How to Fast Draft

Photo credit: Chapendra on Flickr

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)

How to Use Timers to Be More Productive

Photo credit: purplemattfish on Flickr

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

Photo credit: c.chich on Flickr

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

Photo credit: Solo on Flickr

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?

How to Write a Masterpiece

Late Saturday night: after a particularly whimsical session of #wordmongering, I was chatting with fellow mongerer @Babseth, when we were struck with a lightning bolt of inspiration—the gates of heaven were opened to us and the secrets of writing a masterpiece were downloaded directly into our minds.

I guess you just had to be there.

Being the generous person that I am, I decided to write down these surefire ways to complete a novel of brilliance. Don’t skip any steps. They are all essential.

Golden Writing Advice Right Here, People:

1. Linear plots are overrated. Readers enjoy trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It’s an adventure.
2. Consistent character development? Pshh!
3. 100% evil, mustache-twirling villains are a must. WHERE IS YOUR VILLIAN’S MOUSTACHE? And he should probably be bald, too.
4. Don’t waste your time establishing setting—especially not setting that will be important later on.
5. Foreshadowing? Completely superfluous.
6. Don’t even THINK about cutting that lengthy telephone conversation about the neighbor’s dog and the scene where your MC ordered delicious food at the restaurant. Enough said.
7. Every outfit must be meticulously described—down to the last painted toenail.
8. We need to know every aspect of every characters background—from birth to present day.
9. Remember to start your story with either your characters waking up/looking into a mirror or a really long, irrelevant prologue about another character you’ll never hear about again. Clearly, there are no other legitimate ways to start a novel.
10. The twist readers will never see coming: IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAM! *queue Twilight zone music*
11. Include flashbacks in every chapter, especially flashbacks about adorable childhood memories. I mean…he was just so cute!
12. Your manuscript isn’t finished unless you’ve reached 200k words. 199k? KEEP WRITING.
13. Invent your own spelling and grammar. This is a creative field! Shakespeare did it, why don’t you?
14. Precise, effective language is boring. Show off your pretty writing with flowery metaphors and similes.
15. Varying sentence and paragraph length is a completely waste of time that will clearly only give your readers anxiety attacks. Lull them into your writing with uniform sentences instead.

Brilliance, I know. In case you missed the dripping sarcasm, here’s some real advice:

Do the opposite of everything you just read. I can’t guarantee you’ll have a masterpiece on your hands if you do, but you’ll certainly be better off.

Now, as for that lightning bolt of inspiration…

Do you have any not-advice you’d like to share? Share them below! 

Finding Your Zone (Again)

When it comes to increasing productivity, one of the most important things to recognize is when (and where) you work best. Of course since this is a writing blog, I’m talking primarily about writing, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it could be applied to other things, as well.

I’ve read a lot about finding that “sweet spot” of the day when the writing comes easier. They often talk about how it’s different for everyone—how one writer may pound out a few thousand words before  bed and another first thing in the morning. They talk about finding that place where you can just slip into your writing—be it a library, a café, an office, outside on the deck, etc.

What they don’t usually talk about is how it can change.

You see, in my experience anyway, you have to be flexible when settling into you zone, because after a while it might not feel right anymore.

A few years ago, my sweet spot was in the early afternoon, between one and three. I worked best in at the kitchen table with a pair of headphones and iTunes running endlessly. For reasons I will never know, wearing a pair of headphones made it easier for me to shut everything else out (even when there was little noise distraction to worry about). I could write for hours like that.

But then it changed. It wasn’t drastic—I probably could’ve continued in that spot if I really pushed myself to, but it didn’t feel as easy. Everything felt too routine, and I had trouble focusing.

Then one morning, I woke up earlier than usual and couldn’t fall back to sleep, so I dragged myself to my computer and checked Twitter (because that’s what EVERYONE does right? Right? Ok, moving on). There was a #wordmongering session about to start in a few minutes and I figured, why not? and jumped in.

Then something happened.  The writing flowed. By noon I’d written well over my 1,500-word quota. I felt energized. I’d already completed my writing goal and I had an entire day ahead of me. I was proud of myself. I was happy.

I wanted to do it again.

So now I write in the morning. I still often use headphones (don’t ask why, I can’t explain it myself) and my writing goals haven’t changed, but the writing comes easier again. Not only that, but when I do reach my goal (and I don’t often stop until I do), I feel great for the rest of the day.

So, my fellow writers, moral of the story is sometimes, your zone changes. If your writing starts to feel stale during that “sweet spot” of the day, maybe you need to change things up a little. If you usually write in the morning, maybe you need to try after lunch. If you usually write at night and lately the words have been about as easy as pulling out your own teeth with only a tissue in hand, maybe you should give it a try earlier in the day.

When the routine stops working, try new things. You never know when you’ll find a zone that works even better for you than it did before.

When (and where) is your zone? Has it ever changed? 

#wordmongering: Are YOU In?

I said a while back I would do a post about #wordmongering, so here it is.

If you’ve followed me on Twitter for more than a week or so, then you have likely seen my bursts of excitement and confetti tagged with the mysterious #wordmongering hashtag. They looked like this:

So as you can see, I have a love affair with virtual confetti. Wait. I mean, I use the #wordmongering hashtag a lot. I mean…uh, MOVING ON!

There’s a point to this post and the point is this: If you’re a writer, and you’re on Twitter and you haven’t checked out #wordmongering yet, you definitely should.

But of course now you want to know why. WHY Ava, should we check out this mysterious silly-sounding hashtag? I mean, wordmongering isn’t even a word, IS IT? No, not yet my friends, but it shall be.

First of all, it was created by @notveryalice and @MonicaMarieV, one of which (@notveryalice) created an awesome website that explains all. So if you have any questions after reading this super-informative blog post, check it out because it’s pretty and holds all the answers. It even knows where the fountain of youth is and where your favorite sock disappeared to. Ok, I made that up. But that’d be pretty cool.

ANYWAY. Digressing a lot today.

I discovered #wordmongering a little over a month and a half ago. At the time I wasn’t really working on a manuscript, but I was trying to get one started. I saw people posting their word counts on this silly aforementioned thread and eventually curiosity got the best of me, so I checked it out. I was expecting a bunch of writers talking about how many words they wrote. What I WASN’T expecting was a community full of encouraging people with arms open to all newcomers.

Wow. I fell in love immediately. Not only that, but I started a manuscript. And finished it thirty-three days later.

The system just worked for me. Basically, at the start of every hour, those participating in #wordmongering write as much as they can for half an hour. After that they report their word count and relax for the next half hour. It doesn’t matter if you’re written 50 words or 1000 words because (and this is the best part) negativity is not permitted. So if you feel bad you only wrote 50 words, guess what? People will come and give you virtual hugs and say you did great anyway.

And they mean it. Because it’s 50 words you didn’t have half an hour ago.

The half hour writing spurts worked for me. It helped me conquer my ADD tendencies and I didn’t wear myself out because I was relaxing every half hour. I know it’s not perfect for everyone, but at the very least I’d encourage you to try it out if only for the opportunity to meet some amazing, warm people.  

As long as you don’t mind me attacking you with confetti, that is.