I woke up early this morning, ready to get cracking. I sat with a notebook and mentally went through the book for a while, making notes where the gaps were and what else I wanted to add. Meditating this way brought forward many snippets that would pop here and there but would disappear soon after.

I started incorporating them in the manuscript, leaving notes and elaborating in the second round of editing.

Once that was finished, I started working on the metadata. Added Copyright and Dedication page in the front and ‘References,’ ‘Resources,’ ‘Testimonials,’ ‘About the Author’ and ‘Also by the Author’ pages.

10:00 AM — 1:30 PM

Did the first round of editing. Split the introduction into two chapters again. The introduction was getting too long and I had truncated the argument to the point where it wasn’t making sense. Next, I worked on the ‘Writing’ chapter, which took quite a while.

2:20 PM — 3:30 PM

I decided to fix the formatting by 3:30 PM and run a PDF copy to see how the book looked. I was thrilled with the result.

Reedsy Editor worked amazingly well all through the project.

The Backmatter and the Frontmatter displayed beautifully in the final copy, and so did the body or the book.

I am beginning to relax now. I have about three to four hours to do one more round of editing. I have started filling the KDP form and have most of the metadata ready.

4:30–7:00 PM

Started the second round of editing. I started with the ‘Diary’ chapter and moved on to the ‘Research’ and ‘Publishing’ chapters.

8:30 PM — 12:oo PM

Final editing. Checks. Publish.

I can’t believe I made it !!!!!

At 11:02 PM, I uploaded the files, set the price, and hit the publish button.

Amazon will take up to 72 hours to publish the book. I will let you know when it will become available.

My only regret is that I haven’t been able to get the manuscript properly proofread. My daughter is too busy with her work (still working while I am publishing this.) She is suggesting to delay the publication. But I’m afraid I have to disagree.

This book is an experiment. The whole idea is to go through the path and gain experience to write better books in the future.

How am I feeling?

I feel as if I am back in university and about to submit my assignment just in the nick of time.

Thank you for your support throughout the project.

I will write more about it tomorrow. At the moment I am too tired and going to go to sleep.

Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash

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Sheryl Paul, the author of Wisdom of Anxiety, defines anxiety as a feeling of dread, agitation, or foreboding associated with a danger that does not exist in the present moment.

Applied to my present situation, something terrible might happen if I fail in my challenge, but there is no real evidence that it actually will, making it really bizarre.

There is a stoic technique for coping with this kind of worry called — “the premeditation of evils” — the practice of envisioning what the real worst-case scenario in any given situation could truly be.

I tried to imagine that. 

What would happen if I am not able to finish the book in one week. 

Well, one is, I will lose my face with my followers.

Second, and I will add another feather of failure to my cap. 

I am more worried about the second than the first. Most people are very kind. My fans would be very sympathetic even if I failed. It will be I who will be beating myself over the failure. 

I need to learn to be kind to myself. I need to look at what I was able to achieve rather than what I could not complete.

I got over the panic. 

Not because of the above rationale but because I got sick of it. 

I said to myself, ‘whatever,’ and kept going.

I couldn’t start working till mid-morning.

But once I sat down, I was in a flow state. Maybe it had something to do with sitting in the bed where I do most of my writing, or there is simply no time to waste. I edited two chapters in one go.

I got up, had a shower, cooked and served lunch, and got back to my station. I only had two more hours to work on the project before another commitment. But rather than editing the next chapter, I got carried away finding relevant quotes to include in the book. This is something I had been putting away because of the time I was going to take.

But I managed to edit two more chapters. They were relatively quick to edit.

After dinner, I created a Kindle Direct Publishing account.

By the end of the day. I had five chapters edited. The final word count 16,454. 

Tomorrow, four chapters to edit. Also need to get all the metadata ready.

I think I will get there.

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Read the previous posts to catch up on the story of writing an eBook in a week.

I Am Writing An eBook In A Week

Day 1 — Writing An EBook In One Week

Day 2 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Day 3 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Day 4 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Day 5 — Writing An eBook In One Week

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Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash

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I couldn’t sleep till 2:00 AM last night. My mind couldn’t relax. I was thinking about the project. Which meant I woke up late in next morning. The day I was expecting the ‘chaos’ to happen. It did.

First, our nephew and niece dropped in early in the morning. Then my daughter and son-in-law came from Melbourne unannounced. Melbourne had just life the lockdown and people were allowed to drive out of the city if they were in the ‘hot-spot areas. Our kids decided to pay us a visit.

I was planning to finish writing by end of yesterday. I was hoping to reach a 20K word count knowing that half of it will be edited out. I only managed to reach 17K yesterday. Not only I hadn’t finished writing the chapters but there were lots of gaps in all the chapters.

Editing the first chapter

I decided to start working on the first chapter. If I could fix the first chapter and establish the right voice and tone, I should be able to fix the rest relatively easily.

I used every bit of spare time to work on it. Fifteen minutes here and there. Before the shower, after lunch, before afternoon tea. I deleted heavily. The word count kept on going down, making me anxious but I wanted the first chapter to be tight. It is a short book after all. I couldn’t afford to waffle.

I was done by evening. After dinner my daughter did beta-reading. She liked it. 

I never felt so much relief. If she liked it, that means it wasn’t bad.

She helped me fix the typos and I had one chapter near completed. She raised a few questions which I decided to address in the end.

After everyone had gone to sleep, I worked till midnight. Researching and filling some gaps. I was too tired to do editing. 

I know I am behind. But there are two consolations. One, the cover is done. Second, I have my daughter here for the next few days. Which means I have a free beta reader and proofreader.

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Read the previous posts to catch up on the story of writing an eBook in a week.

I Am Writing An eBook In A Week

Day 1 — Writing An EBook In One Week

Day 2 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Day 3 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Day 4 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Photo by Anna Demianenko on Unsplash

A very quick note today to let you know that yesterday’s panic continues.

Austin Kleon always says that he finds the best quotes and best stories for the book after publishing the book. The same thing might happen with this project.

But the good thing about self-publishing and publishing in eBook format is that I can update it whenever I want.

Why publish in one week then? Why not take time and do it properly?

Because then it will never be done.

The book cover is decided.

The winner is the yellow cover.

Many people liked the image of Ms. Jolly with the torch. So I combined the two and here is the result.

Let me know what you think?

Read the previous posts to catch up on the story of writing an eBook in a week.

I Am Writing An eBook In A Week

Day 1 — Writing An EBook In One Week

Day 2 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Day 3 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Photo by Frank Holleman on Unsplash

The first two days were great. The excitement of a new project. So many support messages. 

I thought I have all the time in the world to write. 

I didn’t want to give up any of my regular commitments. I wanted to continue to write one article a day. Continue to make a sketch a day. Keep my appointments. Keep watching TV at night. Vacuum clean the house, iron the clothes, cook, and do the dishes. 

I had written more than 10,000 words in two days. I was on the mark, wasn’t I?

I woke up on Day 3 and the panic started setting in. I had been working on the assumption that by writing 5000 words a day I will finish the first draft by the end of Day 4. 

The problem was I had only written three chapters. They, too, were incomplete. Four chapters were absolute blank. 

No problem! I will write two chapters a day and will be done by tomorrow. I told myself. 

When you are in panic mode; your productivity decreases dramatically. 

If I tried to write, I worried about editing. And when I edited, I worried about writing. 

Frustrated, I tried to document all this struggle in the Diary chapter of the book. The Diary is the eighth chapter of the book where I am documenting all the struggles I am going through while writing the book. I hadn’t figured a consistent way to write it and it was all over the place. Two hours later, after almost a complete rewrite, I fixed the Diary chapter.

Cover Design

I had some good feedback on the cover design from Medium readers. Mid-morning I shortlisted three covers based on the feedback and sent them to social media to pick the final winner.

Running to the appointment.

I had an appointment around mid-day, which in my infinite wisdom, I thought I could make it. 

I drove like mad to get there. I made it on time. But the lady at the parlor was running twenty minutes late. 

I don’t have extra twenty minutes, damn it! 

That was then I realize, if I want to keep my commitment, I will have to cancel all the appointments and concentrate only on the project. Completely.

I rescheduled and came back home. Half of the day was already gone. I had two chapters to write and an article for Medium.

I calmed myself somehow and worked on the Outline chapter. While writing the chapter, I did the second level outlining the whole book. That really shaped the book. I finally figured out how to structure the book properly. That also showed me where I need to spend more time and which bits have gone too long.

Recap

The total word count at the end of the day is 13526. I only managed 3000 words today. But one more chapter is done (or partially done).

I am hoping to catch up tomorrow. I am planning to populate all the chapters, even if partially. Then use the last three days for editing.

Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash

I started the morning going through yesterday’s work to give me an idea of where I was up to and started editing. I was going to edit just for half an hour and ended up editing for two hours.

I had to rewrite most of the things to figure out the right voice I want to use in the book. I realized I was using two different voices in the book. My hesitant and struggling voice in the Diary section and authoritative and more confident voice in the book. 

A visit to idea factory

During the shower, I remembered several things I wanted to include in the book. By the time I got out of the shower and was going to jot them down in the notebook that goes to the bathroom with me, I had forgotten half of them. 

I am hoping they will come back to me. Fingers crossed. 

Evening scare

I spent the afternoon researching and writing one chapter. In the evening, Reedsy’s Editor started playing up. It scared the hell out of me. 

For the next half an hour, I copied everything in a Word document. I couldn’t do “Select All” and had to copy chapter by chapter.

ISBN

An ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a unique number that is assigned to every published book. An ISBN identifies a book’s edition, publisher, and physical properties like trim size, page count, and binding type. 

I do not need an ISBN to publish an eBook on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). But I do need an ISBN to publish a paperback. KDP can provide a free ISBN, or I can purchase from multiple sources on the Web. Since I am not thinking paperback at the moment, I am not going to worry about it.

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Draft Bookcovers

After dinner, my battery was running on low. I wanted to start writing another chapter, but I knew I would tire myself. So started working on the book covers in Canva along with watching a movie on TV. 

I struggled with moving objects and using different fonts in Canva. I was tempted to learn from YouTube videos, but that would have wasted a lot of time. After playing with Canva, I figured it out. 

I am thinking of including an illustration of Ms. Jolly’s on the cover. Ms. Jolly is a character I created while learning to draw cartoons last year. She is my alter ego, a much daring and wiser than me but also comical and witty. 

I created 4 different covers with a bit of variation. None of them is complete, though. But here they are. I need your help to choose one.

I also need a subtitle for the book.

I came up with some: 

“An eBook writing guide for first-time writers.”

“Writing and eBook made easy.”

“A beginner’s guide to writing an eBook in a week.”

“An easy to follow guide for writers who are intimidated by the book writing process.”

“Write your first book fast.”

“Write a short book and write it fast.”

“Intimidated about writing your first book? Make it short and make it fast.”

Please help me choose or suggest something totally new. 

Because I am not completely happy with any one of them.

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To Recap

By the end of the day, I had met my daily quota of writing 5000 words. Altogether I have 11,478 words. But I am very conscious that a lot of them will be either edited out or rewritten. 

Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash