**originally posted at www.bunnycates.com/reading **

My Thoughts:
I posted my initial reaction to this book on Goodreads, as soon as I finished it.

"Excellent resource. I particularly found the chapters on organization & time management to be most informative. I have seen both Holly Black (author) and Charlie McDonnell (youtuber/writer) talk about and use the same techniques mentioned in this book. It was nice to see them a little more in depth than the 2 second glance I’d seen before.
Great inspiration to newbies and authors who may have "stalled"."

I still agree with that statement. I found the book “casually” written which made it easy to follow. It didn’t read like a “How To” book. It more read like a “Hey, this is how I get through it” letter. Its not a guide on grammar, formatting, or anything “technical”within the writing. It simply takes you step by step from getting your story idea out of your head and into a finished product.

I read this in one afternoon, while taking notes on the side. At the end I felt empowered and like I could actually get my own book ideas finally written.

In Conclusion:
Excellent resource for new or up and coming authors. This book really does contain simple techniques to help take that book from initial idea to completed project.

Mom Notes:
none

Every day it seems someone comes out with a new book on writing. As a writer, I’m drawn to the writing reference section in bookstores. I can’t help myself. I’m always looking for that new take on things—maybe a secret that I’ve missed along the way somewhere.

While I know deep down that the only real way to learn to write well is to write often, I pick up new books on writing and glance through them to see if there’s anything new in them.

Modeled on his class, "Starting and Finishing That Book You’ve Always Wanted to Write," Write Your Book Now! by Gene Perret lays out a direct and to-the-point path to follow in order to write and finish a book. Perret’s idea is that no one can write a whole book, however, by focusing on small attainable goals, you can complete the overall project.

This is a small book (126 pages) but there’s a LOT of information inside. Perret goes into step-by-step detail on how to tackle your book, emphasizing the need to plan ahead and know what you ultimately want to say along with everything from determining who your audience is to scheduling writing time in your day to publication and support on your writing journey.

While reading the book, the one thing that really stuck out to me was that there was no discussion of plot, structure or character. This threw me off because I’ve read more books on writing fiction than nonfiction and, well, I kind of expect to see a discussion of plot or character, regardless of how short the discussion is. And, yeah, that's probably just me. :)

However, it did bring up thoughts of the constant plotter vs pantser argument. I was given the opportunity to ask Mr. Perret some questions and my first question to him was along those lines:

KARI WOLFE: In the organic vs. outline writing debate on the Internet, you seem to come down pretty hard on the outline side of things. Do you think there is a place for organic writing (i.e. writing without an outline or planning) in the writing world?

GENE PERRET: I certainly do feel that there is a place for organic writing. I believe there is a place for all sorts of writing. The reason I favored “outline” writing in this book is because the book was designed for those people who have been wanting to write a book but can’t seem to either get it started or get it finished. Therefore I suggested getting organized as a cure for that. Think through different segments of the book, organize them, outline the complete book. That may be the impetus you need to get your writing through to the “back cover.”
One thing that should be emphasized is that my book is “A way” to start and finish a book. It’s “The way” to start and finish a book. If a writer is having trouble completing a book, my ideas will help. However, if a writer is turning out manuscript after manuscript, there’s no need to change that writer’s working protocol just to correspond with the ideas in my book.

My own opinion is that it is a synthesis of BOTH plotting things out as well as writing from the seat of your pants that gives you the best novels as well as nonfiction books.

I will be writing some nonfiction ebooks in the next few months and I’ll definitely use this book as a guide.

Received as a review copy from Quill Driver Books.

First posted at Imperfect Clarity: http://www.imperfectclarity.net/blog/2011/08/23/review-write-your-book-now-by-ge... ( )