When I started writing my book, I took some great webinars. Some of the advice was good and some could have been better.
One tip was after you have your chapter outline, write the easiest chapter first, then the next easiest and so on. The assumption was that by the time you got it the hardest chapter, you would have momentum built up and the antipaction of finishing to carry you through.
Well, I found that I wrote most of the book very quickly with this advice. But the last two sub chapters that I knew would be the hardest, I saved until last. These sections on Old Horney and on the (non-new-age) virtues Precious Stone beads required more research. I had plenty of practical knowledge in these areas, but not the scholarly support.
Now of course, the academic research was out there. But if I hadn’t already run into it in myearlier extensive studies of witchcraft–well that means it was harder to find material outside of my beaten track.
This meant only about ten pages of material took me months of trial and failure to finally find the material I needed. I got pretty depressed, I read four promising books on Horned Gods and Lucifer and Satanism that provided none of what I was specifically seeking. After all this disappointment I reached out and friends helped me research. I borrowed half a dozen books and got great recommendations from my peers.
What I will do differently next time? I will make that chapter outline and write the easiest chapters first. But I will be researching my dreaded final chapters all along the way and taking regular notes for them so they will be a breeze when I finally get there rather than a drag out.