First, I decided on a time frame. The manuscript deadline is Oct. 31, and it will have to be updated later on, but that's not an issue.
Second, I gave myself a deadline for having the entire first draft done, and decided on July 15. Not only will this give me plenty of time to edit the book 2-3 times, maybe more, and complete all the rewrites, but SEC Media Days begins a couple of days later. For those who don't know, that's essentially the start of the 2013 season.
Third, I split the book into four parts, with the last one being the conclusion. Then I broke it down into sections, for lack of a better term), based on the subject(s), but also so I could plan everything out.
There are 90 sections. That works out to basically one section per business day for me to hit my July deadline.
As for the size of the book, I knew Part II would be the meatiest so tackled that one first. Late last night I finished it way ahead of schedule, but it's also a lot longer than I anticipated, about 75,000 words. That's bigger than the initial version of 100 Things. Double-spaced with 14-point font the printed out version is exactly two inches thick.
It gave me a good reference point for where I want to go from here in terms of size. I need to cut Part II down to about 50,000 words (give or take), and balance it with Parts I and III-IV combined, giving me about a 150,000-word book.
So I need to be writing about 1,500 words a day from here on in. That's more than doable, in fact I can actually slow my pace a little.
