Speed writing

In this era of work hard, play hard, it’s not surprising that authors would be required to write hard. Not that writing isn’t hard already, but the current marketplace would like us to produce works every few months. This means writing faster, hopefully without producing the literary equivalent of undercooked porridge.

Since deadlines have put me in the writing-faster zone this spring, I’ve given this some thought. In my opinion, one writes as fast as one writes. However, a person can make sure no time gets wasted putting energy into the wrong place at the wrong time. Here are a few techniques that help my process:

1. I planned my timetable. It took me a while to figure out that I can’t write faster, or at all, unless I sit down and do it. If you’re like me, unless that time is blocked off in the calendar, it won’t happen.
2. One must be kind but firm with children, spouse, Facebook, parents, and the dog that great artists must not be distracted. I give in to the cat, because the cat always wins. I just surrender and get the adoration session over with so I can move on.
3. It helps to know what I’m writing about. If I start the chapter with at least a few notes to get going, I skip the whole blank screen stare-fest. This is one of the few writing tasks that actually can be accomplished away from the keyboard. I think about what’s going to happen, what conflicts need to be there, and how it advances character development. Once I started doing this, I was pleasantly surprised how much meatier my chapters were even on the first draft.
4. I gave myself permission to put in “xxx” instead of spending half an hour on Google looking stuff up. I save the surfing until last, once my brain is fried, and then go back and fill in the missed bits.
5. This is the big one for me: just finish the first draft. I plough through it with abandon. I promise myself no one will read this version until I have time to fix it. I give myself a word count and slap down those words every day until I reach the end. The draft is awful, disgusting, horrible and painful to reread, but if I have something to work with, I can edit a book fairly quickly. I can’t edit what’s not there.
6. There is a saying that writers should not be afraid to “murder their darlings.” In my experience, I go down this violent path if I spend too much time fussing with details too early in the drafting stage. Gustav Flaubert could spend a day searching for just the right word for his Madame Bovary, but that’s a waste of time until I know what scenes I actually need in the finished product. This is a hard lesson to learn, and I have spent days polishing chapters I eventually had to throw out because they didn’t fit the final structure of the book. The moral of the story is: fine tune last.

Like so many examples of “good writing advice,” I am sure mileage varies. However, I managed to write a book, give it three edit passes, and turn in a manuscript in just over three months. I don’t think I could keep that pace up forever, but it’s good to know it’s possible.