The Osmosis Method….I’ll let you know if it works…in about a
month
Have you heard? The way to publishing success is to “forget
about marketing and write that next book. Product sells!” It’s the same advice
I’ve heard about six-thousand-two-hundred-and-eighty-three times. Usually
tacked onto the end of a blog about marketing tips.
So, naturally I feel the pressure to Write Fast! Or at least
be more productive. I’m all about efficiency. I’m a do-more-with-less believer
from way back. Frank Gilbreth,
Jr., the efficiency expert of Cheaper By
the Dozen fame is a hero of mine (only slight exaggeration). The notion of
writing a book fast—actually finishing a novel inside a month—is more seductive
to me than a Jimmy Thomas novel cover.
But here’s the thing, so far all I’ve done is read about
it. The amount of research I’ve
done probably qualifies me for a Ph.D. on speed writing. Here’s a few key things I’ve learned
and plan to employ in my soon-to-start first fast draft attempt:
Plot Preparation is key.
As in any race against time, you can’t go in without a
warm-up, toned and prepared for days, weeks, months (you get the picture). This
is actually one of the common themes of numerous sources on writing fast.
Candace Havens, who conducts Fast Draft workshops on-line, advocates for a
period of plotting before the storm of writing. Rachel Aaron, author of 2,000 to 10,000 says in her book “the
most important step of writing fast is knowing what you’re writing before you
write it.”
This makes sense if you think about it. If before writing any novel you would
normally have a period of pre-writing, to write a novel FAST, the pre-writing
stage is more important.
Scheduling Time
I bought a timer. Not only will I schedule time, I will time
my writing time. After studying my writing habits and much analysis of this
self-reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that I write faster and more
effectively in short sprints. Aaron recommends such an analysis of your past writing habits to
optimize your writing schedule. According to Candace Havens, you should plan on 2-3 hours a day of
non-stop writing in whatever intervals or time of day that works best for you.
If you don’t already track your word count, when and where you write, you might
want to try it to see when you have the most output and under what
circumstances.
Osmosis
This is my way of saying “getting psyched.” For someone new
to the rigor of writing with superhuman speed, it takes a change in mind-set.
Or so that’s my theory. Thus all the immersion into the fast writing research,
drinking the Kool-Aid of the experts and talking about it incessantly to writer
friends, helps me wrap my mind around the concept to make it a real thing. I
need to think of writing a novel in one month as a realistic goal, not some
pie-in-the-sky dream. Reading all about other people who’ve done it—and exactly
how they’ve done it—is important for me to take the task seriously and to make
it a reality.
Motivation
If you want it badly enough and you invest yourself in it,
and there’s no law of physics between you and your goal, then you will achieve
it. That’s a quote from Stephanie
Queen on writing fast.
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