Draft Your Book in One Month

If you’ve ever wanted to just hunker down and hammer out that draft of the book that’s been churning in the back of your mind for awhile, then November is the month for you. Charlotte Frost, of PhD2Published, has declared the month “AcBoWriMo” (short for Academic Book Writing Month). Acknowledging the somewhat new tradition of “NaNoWriMo” (National Novel Writing Month), Frost proposes the following: “We are going to wear comfy clothes, drink a lot of coffee, probably nap in our offices at strange hours and see how close we can get to writing 50 thousand words in one month.” (She’s also posted a few relatively relaxed rules for the month.) There’s even a Twitter hashtag to allow participants (or voyeurs) to follow others’ progress: #AcBoWriMo.

Is it likely that you’ll be able to create a great draft of an academic book in one month? No. Will you get a lot of writing done if you commit to the AcBoWriMo project? Absolutely! And even if what you write is rough and in need of significant revision, you’ll be a lot closer to your writing productivity goals than you would be if you didn’t try to make November your writing month.

How about you? Are you taking part in AcBoWriMo? How’s it going so far? Do you have other strategies for increasing your writing productivity? Let us hear from you in the comments.

[Creative Commons-licensed flickr photo “Writing Class 1" by Karen Chichester]