In my internet meaderings the other day, I came across this post: How I 
went from writing 2,000 words a day to 10,000 words a day. Sounds too good to be true, right? It’s like when you see those ads for “How to learn a new language in 10 days” or “How to lose 20 pounds this month.” But, lordy, how I could use some good juju like this!
First there’s the problem of finding the actual time in the day to sit down to write – between my “real” job, kids, keeping the house in some semblance of order (including keeping people fed and clothed)… the actual “when” of being able to write gets pretty tricky.
So when I actually do get to sit down and write? Oh, the shiny things that await to distract me on the internets! And if it’s been a few days since I’ve had the chance to write, it’s a helluva challenge to get back into the right mindset in the first place.
So I was greatly interested in this method mentioned in the link above. I haven’t had a chance to give it a real test yet. Saturday morning – it’s on like Donkey Kong.There’s a little cafe in town that I have in mind where I’m pretty sure there is no internet connection. And I’m VERY sure (from past experience) they make a mean omelette.
How about you? Any tips for boosting word count? How do you “get in the zone?” I’ll take all the suggestions I can get!
So, I’ve kinda used one of her tips, which is to map out the scenes before writing them. But I don’t expressly write it out. I just say to myself, “This is what I want to happen in this scene, and I want these people to be in it, and I want it to be here.” And it’s actually helped me a lot. Individual scenes have come much faster, but since this is my first try at semi-pantsing, I usually have big pauses between scenes (as I try to figure out where to go next). Also, I loved her advice on loving every scene she writes. MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!! I’ve really tried to take that to heart too. Such a great blog post.
I know – you figure “of course I love every scene I’m writing… I’m writing it, aren’t I?” But when I really think about it, am I as passionate about every single scene as I should be? Those that I’m not that excited about are probably the ones I’m meandering slowly through without realizing it.
I’ve got to read that link. The only method I have right now is to schedule time out for writing and stick to it as best I can. It pretty much works, unless an emergency arises. That’s not much for advice, I know, but eventually the time does add up, sometimes faster than I expected.
Well, even that is better than my “schedule” – which is to just fit it in whenever I can. That’s really not working so well…. Thanks for stopping by Tara!
Aaron’s post has helped me so many times. I now swear by pre-writing scenes because my dialog meanders less and the scenes get written so much faster. Helps me stay organized. Instead of doing stuff on paper, I keep a separate sprawl document that I keep all my scene-thoughts in so I can refer back to what scene which thing got introduced/destroyed/etc. Fun stuff
I like the idea of the sprawl document, too! That could be helpful. Saturday’s try at this method was a success! Unfortunately, I only had about two hours to write – which really was unfortunate because I could see that she was also right about the fact that the longer time period you have to write, the better and faster your writing becomes. By the end of my two hours, words were coming effortlessly! Hoping to get another chunk of time like that soon!