I recently heard from a Bring Your Book to Life graduate who did not complete her book in the 8-12 weeks prescribed in the course–several years ago. She’d been beating herself up for years about it. But all that time, she’s been working on her book–and continuing to refer to the course materials and the notes I gave her about editing her work.

And I know she’s writing one heck of an amazing book. Her book required time to reflect, for her views to evolve, for research to catch up with what she knew, and–who knows? I believe in divine timing. This is what it takes to write her unique book.

Everyone’s different. Yes, Bring Your Book to Life is designed to help someone complete a first draft of a how-to or self help book in 8-12 weeks, starting from scratch–and many people accomplish that. Some people take longer. Some a little quicker. In the last class, someone completed two terrific books in that 8 weeks–one simple book and one quite complex.

Schedules and deadlines should empower you. They can create structure to keep you engaged and in action. They do not serve you when they make you feel guilty, ashamed or like a failure. It may seem like a fine line between excuses (why I didn’t get to my writing) and truth (I write regularly; I’m just taking a longer time to get this book written than planned).

Write regularly, find ways to stay accountable, develop a writing structure–and you will finish your book in the right timing for you. But don’t beat yourself up if it takes longer than planned…just keep writing.