008: How to Write Faster

My first book took me two years to write, and my second book took me just six months. In this episode, I share my process for getting in flow, how I write faster and more efficiently, and why I think writing quickly is the best method (especially for new writers.)

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How to Write Faster

Oh, this episode is a good one, we're talking about how to write faster, how to get into a flow state, how to do writing sprints, all those things are related. It's going to be so good. This is something I preach about a lot. If you haven't heard me talk about this, get ready, I share about it frequently. Because it's changed my life it's changed my approach to writing. And I really think that writing in this way is the key to making progress on your writing goals, getting things done. And it's also key to a lot of the mindset stuff, like a lot of the fear that can come up when you're writing: fear that your writing isn't good enough, like fear of judgment, your inner critic that comes up when you're writing, It's the key to quieting a lot of those that sort of like negative self talk, that's pretty much every writer I've ever met encounters.

So okay, so I first started learning about this idea of like flow state, and creative flow a couple of years ago, it was presented to me in this workshop on and they call it deep work. Deep Work is not the way that they described, it was it's not surface level work, like you're not responding to emails and like doing data entry or you know, something kind of like mindless, it's work that requires some mental focus, it requires you to access creativity. It's not just surface level stuff that you do every day, deep work. Writing falls under the umbrella of deep work, because when you're writing, there's thought that goes into it, you're not just like mindlessly typing. And you can sort of check out like you have to be present, you have to be paying attention to what you're writing. And they really talked about all of this research that shows we are so easily distracted. Part of this is because of our phones, and because of social media, our attention span has diminished. And there's also a ton of research that shows that when we get interrupted, it takes us something like 20 or 25 minutes to get back on track with what we were doing.

So you can imagine for writing, this is a recipe for disaster, if you are trying to write but you're also trying to have a conversation with someone, if you're looking at social media every two minutes, if you're checking your phone, if you're looking at your email, if you're thinking about all the other things that you have to do that day, but also trying to write it's going to be a struggle to get words down on the page. And that was the case for me with writing part of my first book, it would take me so long, it would take me like an hour of writing to do 300 words, because I wasn't just focused on writing, I was writing but I was sitting on the couch and talking to my husband and the TV was on music was on like, you know, my, my cat was wanting to play who like all this stuff was going on around me. And I just was having a hard time actually writing. And I thought that's just what writing was, I thought it was just a struggle. And it was going to be hard. And it was going to take me years to write a book. But it doesn't have to be that way.

My second book. Of course, I had still had moments of like writer's block or feeling frustrated with my manuscript like, and wondering if it was any good. Of course, I still encountered that. But it was so much easier to write, it was so much quicker. I just I'm never going back to the old way of writing. I'm just not doing it. So when we talk about deep flow or flow state, the flow state is this idea that there's a kind of a fluidity that happens between like what you're actually doing in your mind where you are just totally absorbed by what you're doing. You're really deeply absorbed in it. You're deeply focused on it, right? Like you are one with your writing, which sounds kind of weird and cheesy to say, but that's basically what we're getting at. And the way that you access that the way that you get into that flow state: there's a few things that are involved here to set this up. So first of all, when you are writing, try to minimize distractions as best you can. If you live in a big city, and there are, you know, traffic noises outside your apartment window and like ambulances going by and whatever like, of course, we can't just completely be in like a soundproof room, there's going to be stuff happening around us. But what this means like focus on what you can control.

So this means putting your phone away, putting your your maybe putting your laptop on airplane mode so that you can't go on the internet, you just focus on your your work in progress that's open in a Word doc or in a notepad, Scrivener or whatever you use. And you might have to have internet to access that. But the point I'm trying to get at is close out all your other browsers put away your phone, shut the door, do what you can, so that you have the ability to focus for a short period of time. You do not have to have an hour to do this. When you're in flow, you can write so much faster. So you don't have to set aside an hour or two hours every day. To do this, you can do a 15 minute writing sprint, a 20 minute writing sprint. With this idea of getting into flow, we want to set a limit at like 30 minutes, because after 30 minutes of being in this flow state, you're going to want to come up for air you're going to want to take a break, go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, get some water step outside like just kind of step away from your writing after 30 minutes.

So if you're going to do this and you're setting a timer, I would say definitely no more than than 30 minutes, I like doing a 15 minute sprint. For me 15 minutes when I'm in this flow state when I'm in this state of like being completely focused on my writing, I can get a lot done in 15 minutes. Now sometimes I don't reach if I have a goal of 1000 words a day. Sometimes I don't reach my 1000 words in that 15 minutes, so I might have to do two sprint's, but I always divide them up. So I'll do 15 minutes, I'll set my timer right for 15 minutes. And then take a break, even if it's just like a 60 second break, and then come back to it and do another 15 minutes.

The idea here with writing in this flow state, though is there is a little bit of prep that's involved beforehand, right, you have to set up your environment. So you minimize distractions as best you can. But you also need to know what you're writing. So this is what this looks like for me. Before I set my timer for 15 minutes, I will just kind of open up my work in progress and like remind myself of where I'm at what scene I'm in, what my characters are doing. And then I'll kind of review the upcoming 1000 words or so like what has to happen in the next 1000 words, what has to happen next in this scene. And I'll just kind of go through it quickly in my head. It doesn't take long, you know, 30 seconds, a minute tops, to kind of remind myself of what I want to happen next. So that when the timer starts, and I'm off writing for 15 minutes, I'm not sitting there like, oh, well what should happen next. I don't know what comes next in the scene. What's happening in this conversation. I already know I can just dive right in. So that's the prep work here. Minimize distractions, set up your environment. And then know what you're going to write.

If you're someone who outlines you can do a little bit of outlining for the upcoming, you know, sprint of what you're going to be working on. You don't have to though I never do that. I don't really outline the upcoming scene that I'm working on. I'll just kind of go through it again, like mentally set 30 seconds aside or 60 seconds aside and just kind of refresh my memory on what's happening and what's going to happen next. So, I mentioned at the beginning, I think this method is key for quieting your inner critic. And the reason that this helps is when you are focused on this this like deep focus and this flow state. You're not going back to look at what you've previously written, you're not going back to chapter one. You're not going back to what you wrote last week, you are only focused on the next scene, the next 1000 words.

You're not thinking about what you previously written. And sometimes you might be like, oh, well, I have to go fix that character's name, I change the character's name, or I have to go fix this scene because it sets up this thing. No, you can make notes. You know, keep a notebook next to your computer or a Notes app on your phone, make some notes of things, you know, you have to go back and change. But only be focusing on what's coming next. Now, because you're not going back, your inner critic doesn't have a chance to be like, oh, man, this scene I wrote earlier is such garbage, like, oh, this scene needs so much work, it's going to need so much revising like this is terrible. No one's ever going to wanna read this, right? it quiets down that voice because you're only focused on what's coming up next. And the cool thing about this method is you'll start to get momentum.

So let's say maybe, maybe 1000 words is too ambitious, maybe you want to do 500 words. And so for five days, out of seven in a week, you do a 15 minute writing sprint. Okay, so 500 words, five times, is 2500 words that you've written in a week. That's incredible progress. And when you start to see that word count, increasing, you start to see all of the things that you're writing, it gives you the sense of like, oh, this is possible, I can write a book, I can get this first draft out in a matter of months, it's not going to take me years to struggle to get this out. It really is incredible. Like I said earlier, I'm never going back to that method of half writing half doing other things. This is a way to fit it into my schedule. And if you're someone that has kids, if you're someone that's crazy busy, you got all kinds of things on your plate. Doing it this way, setting aside 15 minutes means that you can write, you can fit this into your life no matter what else you have going on. So try this method. Set a timer. Get into that flow state as best you can. Just write don't go back and read what you previously written. Don't go back and edit, just write.

Try this method. Give it a couple of weeks, see if it changes how you do things and let me know. I had someone. I've had a few people tag me on Instagram, they'll share about their experience with this and how life changing it is. And it sounds so simple, right? It's just setting a timer. It's just like focusing on what you're doing. It's so simple. But we're not used to doing this. We're used to grabbing our phone and checking social media and we're looking at net you know, our phone when we're watching Netflix like we're so used to multitasking that the idea of focusing on something exclusively and really getting absorbed in it for 15 minutes can sometimes feel foreign, but try it. tag me on Instagram at theKatieWolf, let me know how this goes. I can't wait to hear about it.

Katie Wolf