Posts Tagged ‘writing’

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5
Jan

A Method for Typing Very Quick Drafts

When I type a draft of a story or something, or especially when I’m freewriting, I love being able to type incredibly fast without having to stop or think or edit. To that end, I’ve developed a way to type without ever using Backspace that still lets you go back and sew up a pristine draft very easily once you’re done with the initial headlong scramble of typing.

First, never touch Backspace. And never move the cursor back with the mouse or arrow keys.

Second, whenever you make an error, simply press Enter and start again from the most recent correct word (or easily recognizable phrase).

Use double carriage returns when you start a new paragraph. Type Nix when you want to delete to the top of the paragraph and start over, or Nix to Top when you want to delete everything you’ve written so far.

Then type. Really, really fast. Build up momentum and plunge forward. Don’t worry about correcting anything as you go, just start new lines and keep going. You may start the same line twenty times, but don’t even worry about it. You won’t lose any information and you’ll get into this beautiful groove of forward motion. Soon the need to edit as you go will begin to drop away, like those things that drop away from a rocket.

When you’re done with the manic scribbly typing of the first draft, it’s really easy to go back and fix your manuscript up, especially if you use keyboard shortcuts like I do. Start at the bottom. Skip to the top of the last paragraph. Delete backward until the word in front of your cursor replaces a word that looks the same. Skip to the top of the next paragraph. Repeat. If you hit a blank line, press backspace to delete it and you’ll preserve the intended paragraph break.

It makes more sense when you try it. And there’s something magical about watching your weirdo screwy swath of errors mechanically crunch itself down into a clean draft. Give it a try. You’ll see.

I’m still refining it and still forming the habits that will make it fully useful. But it’s nifty, and I thought some of you might enjoy it.

A couple protips for the advanced user:

– If you make a mistake within the first word of a new line, end it with a slash (/). When you’re fixing it afterward, delete the entirety of any line that ends in a slash.

– I’m not sure what the theory should be on exceptions to the no-backspace rule. Sometimes it seems like a quick fix of one or two letters is much more efficient than moving to a new line and retyping a correct word. That may be true, or maybe it varies from user to user. Same with inserting an idea a few sentences back.

– And, of course, there’s the question of whether you’re losing forward momentum by going back to retype your last correct word so frequently. The hypothesis behind this method is that there is enough of a psychological payoff to getting entirely out of edit mode and into a no-holds-barred headlong rush of typing that it will make up for the minor inefficiencies of the system. And the system is also designed to undercut and avoid a lot of the more substantial inefficiencies of editing your work as you go.

So that’s a tool I’m working on. What do you think? Is it useful? Can you think of any improvements?

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19
Nov

To Do or To Have Done?

There’s an important question when choosing your pursuits: Do you actually enjoy the hard work of doing the thing, or do you like the idea of what you imagine it would be like to have done it?

There are two ways, for example, in which I love being a writer.

I love the idea of being able to spend my days at home, to shape my own schedule — rigorous, yes, but not without grilled cheese sandwiches and walks in the fresh air — to tell people I’m a writer, to collect hefty royalty checks and periodically release good, gripping mystery-fantasy-comedy novels with a touch of philosophy and some life-changing spiritual insights worked in so deeply I wouldn’t be able to sell my books in the Christian section.

That would rock. Sadly, it’s probably not what being a (full-time professional fiction) writer would actually look like at all. More to the point, it’s miles from the life I’m actually living. It’s a pretty picture, but fundamentally irrelevant as long as it’s not turning into steady, systematic execution.

Luckily, the second way I love writing is that I draw massive mind-bending soul electricity from typing lots of words really fast, then erasing most of them and starting over, and repeating that process over and over until the words hum with meaning, ring true to the core, shimmer and dance and set sparks in peoples’ souls. Gah! I can’t stand how much I like filling a blank page with words. I could sit here all day — I do sit here all of some days — punching my brain until sentences come out, then squeezing the sentences until the brilliance positively drips from them.

Point is, pick the thing that you can’t stand not doing, not the thing that will be awesome once you’re so good that you don’t have to do it any more.

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18
Oct

Fresh Thinking

It constantly amazes me how easy it is to fall back on old thinking. I’ll plan out a story, say, and then, as soon as it’s on paper, it hardens. Suddenly the paper is a security blanket. Every time I’m trying to figure out or remember what needs to happen in the story, I’m all nervous and I have to find my paper to find the real way the story goes, because it’s no longer an idea, a scribble, a brainstorm. Somehow it’s taken on this severe level of authority, and I feel lowly in its presence. It is the revelation, the work of the master. Any new ideas I develop feel iffy, like I’m trying to remember the real one but not quite getting it.

Which is weird, you know? I wrote it in the first place. It was just an idea. Why does it suddenly hold such sway? I trace it to two things:

1. I’m always — usually — amazed by what comes out when I actually sit down and start producing sentences.

2. It’s hard to sit down and produce sentences.

So reading the old stuff becomes incredibly easy, and the stuff is so good, so good it almost feels like fairies must have written it, so good I can’t imagine where it ever came from, that it reinforces my instinct that this must be the real one, and anything I sit down and laboriously scratch out now will be a pale comparison.

So I have to break that kind of thinking. One, realize that when I work good things happen, and my old ideas do not hold this weird authority over me just because they exist now. If I work more, my new ideas will exist, too, and I’ll be all surprised and delighted all over again. Two, work hard. Write sentences. Suck it frikkin’ up.

After all, this is what I love.