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I was recently asked if I was interested in writing a book for a pretty reputable publisher, which of course I accepted. I am not a writer by trade, I am a software developer with some technical wr...
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/1699 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
I was recently asked if I was interested in writing a book for a pretty reputable publisher, which of course I accepted. I am not a writer by trade, I am a software developer with some technical writing training. The longest thing I have ever written is a dissertation on distributed computing, which is hardly the same as a book. Of course, this book is about a programming topic and needs to be instructional and informative. My problem is how to get started; I have been sitting at my computer now for about 3 hours and have re-written my introduction about 25 times now. I am using [Scrivener](http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) as my writing tool, which I have used for other reference-type works but for some reason I just have nothing in my brain to get started, my cork board is totally devoid of notes! I don't know what to do and I am feeling totally intimidated! Does anyone have advice for a first time book author to get started? I would be interested to know what your process is for getting started and how you organize thoughts!