The Secret to Writing Without Writing
Back in the eighth grade, I was a closet dork who fretted about the titles of my English papers. The tenderhearted, pubescent version of Austin had just come out of a season of being bullied daily. So you bet your rocks I wasn’t going to let word of my love of words get out. My former antagonizers would have had a field day. Better to stay a crypto-poet and protect our uneasy truce.
One day, my eighth grade teacher kept me after class to share these bracing words: “I’m glad you have a good heart because with the mind you have you could do some terrible things.” Wow. Thanks for that. I’m some sort of comic book genius with a few loose wires?
If I had that conversation to do all over again, perhaps I would say this: “While we’re so buddy buddy, I want to share something too. Could you try to spit less when you’re singing the preposition song? I sit on the front row, and well, it’s hitting me.”
A heart full of words and a mind that would make an arch-villain blush. What was a boy to do?
I wrote and kept writing. Two degrees in English, and five or six blogs later, I’m still writing. Stringing together words is flow for me. When I’m caught up in a good writing rhythm, I feel gladness similar to when I get my little girl Salem Pearl belly laughing. That rich, earthy, sweet stuff of humanness — that fifth flavor umami in truffles and aged cheeses — catches each of us at different times in different ways.
But who has that kind of time?
Seriously, I’ve got a wife, a toddler, a newborn, a minivan, and a startup to feed. A long walk on a misty Sunday, a pipe stuffed with Virginia Red Flake, and a couple of quiet hours with my favorite Lamy Safari and Shinola journal sounds heavenly. Bills and obligations don’t wait for luxurious longhand drafts and finding the perfect place for that cherished word, syzygy.
I can write a thousand words faster than most people. But if I’m going to finish this beginner’s guide to travel hacking by September, then I have to find another way to boost my word count. This is where the calculating Lex Luthor part of my brain comes in handy. Here is my favorite writing hack, my secret to writing without writing: I record voice memos on my iPhone. Then, I email the files to myself from my phone. Then, I send those files to my transcriptionist. He charges $15 an hour, and within two or three days, he sends back very clean manuscripts.
This week alone, I recorded four new memos: a new blog post about mobile apps in two parts, and two chapters of the travel hacking guide. I recorded these voice memos while driving to meetings and running errands. Total word count? 5226.
Other than recording time, during which I couldn’t have typed anyway, I spent only fifteen minutes on communicating with my transcriptionist onUpwork.com. Sure, I’ll need to go back to these rough drafts and prune them. But the work of raw production is finished.
If you have an ebook, guide, or other writing project in your queue, why not hit record and riff for a while? Your transcriptions may not be as concise as a written draft, but chances are, you won’t encounter writer’s block.
P.S. I realize that this little writing hack isn’t the world domination my English teacher had in mind. But rest assured, I am taking the necessary steps. Baby steps.
P.S.S. In a follow-up post, I recorded and shared a screencapture video on how to hire freelancers on Upwork.
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Originally published at Austin L. Church.
