How to Fast Draft

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On average, it takes me about three to six weeks to complete a first draft.

To be fair, with two notable exceptions, most of my first drafts are on the slim side, from about 40 to 65k (though I usually aim for more than that in later drafts). But as far as first drafting goes, I am, what many would consider, a fast drafter.

So why do I tell you this? Because NaNoWriMo is nearly here. And reaching 50k at the end of the month, my friends, requires fast drafting.

So for those of you who are new to the mystical ways of writing faster than the Energizer bunny on speed, here are five quick tips to help you get through your first draft quickly.

1. Plot first. If you’re a committed pantser, then more power to you. It’s not impossible to fast draft without some sort of outline, but if you’re open to plotting before you begin, I highly recommend it. Why? Because put simply, it’s a hell of a lot easier to write quickly when you know where you’re going. 


2. Don’t look back. No really. Don’t. The key to fast drafting is to turn off your editing brain and write. If you want to make 50k by the end of the month, you don’t have time to fix that terrible first chapter or rewrite that cringe-worthy scene. Right now, you don’t need to worry about writing well—you just need to write. That’s it.
   
   It’s ok to write badly. I promise. Worry about making the words pretty while you’re revising. For now, just get the bones down. 


3. Write or Die. If you’ve read my blog before, you know about my love affair with Write or Die. I won’t rave about it yet again here—all I’ll say is if you’re even the tiniest bit prone to getting distracted and/or staring blankly at the screen, unsure of what to write, then I dare you to try Write or Die just once. 


4. Word wars. If you’re on Twitter, chances are you’re going to find more than a couple writers who are participating in NaNoWriMo, or are otherwise writing. We writers love to tell Twitter when we’re actually being productive, and I’ve found that a great motivator to write quickly and stay focused is to have word sprints or word wars with other writers. Check out hashtags like #wordmongering, #amwriting and #NaNoWriMo to find other writers who are getting some words down. 


5. Daily writing goals: stick with them. And this is the holy grail of fast drafting rules: make a daily writing goal and do everything you can to meet it. For NaNoWriMo, your daily writing goal will likely be 1,667 words (assuming you plan to write every day). If you have Scrivener, you can set a goal and time frame and every day it’ll recalculate the words you need to write to complete your goal (which is pretty shnazzy if I do say so myself). If you don’t have Scrivener and you miss a day, don’t fret—just recalculate your daily writing goal and keep writing. 

So those are my fast-drafting tips, now I want to hear from you: what tips do you have for NaNoWriMo (or fast-drafting in general)?

Twitter-sized bites: 

Getting reading for #NaNoWriMo? Here are five quick tips for your future fast-drafting needs. (Click to tweet)  

Gearing up for #NaNoWriMo? Fast-drafter @Ava_Jae shares five tips for reaching the elusive 50k in 30 days. (Click to tweet)

A Quick, Easy Way to Write More

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Here’s the thing about writing: when we writers aren’t writing, most times we’re thinking about writing, or wanting to write, or the WIP we’re currently working on that we want to be writing this instant but aren’t. When we actually sit down to write, however, this weird thing tends to happen.

We suddenly aren’t so sure if we want to write anymore.

Ok, maybe that’s not exactly it: usually upon sitting in front of the keyboard, we still want to write...but we aren’t sure where to start. Or we think we know where to start, but the words are being stubborn and not magically appearing like they’re supposed to.

And so we get distracted. We open up Twitter, or tumblr, or Facebook, and start scrolling through feeds. We watch adorable videos on Youtube and look up old Harry Potter Puppet Pals episodes for fun (no? Just me then? Oh well). Then, before we know it, two hours have passed and we haven’t written a single word.

It’s funny, because while we’re unable to write, there are few things we’d rather do than write. When it actually gets to the writing bit, however, oftentimes it seems we’d rather do anything else than write another word. At least, on the sluggish writing days that’s often how it feels.

The problem isn’t so much that we need an attitude adjustment—it’s that we’re too easily distracted when the words don’t come easily. Luckily, there’s a very easy cure. Three cures, actually.

The first is an app called Freedom, that basically turns off your internet for an allotted time. While I haven’t tried this one (I’ll admit the concept of turning off the internet even just for a short time terrifies me), I’ve heard that the only way to turn the internet back on once you’ve set it is to wait for the time to end. While this sounds like some medieval punishment, it does effectively block distractions and allow you to focus on your writing.

The second cure is an online app called Write or Die. I’ve written about it’s awesomeness before, so I’m not going to repeat myself, but it is absolutely fantastic.

The third cure isn’t an app—it’s a feature available on just about every program and it’s called fullscreen. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

It seems almost obvious, but writing in fullscreen has proven time and time again to be a great way for me to really focus on what I’m writing. The rule is just that you don’t exit fullscreen mode until you’ve finished your writing sprint. Or else.

For those of you who use Pages or Scrivener, I’ve found that I particularly like their fullscreen options because it blocks out everything but the document on the screen (rather than stretching the document into oversize mode), which makes it very easy to focus. Even without the nice isolation effect, however, I’ve found that writing in fullscreen can really help to force you to write without getting distracted. And all it takes is a click of a button.

Have you tried writing in fullscreen mode? Did you find it helped? What other tips do you have for cutting distractions out of your writing time?

Writing Goals: How to Meet Them When You Don't Have Time

“Killing time isn't as difficult as it sounds. I can shoot a hundred numbers through the chest and watch them bleed decimal points in the palm of my hand. I can rip the numbers off a clock and watch the hour hand tick tick tick its final tock just before I fall asleep. I can suffocate seconds just by holding my breath. I've been murdering minutes for hours and no one seems to mind.”  — Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me (Page 127)

Photo credit: Plonq on Flickr

A popular grievance amongst writers (and everyone else, to be honest), is about the lack of time in the day. And it's a fair complaint—time seems to race right past us, especially as we do workish non- writing things. Sometimes days go by so quickly that it feels like if you blink, you might just miss a couple hours. 

I'm sure many of you know the feeling. As most writers have other non- writing related jobs and responsibilities (i.e.: parenting, education, work...parenting while going to school AND working, etc.), it can sometimes be difficult to set aside time to write, which in turn can make meeting your writing goals significantly more difficult.Truth is, we're all busy people trying to juggle social life and work and family and writing and all those other things, and sometimes twenty-four hours in a day just doesn't feel like nearly enough time.

But as a rather wise, H. Jackson Brown Jr., said, “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”  (via Writer's Relief's tumblr). 

The key isn't to try to cram more hours into the day (because except on Day Lights Savings, that's impossible)—it's to learn to fully utilize the time that we have. 

You see, we're really good at killing time. Whether it's zoning out in front of the TV or scrolling through Twitter during our breaks, we have a tendency of wasting precious minutes, then wondering where the day has gone. Or we look at the clock and say, "No, I don't have enough time to write before I have to do x" and we go enjoy some time-wasting activities during our free moments. 

But the truth is you really don't need much time to pound out a few hundred words a day. 

I've mentioned Write or Die before, and I'm going to mention it again because I think it's especially helpful when we're short on time. If you don't know what Write or Die is, I explain it in more detail in my secret fast- writing strategy post, but in short, it's an app (available on the web for free) that times your writing session and plays unpleasant noises and makes the screen turn red when you start daydreaming or otherwise do something that is not writing. And the best part is you set your own time (options vary from five minutes to two hours) and word count goal (which you type in yourself). 

So let's say hypothetically, you're going to work but you found you have some extra time before you have to leave. Most of the time, I imagine, those minutes would be spent doing things that don't involve writing. 

However! Those are precious moments that could be spent added some extra words to your WIP. Using Write or Die (or just a normal timer), you can plug in five minutes (or ten, or fifteen, or however long you have) and get some words written. It doesn't sound like a lot of time, and no, I don't expect you to write a thousand words in five minutes (nor should you expect that from yourself), but if you use the extra free minutes scattered throughout the day to write fifty words here and fifty words there, it starts to add up. All you really need are a couple ten to fifteen minute focused writing sessions to get a few hundred words written. 

Writing goals can be easy to meet if you use your time strategically. Because no, we writers aren't always gifted with huge amounts of free time, but as long as we take advantage of the free time we do have, we don't need an abundance of time to keep the momentum in our writing. We just need to use the time we have. 

Do you take advantage of your free time to write? How do you manage your time? 

How to Use Timers to Be More Productive

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So the other day I was twittering with fellow tweeple @RaiscaraAvalon when it was discovered we share a rather unexpected similarity, namely, the use of timers.

My first experience with consciously writing on the clock came with the Twitter hashtag #wordmongering, in which writers get together at the top of every hour and write as much as they can for thirty minutes, then share their word count results and pass around electronic goodies and bubbles of happiness.

Something about being aware of the ticking clock and knowing I only had thirty minutes to write really gets my fingers moving. I’m racing against the clock (and other writers) to get the most words down I can.

This ticking clock experience was amplified when I started using Write or Die, which literally has a timer in the corner of the application that shows the seconds and minutes slipping away as you work (it also has a running word count meter in the opposite corner that I personally find both encouraging and motivating, but that’s another matter entirely).

Point is, timers are a great tool for forcing you to focus on a particular project—whether it’s writing, editing, brainstorming, etc. All you have to do is decide how long you’ll be doing said activity (I find that thirty minutes is a good amount of time for a focused sprint), turn off all other distractions (yes, that means Twitter, too), set the timer and go.

The only rule: DO NOT STOP UNTIL THE TIMER IS FINISHED.

By turning on the timer, you are making a silent contract with yourself to dedicate that set amount of time to do whatever it is you’re setting out to do, and nothing else. No checking Twitter, or e-mails, or tumblr or Facebook or taking phone calls or getting a snack. If you absolutely must stop for some reason (like, say, if your house is on fire), pause the timer and come back to finish the sprint later (unless your house actually is on fire, in which case completing your sprint should be the last of your worries).

The great thing about timers, however, is that they’re multifunctional. Not only are they a great tool for forcing you to focus for a certain amount of time, but they’re fantastic for cutting down on daily distractions.

It’s important to note that some amount of daily distraction isn’t necessarily a bad thing—we all need to take breaks throughout the day, and sometimes there’s nothing better after a particularly exhausting writing sprint than watching some mind-numbing YouTube videos or snickering at random tumblr GIFs or sharing your half-coherent thoughts with the Twittersphere. It’s only when we slip into relaxing-distraction-seeking mode and suddenly its 10 PM and you still haven’t finished that chapter you were supposed to write today and the laundry is piling up and you forgot to eat dinner, that it can become a problem. And that’s when the timer comes in.

It’s very easy to say, “I’m only going to spend fifteen minutes on Twitter,” then realize an hour later that you still haven’t finished your work. As they say, time flies, especially when you’re procrastinating (or something like that).

Believe it or not, it’s significantly harder to claim that time ran away from you when you set a timer for fifteen minutes and it beeps incessantly until you turn it off, thus letting you know you have spent your permitted fifteen minutes and now it’s time to get back to work.

Be warned: setting a timer means you’re serious. It means you actually only want to fifteen minutes on Twitter and after that you’re actually going to go back to work. It means you really intend to spend thirty minutes adding to your manuscript, and nothing else. It means you understand that your time is limited and you want to make the most of it.

You don’t have to use a timer to be productive, but if you’re serious about using your time wisely and hunkering down and focusing on your work for a period of time, I highly recommend it.

Or you can go check Twitter for fifteen more minutes.

Do you use timers to be more productive? Have you used it while writing? 

Writing Quickly: A Secret Strategy

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I wrote a blog post about a month back in which I gave a couple of tips for writing quickly. This is not a repetition of that post, but rather an expansion.

You see, when I wrote that post I mentioned this thing I hadn't tried, but I'd heard a lot about called Write or Die. In short, Write or Die is an app meant to strip out all other distractions and get you writing. How? It's pretty simple.

Before your writing session you set the amount of time you'd like to write and what your word count goal is. As I've been combining Write or Die with #wordmongering sessions (more on that later), I usually set it to 30 minutes and 500 words.

After you've dictated your goals, you may choose four different "consequences" and three different "grace periods." The Web App looks like this:

According to the website, the consequences are as follows (and I quote):

"Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.

Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.

Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself."

So Kamikaze mode sounds really terrifying and I'll probably never use it, BUT I've been writing on normal mode with a strict grace period (I'm thinking I may brave evil, just to try it) and it's been fantastic. (Quick note: After you finish your Write or Die session, copy and paste everything over to whatever word processor you use. I can't say for sure if the paid versions save your work, but the web app most certainly does not.)

Ok, so the catch? I don't just use Write or Die.

You see, also about a month ago, my Twitter buddy @surlymuse wrote about combining #wordmongering with Write or Die. If you ask me, it's pure genius.

For those of you who don't know what #wordmongering is, you can check out my #wordmongering post which basically explains its awesomeness or take a look at the the handy dandy #wordmongering website created by #wordmongering co-founder @notveryalice.

In short, #wordmongering is a Twitter hashtag where writers get together and have thirty minute writing sprints starting at the top of every hour. At the end of the sprint, you share your word count achievements with each other, throw some virtual confetti around and take a break until the next sprint. It's a fantastic tool with some great people that really gets you writing.

So when I read about combining Write or Die with #wordmongering, I was intrigued. Could it really work?

I tried it. In my first Write or Die/#wordmongering combination sprint, I wrote over 1,000 words. In thirty minutes.

That's a pretty big deal for me. In months of writing I had only breached the 1,000 word mark in a half hour maybe two or three times. My average was somewhere around 500 words (which is why I chose 500 as my goal when I set my first Write or Die session up) and it wasn't uncommon to drag along in 400 word thirty minute spurts.

No longer.

You see, Write or Die forces you to keep your fingers on the keyboard at all times. Even if you're only hitting the backspace and enter key to avoid that horrendous noise and scary red screen (which *ehem* I NEVER do or anything), something about keeping your fingers on the keyboard with the constant feeling of that timer about ready to go off at any moment when you stop writing makes you realize that it is most certainly possible to keep writing at all costs. More possible than you might have imagined.

Combine this with the support group and friendly competition of #wordmongering, and you have yourself a lethal strategy to getting those words down quickly.

So there you go. The secret is out.

Have you tried the Write or Die/#wordmongering combination?

How to Write Quickly

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Since it’s November and something like 90% of my readers and Twitter followers are doing NaNoWriMo, I thought it appropriate to talk about how to write quickly. But first, a caveat.

Writing quickly doesn’t often equate to writing well—and depending on what your goal is, that’s ok. Your first draft is nearly always less than gorgeous, and when you’re writing it in a month, that “nearly always” becomes…err…something like 99.953485897347% of the time (which is a totally scientifically proven number).

But the point of the first draft, especially when written during NaNoWriMo, isn’t to write something beautiful—it’s to get the essence of the story down on paper. And when you’re trying to get 50,000 words in a month, doing so quickly is useful, to say the least.

That being said, here are some methods to get those words down on the page:

• #wordmongering—I can’t stress enough how useful I’ve found the #wordmongering hashtag on Twitter to be. If you’d like a full explanation of what #wordmongering is and why you should be doing it, I’ve posted about it before, which is where that pretty blue link will take you. For the rest of you, #wordmongering is a thread where writers get together and start writing at the top of the hour until the :30 minute mark, then share their word counts for that thirty minute session. Something about writing in spurts keeps me from burning out faster and the people who participate in the thread are amazing, supportive people.

Some have asked me if #wordmongering actually works. I tell them the truth: I wrote an entire WIP in just #wordmongering sessions. So yes, I’d say it works (for me, at least).

• Word Wars—similar to #wordmongering, but it’s basically when you get together with another writer (or two, or three, or however many), set up a time limit (15 minutes, 30, an hour, etc.) and race to write more than your peers. It works especially well for those of you who are competitive out there and it’s a fun way to boost your word count.


• Write or Die—I’ve personally never tried this, but I know some writers who swear by Write or Die. It’s an application where you set the punishment for distractions (which can be anything from “gentle” to “kamikaze,” which I hear starts erasing words if you stop writing) and write like the wind. It’s meant to eliminate all other distractions and get you writing, then slap you on the wrist if you start daydreaming to long. Think of it as a personal writing coach.

The only caveat is I recently heard on Twitter about someone who encountered a glitch and hit a button and lost some words…permanently. So I’d say just be careful.

• Don’t Look Back—this is key. If you’re trying to write quickly, you can’t afford to take the time to look back at what you’ve written so far. Writing quickly means you can’t edit yourself—what you put down you put down and you keep trekking forward without so much as glancing back. Pretend that your previous writing is the end of Sodom and Gomorrah—if you look back you’ll turn to salt (and it’s very hard to finish a novel if you’re a pillar of salt). Remember that your first draft probably isn’t going to be pretty, but it’s not supposed to be. The first time around you need a finished draft, not a polished one.

It’s not a comprehensive list, but it’s November and chances are you need to get back to working on your WIP, anyway. J

What methods do you use to slap some words down quickly?