How I Wrote a Children’s Book in 15 Minutes a Day
While also practicing law, raising four kids, teaching, and producing movies, in a pandemic
One year ago I was writing a book on reinventing yourself. The only time I could carve out to research and write was 15 minutes early in the morning.
Fifteen minutes a day. That’s it.
The rest of my workday was filled with drafting legal documents, reviewing the tax code, analyzing intellectual property issues, and answering clients. Plus, I had a wife and four kids, taught at a law school, produced movies, and wrote articles online.
You might be thinking the same thing that a good friend told me: “That book will take you 10 years to write — if you’re lucky.”
My friend was right. My book on reinvention would take years to finish at that pace. I believed in the book, but I needed to pivot. I decided to create a story that I could publish in less than 12 months using only those 15 minutes that I carved out in the morning.
A new book took center stage. An unexpected book. It’s a story that I told my kids one night, and they kept asking to hear it. My nonfiction book on reinvention that would share how myself and others have reinvented their lives took a back seat to my silly adaptation of the Cinderella story.
But I still only had 15 minutes a day to work on it. Here’s how I did it.
The Idea: What If Cinderella Picked Up Her Slipper, But Left Something Else?
The story is simple. It’s the story of Cinderella, with my own unique twist. When the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella runs out of the ball. While she’s running down the steps, she loses her slipper. But instead of leaving her slipper, she picks it up and toots — accidentally. Hurriedly, she runs away. All the prince has to identify his true love is the lingering smell of Cinderella’s toot… and so the prince embarks on a quest to find the mystery girl, by asking each maiden in the land to pass gas so he can find the smell of his true love. CinderToot was born. I told this story to my kids over 100 times because they loved it so much.
