Sorry I don’t want to make anyone sad! I put up my word counts to pump myself up and keep going when I’m lagging. But I’ll do my best!
I didn’t used to write quickly, and it took me years to finish anything. NaNo helped me a lot. I began having to write very quickly because I was working two jobs and going to school and didn’t have long in a day to get word counts done between work and class and homework.
My quick writing is also helped by the fact that I have ten years of office experience so my WPM is extremely high (I think around 120 words a minute on a good day). And we can’t forget that I write middle grade fiction so my words and writing style are usually very simple which makes it easier too.
On a day like today I didn’t have anything else to do. I can’t do much at work in between running payroll reports so I may as well write while I’m at my desk.
We can also remember that I’m writing first drafts (and for NaNo at that) so I write a lot of crap and probably more repetition than I should. When I edit things I write more slowly. And some stories it’s a struggle to even get out a couple hundred words a day.I’m a very competitive person and I’m always trying to one-up myself (or other writers) so I frequently push myself to write myself into injury or distress which is not a good habit to get into. But I HAVE TO WIN.
My writing is faster under the following circumstances: when I get to do a section of world or culture building because I love that and when I get to write a lot of dialogue (I also talk at 300 words a minute so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I write dialogue very quickly). My work is very slow when I’m writing fight scenes and magic spells and it slows completely to a crawl when I write anything about romance because seriously, I get so embarrassed I can’t do anything.
I’m sorry this isn’t very helpful! My speed is a combination of experience and knowing how to motivate myself by writing things I’m interested in, challenging myself and also rewarding myself frequently.
I know my strengths and weaknesses very well and during a first draft I tend to concentrate on the former so that I can write quickly and I deal with the latter when I have more time.
But every writer has to do things at their own pace. If you want to try and speed up, you should try finding ways to make it a fun challenge and motivate yourself! You can do word sprints to practice your WPM. Or you can start giving yourself rewards after every hundred words or so. Or do free-writing before you start so you already know what you want to write when you sit down. I’ve used all three methods to speed myself up over the years. And if you want cheering on, you can always come to me because I’ll always cheer you on whether you’ve written 10 words or 10,000!
Reblogging this for the day crowd also because I have an addendum I forgot to add:
I never let myself stare at an empty page. If I’m stuck I literally take the first idea I think of. So yesterday I hit a spot in between books 2 and 3 where I didn’t know what I was doing. I was caught up in the emotions of book 2 and hadn’t thought or planned book 3 at all and the only thing I could think of was one line of dialogue so I took that and used it to write a conversation and went on from there.
Maybe it’s stupid and doesn’t fit the plot or actively works against things I’ve already said. Maybe I’m going to have to rip it all out later.That doesn’t matter. I can fix it when I edit. But for the purposes of writing, and writing fast, you can’t let yourself get caught up in doubts. Not about what to write or how to phrase it or anything. Which I know is a lot easier to write about than it is to do.
But basically I have a lot of faith in my subconscious and my ability to tell the story I need to tell so if I think of something, it’s going in. Once I put it down I treat it like it’s been carved in stone. Who cares if the sentence is wonky or the word isn’t right? Write it now, and move on. Fix it later.
This is kind of tilted at first drafts but honestly I use the same tricks when I’m editing. I write fast so I never second guess myself.
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