There is a book of that title, written by the person who founded NANOWRIMO. I read it many years ago, and retain a vague memory it was helpful, tongue in cheek, but not particularly well proofed or edited, which might be one of those things.
I don’t remember the book, though, and it only agreed with my own rules on writing fast and as well as you can on two or three points. (Taking a lot of showers wasn’t one of them, but I adopted it from them, because, weirdly, it helps.)
Now, when going full tilt I’ve been known to hit 40k words, edited in a day. I’m not going to suggest people still in full possession of their faculties (or even half their faculties) attempt this. Look, some of us are less than all there, and our one charming virtue is that we know it. And at any rate, I couldn’t do it, myself, when I started out.
And that’s where we’re going to go – when I started out, I wrote at the speed most people write. One short story could take me an entire month, writing and polishing, for a paltry 6k words, sometimes less.
And heck, honestly, Thirst took me almost three months to release into the wild, and while pregnant with second son, the ENTIRE TIME I wrote a single short story (I THINK it was High Stakes.)
Then I took the Oregon Writer’s workshop, and I came back and decided I’d write a short story a weekend. This in addition to my first novel, which I’d just sold, and which was being written during the week.
Now, you’re going to make some sort of bleating noise (of the sort youngest cat makes when we say we’re going to make him into chat-mein if he doesn’t stop peeing in the front hall) about how, surely, those stories I wrote in months were better than those insane things pounded on a weekend.
Bah. Thirst was the first (IMHO) publishable short story I wrote, several light years ahead of everything else I had written to date. I actually typed it in in a crazed 8 hour jag (yes, I type faster than that, but I had just been released from the hospital after giving birth and having a near-lethal uterine infection, and I was high as a kite on morphine. It’s amazing I hit the keys.) The problem is I then SPOILED it for over three months, polishing it until it was boiled oatmeal with no taste left to it. What Kris Rusch calls a Recital piece. Thank heavens, after the 80th rejection, I took the story out and read it, then read the original. Then said, “Bah,” (loudly) fixed the typos in the original and sent it out. It sold. Unfortunately the magazine was confiscated by the Australian morality police (whatever they call it) though it still got me a year’s best honorable mention in Best Fantasy and Horror. I sold it eight times after that – the eighth the magazine (Dreams of Decadence) and editor failed to die and it was published.
High Stakes was also publishable, but in the middle of a run of other stories that weren’t. In fact, since I’ve decided to go indie, I’ve been going over my old cr—oh, pardon me – efforts, and I was a very hit or miss writer (we all have variable quality. It’s just that at the time, I had 10 REALLY BAD stories for one publishable one) throughout all that “write slow” period and into about six months of one short story a week, when the quality started to pick up, and eventually – eventually – it sort of flipped, so I had ten good stories for one that sucked eggs. I’d like to say I’m still stuck there, but I’m not. I’m probably at 7 to 3 because I’m out of practice on short stories.
Anyway, my rate of sales, and my rate of fan letters too, got much better on the fast written stories. Since then I’ve found, too, that a lot of writers I loved – Rex Stout – wrote that fast or faster.
However, note what I said above – practice might have more to do with quality than how fast you write the story (in fact it does, I know that.) And writing fast allows you to practice more. — AND you train up to the faster speeds.
I’m forever puzzled when I come across my colleagues who write 1k words a month. Mind you, this last year I’ve been slower, but that’s because so much of it was sick as a dog and too ill to write. (I seem to be moving away from that, between cutting down some on my blogging obligations and this herbal anti-stress thing I found (No, not pot, even if it’s legal in CO. I’m deathly allergic to pot, as I found in college-age parties. My airways close and I either collapse or get the heck out of dodge.) I could go downstairs and read the composition, but I’m too lazy, but it’s the normal herbal blather, including mint. I didn’t think it would work, but it seems to. I FEEL healthy, which is new. I hope so, because at this point I’m like five novels behind if you count ideas shouting at me.)
The difference seems to be that they think it isn’t “proper” to write faster, and if you analyze their work flow, they are spending a lot of time playing computer games, or other distractions. (Right now a big distraction for me is getting books ready for Create Space. Eh.)
So, in no particular order, here is (I hope) how to break out of the turtle pace and write like a hare (or like the tazmanian devil, which is what my husband calls me.)
– Take all games out of your writing computer. No, I don’t care how disciplined you are. Take all of them out. If you can take out internet access too. At the writing computer, write. Have other machines for other stuff. (Your writing computer can be a slow, old thing you got off craigslist, thing. You’re not going to do anything fancy on it, just treat it as a glorified typewriter.
– Improve your typing speed if you can – there are games that teach you to type faster. Try that. (Just not on the writing computer.) Part of the reason I write fast is that I type fast. Also, the faster you type, the less opportunity there is for your conscious to insert itself and start editing. The less aware you are of what your fingers are doing on the keyboard, the better you can immerse yourself in the dream of this story you’re telling yourself. In fact, if you can’t figure out how to type fast, or until you can, give Dragon Naturally Speaking a try.
– Of the various things that make a story good or bad, the least important is the language – yes, you heard me. — In fact, — trust me, I’ve been there – if you’re relying on language for your emotional or story effects, it’s possible that you have nothing else. Stop that. Most of the people I know who write agonizingly slow are agonizing in fact over every-precious-word. Give it up. Unless you’re a poet, there’s room for error, and at any rate, what you’re doing is writing a story, not composing a prose poem to recite after a heroic dinner. Look, yeah, sometimes when you’re just typing things in, trying to follow the story in your head, you’re going to make awful word mistakes. Not just leave for live, which might be my peculiar bête noir, but really bad word choices that break story flow, or pop you out. BUT the thing is sitting there agonizing about the word isn’t writing – it’s editing. Suffice onto the day the trouble of the day. Today you write. Tomorrow you can come in with your editor’s hat on and polish every word till it shines like a star.
– While you’re at it, for the love of Bob (Heinlein) do NOT let go of your writing to go and look up exactly what kind of gruel 13th century villagers ate. Put in some sign you don’t use for anything else, or curly brackets or whatever and {whatever in heck they ate for breakfast} and continue writing. At the end of the day, when your mind plays out, there’s time enough to go and look up what the heck it was, after you do a search of curly brackets.
– Minimize your hours of staring at the screen. I tend to only do it for long periods of time when I’m really tired or sick, but I know people for whom it is an habit. Don’t do that. If you’ve stared at the screen for an hour, either start up another story (not abandoning the first, but with intention to clear the mind. Usually the interloper story should be short. I will sometimes take a day and do a short in the middle of a stuck novel. That allows my subconscious to pass out of the block, and write again.) or go for a walk, or do 100 pushups, or something. The thing is that your “distraction” activity must be either hard/unpleasant (and when block strikes, cleaning toilets suddenly seems pleasant, so this is a hard thing), or exercise – and limit yourself to an hour in the middle of your writing period – though this does help, particularly if you’re by nature a depressive, or it must be writing of a different kind.
– This brings us to the next rule: the most important relationship in writing is between you and your keyboard. Give it some quality time. Set yourself hard and fast time. This is your job, treat it as such. Three hours or four hours or ten hours, whatever it is, respect those boundaries. (I wrote two novels a year in the days I could only devote two hours a day to writing.)
– Start slow, but give yourself permission to write as fast as you can. Rid yourself of the notion that slower is better, and just write.
– Stop second guessing yourself “should they go to the ship? Perhaps they should go to the market instead.” Whether you’re a pantser or a plotter, the best kind of writing is one in which you write in a semi-dream in which the story is real. If it’s real to you it will live for others. Keep writing. My first three novels, I wrote 1/3 more than ever saw the light of publication. That was logical, because I didn’t have a very clear idea of structure.
– It’s easier to cut/polish/reword once you have the whole thing in front of you. Trust me.
– Also, if you’re reasonably “young” in writing, your raw writing – fast enough the editing part of your mind can’t catch you – might be better than the edited one. If you don’t know what you’re doing, the stuff you do instinctively will be better. Again, trust me on this.
Oh, and the showers… they do work, as do brisk walks. I can’t guess why, unless it is because it refreshes you.
Mostly, mostly, the most important thing about writing fast, more important even than increasing your typing speed (I wrote Musketeer’s Apprentice by hand, because I had an infected splinter in my left hand that made typing impossible) is giving yourself permission to write fast. Do that. And lock your internal editor in the dungeon of oblivion, promising to let him out when the novel/story/article is done. Everything else will come.
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