Working Fast – The Climb #965

Thursday 14th October 2021

This has actually been quite a busy week. I’m deep in the trenches on a deadline, and I suspect that if I get this push done by Sunday, I’m going to have another push next week on some spec scripts for open submissions.

What this recent piece of work has really been teaching me is how to work fast. It’s more about speed than quality (although quality is still important) but it’s forcing me to be more accurate with my first drafts. Writing fast and accurate is the Valhalla of all writers, but if this recent spate of work has taught me anything, it’s how much a of a huge difference, 4000 words a day is over 2000.

For example, if I could write 10,000 words a day, I could have a novel written in under two weeks. Now, I’d burn out by day 3 currently, and sometimes, even when I plan things out, I need breaks to think.

But I’ve recently been writing late at night before bed to get an extra session in. I’m tired, my eyes are dropping, I’m making loads more typos than usual, BUT… I’m actually surprised how easy it is to fix. They’re proving to be simple edits, and weighing up the time spent fixing additional edits for writing when tired against writing when more awake… writing tired seems to win. I’d rather have a 1000 words that need heavier editing than not have anything at all.

There does seem to be one exception though (and I suspect it would not be the only one). I find if I write openings while tired, I have to rewrite them. I’m not sure what it is. Structurally, they don’t seem any different to what else I write at that time… they just seem a bit off. I’ve had to rewrite three openings due to this.

But it has got me thinking whether I should try burning through my next first draft and risk burning myself out for a few weeks afterwards.

My next novel is due to start writing on 1st November, and I always start NaNoWriMo with such grand plans. If I could plot it out over the next 2 weeks and outline it chapter by chapter, maybe I could do a novel in a month., I’ve said that before and burnt myself out though.

It’s just been eyeopening this past week working on something where the turnaround is so short. It’s got me thinking about my typing speed, and other hacks to get the words down.

They always say that the first draft is the vomit draft. The question I have is how vomity can I make it before it’s easier to just rewrite the whole thing at a slower pace?