Stuart Woods Books

I  usually recommend that you allow yourself a whole month to write your book. But one weekend? Well, okay: if you’re properly prepared then it’s just about doable. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Prepare a very detailed plan and do all your research (and thinking) before the weekend begins. How detailed? Ideally you’ll have a sentence (or a few key words) to represent each paragraph in the finished book. You need to be completely happy with your plan before you start writing, because there won’t be time to change it once the writing is under way. If you’re writing a novel you should also make sure your know your characters and their voices inside out.
2. Stick to your plan rigidly during the weekend. That means no going off at tangents, exploring other directions, adding extra bits, letting your characters take over to see where it might lead, or writing without a definite end-point in mind. You can do that another time if you like, but not with this book – you’ve only got one weekend and you’re on a very tight schedule, so there must be absolutely no deviation from the plan.
3. Don’t try to write a 120,000-word novel. If you’re aiming for 80,000 to 90,000 words then you should be fine, but if your book really needs to be 120,000 words then spread it out over two weekends.
4. You could type your whole book out in one weekend, but you don’t have to. There are some very good voice-recognition applications available, such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking. You can speak at your normal speed (which is much faster than most of us can type) and the software will do all the typing for you. I recommend getting the Premium version of NaturallySpeaking, as this allows you to use a digital voice recorder with it. You’ll then be able to move around and write in different locations without being tied to your computer. Another alternative is to record yourself speaking and then give the recording to somebody else to type.
5. Try to think about what you’ll say before you write it (or speak it). Compose each sentence in your head – it’s much faster than composing on paper or on screen.
6. This weekend is all about writing. And that means nothing but writing. You’ve already done the research and planning, and the editing will come later. So don’t edit, don’t change anything, and don’t delete anything. Ignore all your mistakes, turn off the grammar and spell checker, ignore the word count, and don’t format anything. If you think of a better way of saying something, just write it out again rather than going back and altering what’s already there – you can fix all that stuff afterwards.
7. Try writing your book using your e-mail software instead of your word processor. Divide the text into, for example, eighty 1,000-word e-mails. (Not that you’ll be counting the words). It’s a weird trick, but it works!
8. Shut yourself away, turn off your phone and e-mail. (If you’re using your e-mail software to write your book, find the setting that makes it check for new messages every x minutes and turn it off.) Cancel or refuse any invitations, record any TV you’ll miss, send your children to stay with friends or relatives, or get your partner to take them camping. Have plenty of food and drinks available. You don’t want to stop for anything when you get in the flow, so make sure everything you could possibly need is already prepared and within easy reach.
9. Don’t write continuously for the whole weekend – you’ll start to slow down every few hours as your energy drains. Take a short break whenever you feel this happening, have some food, move around, and you’ll come back refreshed and ready to go again. (You can even talk to people during your breaks!) A short walk outside can be a good idea – even if it’s raining. Stretching is good too. Don’t be tempted to try working right through the night – you should have enough time for a good night’s sleep. (But you might want to set your alarm so you don’t sleep in for too long.)
10. If you get stuck, get away from the writing for a few minutes and do whatever you normally do when you need to think a problem through. I usually take a bathroom break – three or four minutes idly tracing tile patterns with my toes while I mull the problem over usually leads to a good solution, and I’m eager to get back to work. If you’ve made a detailed plan to work from, consider jumping around it rather than writing your book in strict chronological order. Mark each part as you complete it so you know which ones you’ve done.

If you succeed, don’t forget to celebrate your amazing achievement – you might want to have a good sleep first though. And if you don’t quite make it, well, don’t worry about it. There are fifty-two weekends each year so you can always finish your book another time.

English is known to be one of the harder languages to comprehend. In order to accomplish a well spoken English language, many cultures start teaching their school children how to do it at a very young age. This insures that they do not have a problem understanding how and why when they get a little older.

One reason some want to learn how to speak this language is because they plan on going to America to continue their education. America is known for having some of the best colleges in the world and many from other countries would like to attend one or more of those colleges when they get to the states. Without learning the language, it could be a difficult task.

Another reason most would like to speak in advanced English grammar is because they have already completed their college and would like to start a business in America. Opening a business without knowing the language could be quite difficult.

Many American colleges will require their graduates to take an advanced English class as well. This is to insure that if they know the correct way of talking and writing the language.

English has been known to be one of the hardest languages to learn and without it; many ideas and perceptions would go unnoticed because they would not be understood. To learn more about advanced languages, do a little more research online or take a college course that is dedicated to teaching the English language

1.  Don’t neglect the pre-writing process.

Pre-writing should take up most of your time as a writer, unless you have a great deal of experience in what you’re writing about (and even then, your writing will be much stronger if you go through the pre-writing process).  Pre-writing begins with research, research, research.  You want to research more than you think you need to, and then after you think you’ve definitely researched enough, research just a little bit more.  After researching comes the steps of forming a general thesis, then a general outline, then your first draft.  There’s much more to be said pre-writing, but for now, stick to those four steps:  research, thesis, outline, draft.  As you will see below, you cannot write an introduction without a thesis, and you cannot write an introduction without knowing where your report will go after your thesis.  My advice?  Write your introduction dead last!

2.  Your thesis is the star of the show.

If your report were a debutante ball, all the effort that goes into arranging the party would be the pre-writing process; the environment, music, attendees, fruit punch, and so forth would be the body of your report; but the debutante herself would be your thesis.  She may be only one person amongst hundreds of other guests, but all the other guests are there for her — she’s the star of the show.  The job of your introductory paragraph or introductory section is to introduce your thesis.  Therefore, your whole introduction should build up to your thesis.

No matter what your thesis is, your introduction needs to perform certain tasks, which are now listed below.

3.  Present a problem, then solve it with your thesis.

For example, if you are writing about the new and improved mouse trap you have invented and want to sell, your thesis might be, “My mousetrap is better than all the existing mousetraps on the market today.”  Your introduction, then, needs to begin by stating that there is a problem with existing mousetraps.

So your first sentence might be,

“No one likes to have mice in their house, but unfortunately most mousetraps do not effectively remove mice” (the problem). Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re in school, then you know that writing is just par for the course. In fact, the ability to write a solid the essay is often what gets you most of your mark for any particular course unless of course it’s a shop based course. That said, you will find those writers that say that an essay outline is not something that they use and is not something that is important. And you may be wondering whether or not this is actually true. Indeed, there are writers out there that say the best way to write an essay is to simply start writing. But if this a good piece of advice?

Consider for a moment that an essay outline not only allows you to give structure to the essay that you intend to write but also  to that acts as a way for you to focus your thoughts as you are writing. Indeed, frequent referral to your outline will ensure that you stay on track. It will also help you more fully develop ideas that come up as you are doing your research. Remember, there’s no such thing as a bad idea, only an idea that is not supported by current research. Something else to consider is that in some courses submitting an outline before you write paper is an actual requirement and can be part of the full mark. There are a couple of reasons why this is something that may be done. First of all, it may be the professors way of looking over what you intend to write and making suggestions some of the final paper is that much better. Another reason you may want to do this is to ensure that you will actually develop your own ideas as well.

Remember to that an essay outline is something that is malleable that is you can change it as you see fit. However, for the most part once you’ve got a second draft of your outline you should really begin to write and make sure that what is contained in your outline actually makes it into your essay. Truthfully, the idea behind this particular tool is that it’s supposed to make your writing go that much quicker. Read the rest of this entry »