In February, I posted about a deal my wife and I made, since we both had books to finish but weren’t getting them done. We agreed to sit down every morning, before we did anything else, and write our books forward for an hour – one hour, no more, no less – without fail.
I promised a report and here it is: the process works as advertised.
My priority going in was to bring substance and clarity to the murky areas of a rather complicated story. My imagination would have to fly blind into large stretches of story that had so far resisted logic and remained stubbornly undeveloped. The obvious tool for the job was freewriting, and I was prepared to do as much of it as I had to.
I’ve included a snatch of video for emphasis as well as proof of the basic truth: write for one hour every day, without fail, and you’ll move your novel forward, steadily and confidently, to completion.
As the video shows, I’ve generated a ton of notes – enough for now. What next? From my vantagepoint, that’s a no brainer. Our little morning constitutional has my novel rolling forward again, and now that I’m ready to write draft, why stop? The 7:30 writing hour will continue.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is to thank you for your advice on getting much output using less time. I am trying your method and it is effective. Thanks a lot.
Exactly what I needed to hear today! I took on your seven day challenge and while I did not manage to write the plot out every day for seven days, i did manage to contemplate some area of it, work on it, and advance in my understanding. Enough so to realize how I needed to reorder the first two chapters as well as feeling much more confident about how the rest of the writing is going to go.
I like how you describe the “large stretches of story” that “remained stubbornly undeveloped.” Somehow, I know what you mean, haha. Thanks for the advice and the video!