Most of the writers I know want to write faster. They want to get more words down on the page during every writing session. I’ve been one of those writers for as long as I can remember…and I probably always will be!
Over the years, I’ve gotten faster – and without learning how to type faster! Now, I’ve had friendly arguments with writers about why your typing speed does matter. You can think faster than you can talk. You can speak faster than you can type. So if your thoughts are in the writing flow, they are moving fast. So the faster you can physically type, the faster you can get those words down on the page.
So the fact that I learned to write faster over time was more about getting my thoughts deeper into the writing flow. If I also learned how to type faster, I would be able to get even more of the story down in each sitting.
Okay, so let’s say you’re not going to update your typing skills, and you’re not ready to try dictation. How can you write faster?
There are several ebooks for writers that have focused on or touched on this one main idea: organize your thoughts before you sit down, then set a timer and write as fast as you can for a set length of time.
Let me break it down.
Why organize your thoughts first?
Even if you’re a pantser, you probably have some idea of the very next scene you plan to write. Now, what if you spent 5-10 minutes and closed your eyes or doodled or whatever you do, and you really saw the scene fully in your mind? What if you didn’t start typing until you could really see it?
You’d probably write faster.
Why set a timer?
If you have an hour and that’s it, have you noticed that you tend to really get those words out on paper because you’re hurrying to beat the clock? (Let’s assume that you’ve organized your thoughts and know what you wanted to write at the beginning of the hour.) Or if you have 30 minutes, and you know what you want to say, and it comes rushing out – partially because you have to go do something else soon? That’s why setting a timer works so well even when you have 4 or 5 hours to work.
You end up getting more words on the page.
Why pick an arbitrary time to stop?
For the same reason you set the timer in the first place – you’re pushing to get your thoughts out on the page before something (the timer) tells you to stop. You don’t dawdle. You don’t take a bathroom break and then a snack break and then answer a text during that hour (or 20 or 30 or 40 minutes). You type. Then you can take a break, answer a text, check emails, and then come back to the next timed session ready to do it again.
And write even more than before.
I hesitated to try this until recently because I hadn’t fully understood the answers to the three questions above. Once I realized how and why the whole thing worked, I haven’t been able to stop using this method! I went from a record high of 5000 words in a day to 7157 words in a day – both at writer retreats where the only thing I had on my schedule for the day was to write.
On my previously record high day, I started my writing day at 7am, took a break a few hours later to exercise and shower, wrote some more, took an hour for lunch to watch TV and give my brain and eyes a rest, then worked again until dinner around 5 or 6, and sometimes put in another hour after dinner if I had the energy.
On my new record high day at a writing retreat with my friend Elena Dillon last month, I wrote in five 1-hour sessions between breakfast and dinner and wrote 43% more than when I worked more hours!
I hope my explanation here has helped you see why this is a method you could try. If you want more detailed explanations from other writers, try Chris Fox’s book 5000 Words Per Hour (all of his books are really good) or Rachel Aaron’s book 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love. If you know of a book that could help people write faster, please mention it in the comments. 🙂
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick, A Very Merry Superhero Wedding, and Unexpected Superhero are currently available on Amazon. The free short story “Superhero in Disguise” and the new short story “Welcome to Loon Lake” are available wherever ebooks are sold. You can find out about her courses on self-publishing, marketing, and time management for writers at her website Writer Entrepreneur Guides.
0 0 Read moreAbout the Class:
It’s easy to find how-to books on writing fast, but which one represents the solution to your plotting problem?
Let MM Pollard, writer, editor, and workshop presenter, help you sort through all of the different advice on this subject in eight lessons. She will focus on increasing daily word count as well as on quicker methods to plan and organize your book, using information from several fiction and nonfiction writers who have done just that. Students will be encouraged to try the techniques presented in each lesson to see if they work for them.
About the Instructor:
As an English teacher for fifteen years and, currently as editor for Black Velvet Seductions and the MM in Workshops with MM, MM Pollard has helped writers correct ungrammatical grammar, misused usage, problematic punctuation, and poor writing. Check out Testimonials on her blog, MM’s Fundamentals of English. While you are there, sign up for her monthly newsletter and even look at previous newsletters.
MM began presenting workshops four years ago and has presented on many sites, including her own. Many RWA chapters, including From the Heart RWA, RWA Online, OCC/RWA, Passionate Ink, Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal RW, Maryland RWA, and Florida RW, have also sponsored her workshops. In February, 2015, she presented at FRW’s Fun in the Sun Conference, and her dream come true!
Through her fun workshops—English class can be fun!—MM is sure she can help you, too, master the fundamentals of English composition.
***********************************************************************
Permission to forward
Angela Kyle
OCCRWA Online Class Promos
A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
To prove her father’s innocence, she’ll have to turn a killer's sights on herself.
More info →The sands of time are running out . . .
More info →Travel back through time with Carynn Cinnamon as she embraces romance, witchery, mystery, and joy
More info →Pindlebryth and Darothien struggle against betrayal, international intrigue, and an unseen puppet-master, as they race to follow a bewildering trail of ancient clues to locate the most powerful of the Artifacts.
More info →
A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
Copyright ©2017 A Slice of Orange. All Rights Reserved. ~PROUDLY POWERED BY WORDPRESS ~ CREATED BY ISHYOBOY.COM