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First Draft in 30 Days provides you with a sure-fire system to reduce time-intensive rewrites and avoid writing detours. Award-winning author Karen S. Wiesner's 30-day method shows you how to create an outline so detailed and complete that it actually doubles as your first draft. Flexible and customizable, this revolutionary system can be modified to fit any writer's approach and style. Plus, comprehensive and interactive worksheets make the process seem less like work and more like a game.
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November 23, 2009: Note: I have not read this book yet. Though from the little blurb it sounds like a more organized version of No Plot! No Problem! by Chris Baty, which is a handbook to National Novel Writing Month, which was published in 2004 and the Nation Novel Writing Month was introduced in 1999 which is held in November has a 50,000 word deadline on November 30th (yes technically 50,000 is a novella but makes for a good first draft). I'll be picking up this book just to compare to Baty's more than anything else. I suggest picking up Baty's, I've got a finished first draft thanks to it.
I Also Recommend: No Plot? No Problem!.
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November 29, 2006: First Draft in 30 Days, by Karen Wiesner, presents an orderly approach to the potentially messy process of creating a novel. Whether or not you ever actually write an entire first draft within thirty days, Wiesner?s format provides a track to run on, to help get organized. It?s an opportunity to satisfy the left brain?s need for structure and organization, so the right brain can romp and play. No doubt, some readers will cringe at the 30-day approach. As novelists, we often lack deadlines, self-imposed or not. This is a potential pitfall, as the time absorbed in the completion of any task tends to expand to the time available. Some writers may worry that the resulting formatted outline may not really qualify as a first draft. Rather than be turned off by the whole concept of outlining and organization, use the portions that work for you and ignore the rest. And if you?re like me, you occasionally end up with a manuscript that ?needs something.? Wiesner outlines a process for using First Draft in 30 Days to troubleshoot a manuscript and get back on track. This by itself is worth the price of the book.