It's easy to feel overwhelmed when you're faced with writing 100,000 words in four months. It's the same feeling you got at the beginning of the school year, when your social studies teacher handed out a syllabus for the semester showing reading assignments, papers, tests, and special projects. Most of us suffer a deer-in-the-headlights brain freeze when we see all the things that have to be done; it takes a while to realize that it doesn't all have to be done right now.

Still, the magnitude of the work requires organization if it is to be finished on time. That means, first, breaking down the work into smaller, more manageable pieces. When you created your proposal, you organized your book into chapters or sections, and you've already written at least two or three of the chapters for your proposal, so that lightens your workload significantly. Now you have to figure out what to do next.

Make a List

Whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, it's often helpful to make a list of what you have and what you still need to complete the work. New fiction authors almost always must have their manuscripts completed before they're offered a contract; this may be required even for your second or third novel. However, if you haven't finished your manuscript, you have an outline or synopsis of your plot; you also probably have bios for your main characters, and you have at least a couple of chapters finished. You might need to collect details for your setting, or you might need to double-check facts. Perhaps you don't have a firm handle on one of your primary character's motivations and need to spend some time fleshing that out. If you've written most of your novel already, you may need to go through it to strengthen weak passages, eliminate scenes that get in the way of the story, or punch up the ending.

In nonfiction, your needs will be different. You might have to do more research before you can write certain chapters, or you might have to go through the research you already have to pick out the key points. You might need to arrange and conduct interviews with sources, or you might need to create a more detailed outline of each chapter to help you stay focused.

After you've made a list of what you need for your manuscript, figure out what you need first, or what is most critical, in order for you to continue your work. It's frustrating and time-consuming to dive into work and find that you have to stop because some crucial piece is missing, and you risk losing the rare rhythm of a good writing session.

Get Files in Order

You don't have to be neat to be organized. Lots of people have unkempt stacks of papers, books, and files piled in apparently haphazard fashion around their writing space, but these people invariably know where everything is and can lay their hands on a needed document or folder in seconds. For our purposes, then, that's the definition of getting your files in order: Know where your notes, research, and so on are, and make sure they're within easy reach while you're writing. This is less disruptive to the creative process, which makes your writing time more efficient and more productive.