Writing advice: Triangles both efficient and enthusiastic

Since I got such a great response to my post "Don't write what you don't love to write," I thought I'd share with you the notes I took while reading Rachel Aaron's book.

The basic thrust behind 2K to 10K is that we can all significantly boost our daily writing output if we eliminate or significantly mitigate the parts of the writing process that make us want to beat our goddamn heads against our desks. (My words, not hers.)

Sounds suspiciously credible, right? Aaron uses the metaphor of a triangle:

Side one: Knowledge.

• Before your writing session, spend at least five minutes writing out the broad strokes of your scene or chapter on a pad of paper. No description, no transitions, no dialogue—you're just working out the hard choices. Who does what and when? And then what?

Side two: Time. 

• Make note of when you start writing, when you stop, how many words you wrote in that time, where you were writing, etc. Eventually, you may learn from this data (I refuse to use "data" in the plural sense) that your prime writing time is not, say, in the morning as you thought, but rather late in the evening. You may learn that you get a lot more done writing in your laundry room with underwear on your head than at a coffee shop. (The book did not say this. Here I am just being silly, and not at all speaking from personal experience.)

Side three: Enthusiasm.

• Before writing the scene or chapter, play it out in your mind and try to get excited about it. Look for little hooks, parts that interest you most, and focus on those.
• If the scene is not working for you, either revise or trash it and find one that does.

I charge you, intrepid writer, to try one or more of these out this weekend and let me know how to goes. Perhaps you might even attempt a story about God's favorite who falls and does not know it?

And if you found any of this useful, Rachel Aaron's book, 2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, will cost you one whole dollar on the Amazon Kindle store right now. Well worth it, even if you don't have a Kindle. That shit also works on your computer. Didn't know that, didja?

...Okay, fine, you already knew that.

Have a great weekend, and see you either Sunday or Monday!

Comments

[independent clause]

I'm sorry. Data not in plural form???

OK, I've recovered. I hate some of that planning, because often I get my ideas as I write. I like the enthusiasm side a lot, though.

[Brandon]

As I read it, the intent of the planning part is not to railroad you into an ironclad plan, but rather to prevent you from spending hours puzzling over one or two logistical points you hadn't considered yet. Which I have done. More than once.

And maybe it's that Star Trek: The Next Generation had a character named Data, but whenever I hear "the data are" I feel like I just bit into a black mold brownie. I know it's correct, but God help me, it just sounds stupid. :-P