After spending three years writing and editing my first YA novel, I promised myself never, ever to spend so much time on one book. So, to help me create better writing habits, I bought a copy of 5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter by Chris Fox. It's a book that gets straight to the point and tells you exactly what you need to do to be a faster writer.
I personally had been in a horrible cycle of writing a sentence, then editing the sentence. Then I would edit the entire paragraph and then the entire page, chapter, etc. Needless to say, it took me forever to actually finish my first draft. And guess what? When I did finally finish, I decided to trash that entire first two chapters and cutting one of the characters. I wasted so much time editing something that wasn’t necessary to the book (check out the lessons I learned from finishing my first manuscript here).
That’s why Fox’s book appealed to me. His philosophy is when you are writing, you are ONLY writing. You do not edit, tweet, answer phones, or do anything other than write. He believes that once you are in the zone you will write faster. He has a lot of great tips that will help you get in that amazing writing zone.
So after reading his book (which is wonderfully short and sweet), I sat down and followed Chris’s advice. I started out writing a little under 2k words per hour. When I finished my first draft, I was writing over 4k words per hour! Something I honestly never thought possible. Plus, drafting became fun! When I stopped worrying about what I was writing, I was able to set my imagination loose.
In the beginning it was really hard to break the habit of editing while I wrote. In fact the first two weeks, I cheated and went back and fixed all my mistakes. I truly cringed as I wrote horrible dialogue or terrible metaphors, but I’ve learned that all that can be fixed when I’m editing. The reality is, that it is so much more important to finish a whole draft and get your story arc right than having beautifully written dialogue for a character that you may cut in Rev 2.
I also had to spend more time thinking about what I was going to write before I sat down to write. With my last manuscript I would write a simple sentence or two to guide me in drafting my chapter. This time, I needed 6-8 sentences before I could start writing. This prevented the slow down in drafting and also taught me to walk away from writing if I didn’t have the answer. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is give your brain a break.
If you are looking for a book that will you set up good writing habits and help you write faster than you got to check out 5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter
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