The only way to actually write a book is with the Seinfeld chain. (For me at least.) The idea is "don't break the chain!" You have a chain of uninterrupted days of work on a project, weekends included, and try to keep that chain going as long as possible. The key is momentum and the snow-ball effect. You might have a 10 day chain, or 40 day chain, or even longer. I am on day 10, and I have gotten a shit-load of work done. While longer chains are better, the key is to start a new chain right away when you have broken the previous one.
As a young kid, Jerry Seinfeld watched tv, as kids do, but he watched it analytically, trying to figure out the principles of comedy, which jokes worked and why, etc... This is what I did with poetry as a kid; I just was trying to see how it worked, because it was mysterious to me.
Then, as a young stand-up comic, he wrote jokes every day. When he would get up in front of an audience, he would test them out, and improve them based on audience reaction. Some jokes will work and others won't, etc... He didn't stop writing when he had enough jokes, but would refine his material syntactically and prosodically.
I don't really care if you like Seinfeld or his brand of humor, but the work ethic is evident.
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