The average standard novel is 50,000 words. 50k smacks on the keyboard, and you’re sitting here now thinking to yourself, “Go fuck yourself, Shaine, I’m not doing that.”

I get it; it sounds like a lot. That is until you learn that I’ve written over 100.000 words through six different novels, and I haven’t even published the majority of them. “Blood Runner” and “A Ballad of Diamond and Primrose” are the only books I thought to publish, and EVEN THEN, I’m giving them away for free on my website.

So what’s the deal? What’s my secret? In fact, this book was written in one day, over five hours. While not every chapter is 2000 words long, it only took me this long to bang out 10,000 words. And you know what the best part is? You can do this, too!

And no, you’re not going to go on Upwork and pay someone to do it; you’re not even going to pay me on my Ghostwriting service to write it for you. I’m not sitting here telling you you have “to spend money to make money,” but you are going to have to set aside some time to make money.

At least 1 hour a day.

So, how do you become an author by only working an hour a day? First of all, you’re not. When you become an author, there’s no such thing as working only one hour a day. When you have your outline down, your Four Beat Method mapped, or your Two Picture Method styled, you will be thinking about your book, your manuscript, and your story 24/7/365. There is no stop to it, there are no breaks, and you are always at the mercy of your story.

So I’ve already broken your dreams of being a Digital Nomad, working 1 hour a day in the morning and partying and sleeping on the beach at night in Bali, so what’s next?

Well, you CAN only work one hour a day and in 1 work week (Monday to Friday) you can have 10,000 words written. That’s 1/5 ^th of your book written. And then you take the weekend off (you won’t, you will be writing, trust me), and then you come back Monday to Friday and write for 1 hour a day again. That’s 20,000 words. 2/5 ^th of your book is done.

So on and so forth.

If this is something that intrigues you, something you want to learn how to do, and within a MONTH to five weeks, have a 50k manuscript you can start to edit and query, then keep reading.

I wasn’t always this way. I used to kill people.

Ok, that’s not true, I only said that to keep you reading. The truth is, I was a lonely, bored housewife, moving from city to city, where I had a Navy base with my husband and kids. I was literally doing nothing with my life other than doing the wife thing, the mom thing, and the bored thing.

I could draw, but I could only draw anime. Like… who gives a shit? So what could I really do to boost myself out of boredom and make something of myself? I never thought of doing it before, but during one fateful move between California to Rhode Island, my husband, Cody, and I decided to stop at the local Barnes and Noble because I thought, “Maybe if I get a book to read while we’re on the road, I won’t want to fucking kill myself.”

It worked! I can’t sleep in the car because I am scared of car crashes, and reading was the perfect escape to keep my eyes off the endless expanse of roads and trees. I was sick of seeing the same type of cow in a pasture and saying “cow” every time I saw one because I have one brain cell.

I digress.

I chose “Misery” by the one and only Stephen King for the rest of the drive, and let me tell you, I ate that book up like it was nothing. We still had two days left of driving, and I was done with the book by the time we reached the hotel at the end of the first day.

“Well, what are you going to do now?” I remember my husband saying to me as he plummeted onto the hotel bed. “You finished that book, and all you do is bitch about how long the drive is.”

His words, not mine.

Unluckily for him, there was ANOTHER Barnes and Noble 15 minutes from the hotel we were staying at, so I drove over while my husband slept (he drove the whole time, so, you know, he’s eepy) and I didn’t buy another book, I bought a Nook! It’s not a book; it’s a Nook! Many books!

I brought my VERY SMALL e-reader back to the hotel room, but my husband was snoring very loudly. I bought as many books as I could that looked fun.

The next day, my husband did the classic husband “what’s that” question pointing at the new thing I bought (Nook), and I shut up the rest of the drive. It was 12 hours long and I finished three books.

Wait a minute? Three books in only 12 hours, what?

Yeah, they were indie books, not traditionally published books, and most indie books are only 50k words or just a little bit more. I became obsessed with indie novels over the course of this drive and by the time we got into our new home in Rhode Island, I had completely changed my whole laptop around to get ready to write MY OWN NOVEL.

The thing about me is I’m very impressionable. If I even get the INKLING that I can do something, I’m going to try, So after reading almost five books in less than two days, I told myself (and my husband, who laughed at me) that I was was going to become an author.

One small problem.

I didn’t know how to write.

I’m a High School graduate. I’m not college-taught; I’m street-smart. I pick things up as I go. And as for High School, I never listened during English class. The fact that I can speak English and write is a miracle in itself. Despite this, I still persevered, and for those reading this who think to themselves “I don’t have enough time to go back to school to learn English!”, then listen to the first things I’m about to tell you.

• Read
  • You don’t know how powerful reading actually is when it comes to learning how to write. Reading undoubtedly makes you a better writer. You get ideas about how to write prose, you learn where and how punctuation is used and formatted, and you also are supporting authors by buying their books and reading them, even if it’s for self study.
  • The fun part about self-study in this way is that it doesn’t feel like studying. You’re just reading! You’re being transported to another realm that’s fun and happy or sad and heartbreaking, and the whole time, you’re learning how to become a better writer by watching others write in front of you.
• Start Writing and POSTING
  • You’re either going to hate this one or love this one, depending on the thickness of your skin, but you HAVE to start posting your writing. There are TONS of places where you can start posting and getting feedback on your writing to improve.
    • Wattpad
    • Kindle Vella
    • Medium
    • Royal Road
    • Tapas
    • Honeyfeed
  • Again, you’re going to have to get thick skin if you want to be an author and you’re just starting out. It DOES get better as you go, and eventually, you’re going to get to a place where you can write, post, and forget it forever, not having to even worry about feedback, but for right now, as you’re just starting out, write SOMETHING, post it to these websites, and ask for feedback.
• Find your favorite non-alcoholic drink and stock the fuck up on it.
  • My favorite drink is Sparkling Water with no flavor. Just plain ass sparkling water. And if I don’t have any, I don’t write. I’m sipping some right now.
    
    
    

Are you reading this on the phone right now? You are? Great!

You can start writing.

Are you reading this on a laptop or computer? Then what are you doing? You can start writing right NOW.

“Shaine, I’m on a tablet.”

You can start writing right now.

“It’s an Android tablet.”

I said what I said.

Listen. You don’t need a million cool apps or things to get started writing. You only need a Google Account and thumbs at the LEAST (and if you don’t have thumbs, then your voice) to start writing. Hopefully, you already know where I’m going with this.

I will obviously tell you the splurge version of this later, but for right now if you are starting out, I would advise logging in or making a Google Gmail account and open Google Docs RIGHT NOW.

Click on “New Document”.

Once Google Docs is open, you’re going to navigate to the top bar where it says “Extensions”, Click it, hover over “Add-Ons” and then Click “Get Add-ons”

After the search bar pops up, you’re going to type in or paste “Word Counter Max for Google Docs”. You should click on this one:

Install it, and boom, you’re done setting up Google Docs for writing!

The thing is, I’m a huge stickler about watching my word count when I’m banging out 2k words a day. If I go over or if I stay under, and while Google Docs do have a Word Counter built in under the “Tools” bar, this free plug-in is perfect for keeping yourself on a goal-oriented word count.

You can also keep everything in 1 doc and track your progress day by day instead of breaking up your document into different Doc papers.

However, if you’re like me and you only want to use the best of the best, I HIGHLY recommend buying Scrivener for Mac (and Windows if you hate yourself). It’s a bit of a pretty penny, almost over $50 just for the app, but the assets and functions you get with it are a class above the rest.

Two hours with Scrivener and you will never want to use another word processor ever again.

You can download Scrivener from the Apple App Store on MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS; and if you’re using a Windows computer, you can buy and download it from their website: Literature & Lattes .

So now you have a device to write with, a means of writing, and you may or may not have an idea of what to write (we’ll tackle that next).

The rest of this book is going to tackle the blend between your creativity and writing 2000 words an hour. Because you can do it, because I can do it, and me having been writing everyday since 2016 doesn’t matter, just read this, implement what I say, and in no time you’ll be an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.

In the meantime, if you need some inspiration to get started writing, here are a couple of items I recommend if you have for your writing journey. You DON’T have to buy these to be a good writer, again if you’re reading this on your phone and you have one or two thumbs, you’re already equipped to start writing. However, these are some things that I have personally used and may help you on your way.

They’re aesthetic, they’re compact, and they come in pink. What else could you ask for?

I’m sorry. Get a MacBook.

You can buy a really cheap on here and you’re not going to find any better. I would highly recommend switching over to Mac if you want to take writing seriously.