was a beta tester. And so I was working on more than one book down, and I loved the platform so much, so I opened up two accounts. So this one is my newer account. Um, so therefore, they'll have it have less, um, you know, less writing stats in it. But anyway, I just thought it would be a good visual for this course. So what is absolutely fantastic is that novel are kind of tracks a bunch of different metrics that are, you know, at least for me, very important for me to be able to see how I'm doing in terms of writing, you know, you can right, um a book. Ah, all day long, inside of WordPress and at the end of the day. The only thing that you can really check is at the bottom. You know what your word count is, But what novel are does? I mean, it breaks it down. You'll see here. So, of course, today, unless four. I haven't written anything. Um, but you know, it it tell you. So in this in this novel are account of mine. I've written, you know, 1000 over 1000 words this month. Um, for the year, um, you know, 83 a little ray 300 words. It tells you how many words per day you're averaging. Um, they haven't algorithm that shows, you know, it basically knows if I'm writing in the morning, in the afternoon or in the evening and for me, I do end up writing more in the evening. And, um, part of that is just because, you know, I have a lot of different things I do with my business during the day on. And then, of course, I have my kiddos in the afternoon, and so it's once they go to sleep that I, um, typically get a better opportunity to write for longer stints. So, um, once you log into um, and sign up for a novel or account. You'll have access to all of this. And my biggest suggestion is that you just explore, like I said, Um, right now for up until, let's see December until December 2015 you're able to log in here and use this for free. Now, I'm not sure if they'll have some type of free trial, um, starting later in the year. But again, you know, it's it's 10 bucks a month, and you know, if you're serious to me, at least if you're serious about writing, I would invest. Find that 10 bucks a month, you know, have to less coffees a month. You know, if you're a Starbucks fanatic like I am, cut out two of those. And there you are. You have your $10 to be able to pay to use the system. It just lays everything out really easily. Um, you can click through, so okay, again, it will show you, you know, writing preferences, and you can go in here and set, you know, said all of this up. And like I said, I just suggest you come in and explore. You can, um Well, This is a feature that I think is coming coming soon. I don't Yeah, we'll get out of that. That's a feature that's coming soon. Um, it's awesome because and I'll get in and I'll show you, You know, the actual you know, where you go to write an outline, everything in just a moment. But, you know, once you've written, um, you know, if you've if you've written five pages or, you know, 10 choppers or whatever it is that you want to write, you can export it, and that's awesome. So you can, um, well, they have some new features here, so you can do your you know, Dr Integration. And if you want to send it to Dropbox, you can do that. But, um, the feature that I use most often is just I export it to a Microsoft Word so that I can then format it because the system, you know and you'll see the simulator video module, the software that I used to do my own formatting I just uploaded as a word document. So it's helpful to be able to take your writing out a novel, are exported toe wordpress and then be able to use it, moving forward with what you want. So let me. You can go ahead. You know when you get a chance and you log in here and make sure you go to novel are dot organ? That's in o v l r dot org's and sign up. 8. Example Topic and Sub-Topics: So now I've gone back to the kind of the front page, um, of your back in admin area. And I'm gonna show you how there's something I forgot to show you before someone scroll down and just kind of give you a little bit, um, a little bit more of how novel are breaks down. Um, the different You know, the information of different books that you haven't here in the word count. Um, but then I'm gonna show you how to add a new novel, which this is where we go to do that. And I'm gonna start with Justin example when we're going to do an example book. And I'll tell you the example Topic in a second. So, um, this is also something that's awesome. So it does tell you how you know this list out. You're different books that you're working on. Don't be distracted by the fact that it says not well, because a lot of people do use this to write, you know, epic length novels. But there's people like me who are using it to write short stories as well. But it's called novel are not short story are so, um and then it just gives you your total word count. I just think it's helpful. I think it's motivational. So you know where you're at. Um, and if you're kind of a stats driven person like I am, you'll really like that portion of it. And then this gives you that says dig deeper. And I think that's really, um, amazing, too. Just to be ableto have these writing stats and to look at you know what you've done this month. So as you start writing, just know that you have these writing SATs available to you here. All right, so let's go ahead, and we're going to click at a new novel, and we today we're gonna pretend that we're writing a book or we want to write a book called, um how same. How to be a better runner. Okay, we'll do create my novel, and it will bring you to this blank page Here. You see, our book title is up top and you'll want to click on that little icon. And this is where we'll get started. So we're gonna go ahead to click on, um, Chapter one. We're gonna change this. Our chapter one for right now is gonna be our, um, our introduction, OK, and so remember, we're aiming. We're gonna aim to have five different topics that we're going to write about within this book. But you can also put this introduction, um, section in there and that will lengthen, um, lengthen your book so we'll just say so. You know what you click in here? This is where you actually right. This book is for anyone seeking to become a better runner and improve their life. Okay, so you see down here, my word count, um, awesome thing about novel ours that it does. Um, it does save on its own. And you'll see it says saved. Um, if you want it to, you know, make words bold. The kind of the little editing room and down here is where you would do that. So you can click here. All right, so let's move forward with us. We want to now add a new chapter. Okay, So says you quit that little add button, create new tractor, our first new tractor. So let's say let's say our first topic for how to be a better runner is to no, you're strength and weaknesses All right, so let's create that one son chapter. All right, let's add another one. Um, invest in a running group, and I'm literally making these up. I am. I am not a runner, but I'm a living Greenville, South Carolina. And there are a lot of runners here, so I'm gonna pretend that I want to be a runner. So let's see, so far, we have our introduction. We have no your strengths and weaknesses. Invest in a running group. Um um, invest in running year. Okay, Let's see, we need that's 123 We'll do two more chapters here, so invest in running gear. Um, find, ah, best running times. All right. Find the best running times, and then let's do one more. And let's say, um, what's something else that has to do with running? So you have no your strengths and weaknesses investing it running group, invest in running gear, find the best running times and sell, uh, frayed. You're successes. Okay, so, again, just making all of this up. But this is This is I mean, genuinely how I outlined my different books. I come up with five topics to write on, so we have this book how to be a runner. And here I haven't outline. I have a basic outline of my topics and I would come in here and aim to write, um, you know, at least 1000 words if I can. And guess what? If you can't if you if this whole know your strengths and weaknesses and you feel like I can't write 1000 words on that just right, right out what? You can get out. Okay, Just start where you are, and you can figure it out from there. You'll probably have more than five chapters in your book, OK? I mean, you can make it only five tappers if you want to. If your goal is used that you want to get this information that you have on your book Um, whatever book I did, you have just want to get it out there than the five chapter way of doing things will help make that easier for you. But use novel are to break your topics into chapters and then just start writing. You can come back in here and edit later, but this is kind of the fast way of how to get your book outlined. Um, get words on the you know, once a words to paper, but I get words on your screen and have a starting point for your book that you can then go back and edit it later.