I often get asked how I write so quickly. I don't particularly think I write quickly, I just write and keep on writing. So, here are some top tips to help you do the same. 😃
- Write or plot your story every single day.
It doesn't matter what you set as your writing goal, as long as you write. If you only come up with one line of dialogue and 200 words, that's great. It's more than yesterday!
If you can't write or think you're stuck, then think about what the scene or chapter should look like. Imagine it. Imagine yourself in the scene. It's not as easy as it sounds, but if you want to be a writer, then use your imagination.
You must be disciplined. It doesn't matter if you type quickly or slowly, as long as the discipline is there. No one should ever make you feel like you should produce thousands of words a day. If you manage only 200 words per day that great, because over a week that's 1400 words. You only have to write 137 words per day to be able to write a 50,000-word novel in one year!
Keep writing! Every word you write is progress!
- Take time out for yourself.
If you can't write or think you're stuck, then think about what the scene or chapter should look like. Imagine it. Imagine yourself in the scene. It's not as easy as it sounds, but if you want to be a writer, then use your imagination.
- Take time out for yourself.
Your brain needs to rest as much as your body does. You cannot sit at the computer for 8 hours straight and expect to produce great writing. That's nonsense. Walk around, do some exercise, walk the dog, but get out of the chair and switch off from the writing.
It may sound counter-intuitive but taking a break can really get the creative juices flowing again.
I don't particularly believe in writer's block. I believe writers aren't writing well, or what they love, or taking enough breaks, but I don't believe we can be truly blocked. If in doubt, write something different and you'll see what I mean. Usually, what you've come up with isn't right and THAT is blocking you.
If while walking the dog you come up with a great idea for tomorrow, speak it into your phone or jot it down in your notebook, but leave it for tomorrow's writing. By that time, your brain will have added a bit more and have a ton of ideas on how to flesh it out.
It may sound counter-intuitive but taking a break can really get the creative juices flowing again.
I don't particularly believe in writer's block. I believe writers aren't writing well, or what they love, or taking enough breaks, but I don't believe we can be truly blocked. If in doubt, write something different and you'll see what I mean. Usually, what you've come up with isn't right and THAT is blocking you.
If while walking the dog you come up with a great idea for tomorrow, speak it into your phone or jot it down in your notebook, but leave it for tomorrow's writing. By that time, your brain will have added a bit more and have a ton of ideas on how to flesh it out.
- Set a goal for every day.
It doesn't matter how large or small that goal is... (within reason... 10,000 words a day is not reasonable for most people) for example... 100 words, or 1000 words, or 10,000 words. Set yourself a goal every single day and keep to it. You need to make a golf every single day that you choose to be a writing day. If you don't happen to hit that goal on one particular day don't beat yourself up, it's not the end of the world. Just readjust the goal for the next day to make it a little more realistic.
When you sit down and begin to write, have in the back of your head that you will not finish your writing for that day until you hit that goal. Then break your goal into reasonable chunks. For example, write 200 words then take a break or walk the dog. Come back and write another 200 words. Have lunch and finally go back and write another 200 words. Then for that day, you have written six hundred words. Six hundred words over the course of a five-day working period, is three thousand words. That means you can write a fifty thousand word novel in about twenty working days -- allowing for good days and bad days.
When you sit down and begin to write, have in the back of your head that you will not finish your writing for that day until you hit that goal. Then break your goal into reasonable chunks. For example, write 200 words then take a break or walk the dog. Come back and write another 200 words. Have lunch and finally go back and write another 200 words. Then for that day, you have written six hundred words. Six hundred words over the course of a five-day working period, is three thousand words. That means you can write a fifty thousand word novel in about twenty working days -- allowing for good days and bad days.
- Be reasonable.
I know that I personally want to write around five thousand words a day, but I'm quite happy if I only write two and a half thousand. I'm not going to beat myself up and certainly not going to have a strop. I'm going to be reasonable. I'm a human being. I have good days and I have bad days. You will have the same thing.
When I first started writing the maximum I could do was one thousand words a day. And let's be honest, that is fantastic. If that is all you can manage then great! You are doing really well.
It's only as you get better and faster at typing and perhaps the words come more easily to you as you type, that you will be able to put more words on a page per day.
Be reasonable and don't push yourself into a place that you're not ready to go right now. Two hundred words is better than no words Two hundred words every day is progress. And progress leads to a completed novel.
When I first started writing the maximum I could do was one thousand words a day. And let's be honest, that is fantastic. If that is all you can manage then great! You are doing really well.
It's only as you get better and faster at typing and perhaps the words come more easily to you as you type, that you will be able to put more words on a page per day.
Be reasonable and don't push yourself into a place that you're not ready to go right now. Two hundred words is better than no words Two hundred words every day is progress. And progress leads to a completed novel.
- Find out what time of the day is best for you to write.
I realised very early on but I cannot write in the afternoon or in the evening. It just does not happen. I am slow and I am groggy. I could sit there for three or four hours and might even only get a couple of hundred words onto a page.
For me, the best time of the day to write is first thing in the morning. I actually get up at four thirty in the morning, not because I'm insane, but because that's actually the time my husband gets out of bed and when he wakes up I naturally wake up too.
Not everyone is the same and not everyone can write at the same time of the day. Experiment with writing in the morning, writing early in the morning, writing at lunchtime, and writing at night. Some people only have the luxury of writing at night when they finished their day job and all the kids have gone to bed. If that's you, then great keep doing it, but keep writing.
For me, the best time of the day to write is first thing in the morning. I actually get up at four thirty in the morning, not because I'm insane, but because that's actually the time my husband gets out of bed and when he wakes up I naturally wake up too.
Not everyone is the same and not everyone can write at the same time of the day. Experiment with writing in the morning, writing early in the morning, writing at lunchtime, and writing at night. Some people only have the luxury of writing at night when they finished their day job and all the kids have gone to bed. If that's you, then great keep doing it, but keep writing.
Not everyone can write quickly, but everyone can be productive. As writers this is normal, we just want to write, but we need to do it productively. You can't force yourself to write faster or to write more words than your naturally capable of doing at this moment, so why try?
Writers who can get words onto their computer very quickly usually have spent time thinking about what they going to write first. I don't know about you, mine is a bit like a movie playing in my head, all I have to do is put it down into the word processor. This is how I do it and this is how it works for me. Most of the writers I'm friends with write in a very similar way.
I hope this has helped you. Forget writing fast, forget writing a ridiculous amount of thousands of words every day, just write every day.
Writing every day = productivity = a novel.
