I Have An Obsessive Urge To Write Faster This Year
Actionable tips to help you write faster, better, and cleaner.
It’s almost unhealthy.
This strong desire to get more words on a page quicker than the last one is what drives my articles most days.
Where Does This Desire To Write Faster Come From?
I have never considered myself a “writer”.
When I say writer, I am envisioning those exceptionally passionate souls who steal away with a notebook or napkin to jot down all their creative thoughts and ideas bursting inside them.
A writer is someone who constructs worlds of fantasy and fiction, pens poems, and participates in traditions like NaNoWriMo.
When I visualize a day in the life of a writer, I see them sitting in front of their computer with a blank canvas before them and ideas spilling forth filling page after page. They would say their work is basic or rough or unpolished but to me, a non-writer, I bet it’s nearly perfect and flows beautifully.
Writing quickly is important for a number of reasons.
Writing Faster is a Sign of Improvement
When your syntax becomes more fluid, you make fewer grammatical errors, you offer enough examples to support your ideas, and you’re not continually pausing to look up definitions or question if your arguments make sense.
In the past two months since beginning a blog and now Medium, I feel I’ve somewhat improved.
The simple task of constructing a Twitter bio or 3 sentence intro used to paralyze my progress.
I would analyze every sentence…
write
revise
delete
My use of filler words, commas, and the word ‘and’ is still my biggest struggle.
Eventually, after an hour or more revising the same 160 characters, I would be so mentally fried I’d have to return to it the next day, justifying my inability to hit publish because the work needed a “fresh look”. HA!
I just sucked at writing.
But this process is getting easier, and quicker.
Time is a Precious Commodity
Saving time by writing faster is the key to work-life balance and sanity.
Spending 12 hours a day slogging through one article is really exhausting and infringes on the time you have available for family, friends, community, and self.
Although it’s good to take breaks and return to articles for editing and polishing, I would really like to shorten the length of time it takes me to produce an article from conception to publication.
Put Your Words to Work
The other reason for improving my speed of writing is obviously financial.
The faster I write, the faster I produce content and publish articles, the faster these garner views that result in money.
This is a big motivator in my attempts to streamline production by researching more effectively, reducing grammatical and spelling errors, and having a strong outline to follow.
What Am I Doing to Increase My Writing Speed?
All of the aforementioned areas should improve if I follow these 5 key steps:
- Write when focused.
I realized I need to postpone my writing until I can focus.
This means the family is out of the house or everyone is asleep. I need a decent amount of time to be focused because trying to squeeze a few paragraphs in here and there only result in disappointing, disjointed, and a smattering of half-baked thoughts.
All of which result in basic editing fixes = Time wasted.
2. Don’t think just write.
I find this liberating and yet so hard.
As mentioned above, getting into the mindset and getting focused allows me to relax in such a way my mind opens up to communicating fresh ideas with less analysis. When I am able to produce a rough draft in no time, not allowing myself to stop for editing reasons, or to look up words and do more research, has been a game-changer for my writing speed.
So much of what holds you back from writing quickly is because you’re too busy thinking.
Finding a flow state where you don’t think and just write is a huge time saver.
3. Calm down.
Tea, music, stretching, candles — whatever helps set the mood for the last two suggestions to happen naturally is best.
Calming down isn’t always necessary, some of the best writing stems from being full of piss-and-vinegar. However, a sense of calm can enable you to focus quicker in order to achieve that flow state in less time.
Before writing, I have a mini-ritual I do just before sitting down where I do a few arm/shoulder/ wrist stretches, grab some gum, give myself permission to fail (oh yeah, I’m a huge perfectionist. Right now, Perfection and I are trying to break-up), as well as situating my space by going pee, ensuring my feet are warm — it’s all part of the unwind process.
The whole pre-writing ritual only takes a few minutes (2-4 minutes), but I’ve learned from experience it can save an hour or more if I’m pushing against a feeling of anxiety or stress.
4. Use the Pomodoro timer.
One of the most effective techniques I learned last year.
50 minutes of writing, 5 minutes break, repeat. If you stop in the middle of your task you have to start the timer over again. Don’t stop.
It’s as simple as that and it is extremely helpful for staying focused with just the right amount of time pressure. Plus the desire to crank out the last paragraph before the time goes off is super motivating, making me write faster.
5. Write every damn day.
It’s annoying that consistency really is the key to success.
Consistency is neither glamorous nor sexy, but it works.
Try being consistent for longer stretches of time, more days in a row, better than the last time, most of the year, and you will see results. Every day, every week, every month, every year.
Your commitment to something, anything you set your mind to, 100% gets easier though through practice, discipline, and desire. I also noticed right around the 21-day mark (which is right in line with how long it takes to form a habit) my excuses for quitting was getting weaker but I actually started to see improvement in my writing speed.
I try to write for 20 minutes per day. I have a bunch of areas I want to improve this year so I am attempting to focus on each of them each day to make small gains over a longer period, rather than stopping and starting new projects.
Just Write
If you’re in the same boat and you really want to improve your writing speed, let me know what works for you because I’m always open to ideas and a sense of community is a great motivator as well.
As an aside, this will be the first story I submitted to a publication. Thanks for your support!
