The glory of writing a book can be one of the most exciting and gratifying moments when holding the first copy of that book that took years and years to write. If you take a minute and stop and think about the processes that books go through to get published/written, it’s very similar to how software get’s built.
What parts of the system needs to be in place? What chapters do your really need and what can be removed? It can be a challenge to write a book like it is to create a large software project, they all need attention and care. Not only is the audience constantly moving , delivering the wrong software at the wrong time, publishing the wrong book and writing the wrong thing.
After seeing the similarities, that writing a book has with writing code I can say that I have a found a DAAAMN good way to publish/write a book, by far one of the funnest way that helps with keeping focus, and chase the unchaseable while avoiding most time wasters, and distractions.
Let’s get into it.
Understanding the problem
I want to write a book, how do I get started? if you are anything like me this is probably your first book and more than likely you have been planning to write this book for sometime;
only If I had enough time.
only if I knew enough about technology.
only if I knew more english.
only if my vocabulary was larger.
Only if…… This list can go on for days, and some the same questions come to mind when working on a software project, I believe this one of the reasons why writers take so long to publish a book.
Motivation: It’s essential to keep your ear on the ground, meaning that you are constantly hearing people out about what you are doing and letting the customer help you build whatever it is that you are building book, software etc. Not only will this help you build the write thing but it will hold you accountable to finishing what you started.
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. -Ernest Hemingway
Writing a book is difficult enough, technology just makes even more exhausting by the time that you figure out all the technical parts that take to writing a book, you just give up and say F*** all this I am off to do something else.
Couple of ways of writing a book with modern tools come to mind and I by no means suggest using NONE of them.
- Microsoft word
- Google docs
- WordPress
- Latex / VIM
- Libreoffice
- Evernote
All of this software products are great products for what they do, but are they there to help you publish and promote your book? how about helping you create previews of your book? Version control? Project planning? No they don’t the best tools that I found to help me get started writing my book are the following.
The solution to writing a book in the modern world is that your data has to follow you everywhere you go, for example in this book I am going to be guiding the user on how to build a complete bodybuilding website, while I was on the train getting to class out of no where all the components that I wanted to have in the system started to come to mind and if I did not have a workflow to capture those ideas and record them then they might as well still be rumbling inside my head, if you would like to know more about the book that I am writing and even get a glimpse of some of the material check it out here.
The real question: How many of this software products do you use to build software?
All of them! In one way or another I interact with all this products when writing code.
Now what are you waiting for got out and write the next great novel.
Till next time,
-Rick H.
I always had a passion for the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and I knew I wanted to do something to make a difference in the world. I just didn’t know where to start. I was an immigrant in a new country, grew up in a tough environment, and wasn’t sure how… Read More
