Overcoming Doubt by Improving Your Ability to Identify Great Writing
20. The Real Way to Gain Writing Confidence
21. Writers are Readers
22. Developing a Great Story Idea
23. Learning to Ferociously Self-Edit
24. Sample 1-Fiction
25. Sample 2-Nonfiction
26. Sample 3-Fiction
27. Sample 4-Nonfiction
28. Sample 5-Fiction
29. Effective Writers Know Their Readers
05
How to Respond to Criticism
30. Why Criticism Motivates Successful Writers
31. How to Deal With Rejection
32. The Best Way to Handle Rejection
33. Rejection Often Precedes Success
34. The Importance of a Supportive Community
06
Pitch Your Manuscript with Confidence
35. The Key to Confidently Pitching Your Manuscript
36. What Agents and Publishers Expect
37. Self-Publishing
38. Why You Need an Agent and How to Get One
39. Writing a Compelling Query Letter
40. Your Query Letter Template
07
Where You Go From Here
41. Finalizing Your Action Plan
42. It’s Time to Become an Author
Dreamer to Author
Course Overview
Total lessons: 42
Total lessons: 42
Total videos: 42
Estimated time: 7 hours 0 minutes
's Action Plan
's Action Plan
Step 1
What Is Your Why?
To keep pushing yourself through this long journey, your secret weapon is knowing your why.
In one sentence, tell me why you write.
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Step 2
Channeling Your Fears Into Motivation
Writer’s fear can be a great motivator to make you a better, more productive, hardworking writer. So don’t deny your fear, acknowledge that it’s valid and let it humble you and motivate you to always do your absolute best.
Write out what scares you and why you’re right to be scared.
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Step 3
What Writing Your Book Will Do For You
Tell why you ABSOLUTELY must write your book.
List your reasons
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Step 4
Your Writing Schedule
You’ve accommodated your obligations and even scheduled procrastination. Check your plan regularly and stay on pace, and you’ll hit your deadline!
If you need, print out this calendar that you can modify yourself.
What will your weekly schedule look like?
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How many pages do you aim to complete per week?
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List your preferred writing pace. How many pages will you aim to complete per week?
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Roughly how many pages will your novel be?
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Divide your total number of pages by your pages per week.
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What are your benchmarks—the bite-sized goals for your book?
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How will you celebrate each benchmark?
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On which calendar will you post all these mini-goal dates and your deadlines?
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Step 5
Books to Read
Writers are readers; good writers are good readers; great writers are great readers.
List five books in your genre you plan on reading
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List five books on writing you plan on reading
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Step 6
Before and After
One of the best ways to build confidence is to review how far you’ve come. Use this area to post a before-and-after of 300-500 words from your manuscript. See how well you’ve ferociously self-edited it.
Copy and Paste Your "Before"
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Copy and Paste Your "After"
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Step 7
Reader Profile
Every word you write should have your READER in mind.
Who is most likely going to benefit from your book (gender, average age)?
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What do you want to communicate to them?
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What do they strive for?
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What's their socio-economic status?
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What are their struggles?
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What are their hopes and dreams?
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Step 8
Local Writing Groups
Check with your library, your community center, Meetup.com, and Word Weavers International to find writing groups in your area.
List local writing groups and include when they meet.
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Step 9
Query Letter
You want to grab an agent or publisher’s Attention by piquing their Interest in your book and making them Desire it by telling them why you believe it would work in the marketplace — including why you’re the person to write it — and finally spurring them to Action by asking them to respond positively.
Paste your Query Letter Here
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List the five publishers or agents to whom you will send your query letter
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