This is my own personal review of Nick Daws' writing course, "Write Any Book in Just 28 Days...or Less."

Writing a novel or a non-fiction book without a plan, or without knowing how to go about it, can be daunting. But using Nick Daws' book writing course made it easy and painless. I began the course at the first page and made my way through it over the next 28 days by which time, I did indeed have my completed manuscript in my hand as the course promised.

I didn't even have any idea of what I wanted to write about when I began the course. I knew I wanted to write a fiction book, but that was all. What type of story it was going to be, I didn't know, but the sales page of the course promised me that I didn't need to know what to write about and yet I would still have my manuscript completed in less than a month. So I believed it, bought the course (which was very inexpensive), and began.

What I Liked About the Course
What I really, really liked about this course is the way it leads you so painlessly into the mammoth task of writing a book manuscript.

You don't even have to think about writing a whole book. You just begin the course, follow the instructions and do all the writing exercises and, without you even noticing it, the whole book-writing process is already underway.

You just keep working and writing, and by the time you get to the part where you're told to begin writing the book, you'll find that while you've been working piece-by-piece throughout the course, you've already written an outline and progressed it to a blueprint and so the process of writing the actual manuscript itself is minimal, because nearly all the work is done.

I was so skeptical when I first began the course because I couldn't see how any of it was going to help me produce a finished manuscript in less than a month. But when I realised that I'd practically finished the book using Nick's outlining and blueprinting method, without any effort on my part, I was incredibly impressed (and relieved) that the whole writing process had been so easy.

My Gripes About the Course
There was actually only one complaint I had against this course, and that was the lack of Table of Contents and page numbers. With no page numbers or list of chapters, it was difficult to skip backwards and forwards through the course to look something up or to take another look at something I'd read earlier, and it is a huge book (several hundred pages) and so having no way of navigating through it made it a bit difficult to use at times.

But this was my one and only complaint about the course, because like I already said, this course made the process of actually writing a book so quick and easy, that I really have no complaints about it at all.

The Course
This book writing course is split into 4 modules, so I figured that if I completed one of the modules every week, I would be able to write my novel in 28 days, which is exactly what the title promises.

Module One
This first module begins with an introduction to your new life as an author. It suggests different ideas for your book's topic and briefly explains about how traditional publishing works and about self-publishing.

It then goes on to explain Nick's method of planning your book by using questions and answers and even sets up a small exercise in planning an article to demonstrate how easy it is.

WAYS - Write As You Speak, is described as the best and easiest way to write a book and it even provides exercises in Free Writing which are very useful in helping you to understand exactly what it entails.

The whole course is littered throughout with examples of what is being explained so that it is all very easy to understand, so even if you've never written anything before in your whole life, you'll be able to follow this course.

Module Two
This part of the course is designed to help you discover exactly what you want to write about. It explains about getting ideas for your book and the tecniques to help make your book idea more attractive to potential buyers.

It also provides you with a lot of help with coming up with the all-important killer title.

It then moves on to fiction writing and explains about plotting and characters. There's even a brilliant piece on how to find a plot ideas for only 50cents.

Next it discusses brain storming techniques, outlining, and something that I didn't know about but was very interested to learn, and that was that different genres of fiction require a different number of chapters.

For instance, Westerns always have exactly 20 chapters, sci-fi has 30 to 32 chapters and teen novels have 18 to 20 chapters.

The last part of this module talks about creating a chapter list and how to outline each chapter using the question and answer method. This, you'll discover is simply an extention of the article writing exercise that was done earlier, which makes writing chapter outlines a cinch.

It then finishes by discussing more about free writing, which, once you've practiced it, is very easy to do.

Module Three
This module is where the actual writing of your book begins and it's all explained easily using quotations and examples of exactly what you need to do.

There's plenty of fiction writing tips here including knowing your characrers' flaws and devising a plot from them, and it takes you step-by-step through exactly how to do it.

It also explains viewpoints, pacing, and the importance of 'show,don't tell'.

Module Four
Once your book is written (and it's easy if you've followed the course all the way through so far) it's then time to edit and sell it and this final module tells you how to do both.

You'll learn all about marketing your book including how to get testimonials and how to present it to publishers.

You'll learn about publishing contracts and things to look out for, including exploitation of subsidy rights.

You'll also learn more in this chapter about self-publishing and how to publish electronic books (eBooks).

You'll also learn about other ways to build your writing career.

Bonus Chapters
At the end of the course there are several bonus chapters too that are worth over $300.

• list of short story publishers
• list of top UK and US publishers
• list of movie writers' websites
• script templates
• 5 pages of inspirational titles
• Your own copy of Cinergy Script Editor

There is also a free copy of WriteSparks Lite which is software that you can use to generate inspirational first lines, mixed metaphors, proverbs, random word selections and much more to help inspire you and help you start writing. This is truly a brilliant piece of software.

Conclusion
I'd always wanted to write a book but never knew how to start. I thought that writing a book consisted of getting a blank piece of paper, writing "Chapter 1" at the top, and just working from there. The whole idea of writing that way was too daunting. I began to search the internet for a good book writing course when I came across Write Any Book in Just 28 Days...or less.

The course is inexpensive and comes with some brilliant bonuses that are worth over 6 times the cost of the course on their own.

So if you've ever thought about writing a book, whether fiction or non-fiction, don't put it off any longer. Just buy a copy of this course (which is sent to you on a CD-ROM) and you can start writing your book.

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Ruth Barringham is a freelance writer, author and publisher. at http://writeaholics.net/.
You can read more about Write Any Book in Just 28 Days...Or Less at http://writeaholics.net/writequickly.html