Speed Writing

As I write this nifty post, I’m (still) in the middle of a self-publishing book Kate talked me into buying. Made me buy? Nagged me to buy? Told me to buy? Anyway, I’m done part one, and that’s important here because that part made me want to gouge out my own eyeballs so I didn’t have to read anymore. Seriously. But I’m done that part! And now I want to talk about a section that has left me mulling as I continue reading.

The authors of this book, the title of which I’m keeping secret right now purely for my own amusement, posit that writers should write their first draft as fast as they can. They say you should “vomit” your words onto the page and just get a draft down to work with. Since we’re in the middle of a NaNo season and I’m seeing check-ins from writers speed writing –and having done it myself –I highlighted this vomit idea in the book.

[For the record, this is not the first time I’ve heard the vomit idea, but it’s the most recent, so I’m going to stick with quoting these authors.]

The authors even said they time their writing periods and basically train themselves to write faster, like one would train themselves to run faster/harder/better. They’re all about efficiency. I time myself when I write but I don’t know if I do it for that reason. I time my writing so that I force myself to stop and stretch because otherwise I’ll be walking around with a gimpy back and neck –been there, done that for too long and it isn’t fun. I do just restart the timer if I’m in a really good part and I don’t want to stop the creative flow yet.

But I also time my sprints because I’m competitive and I like to push myself. So I guess I do what train. During school when I was writing papers and stories all the time for classes I could pump out 500 words in 10 minutes. In November 2013, after not writing for a long time, I had to up my time to 15 minutes to break that 500 cap. This month, after having been focused on editing since November, I had to up my time to 20 minutes to get anywhere near 500. I cringed when I didn’t even break 400 words after 15 minutes during my first sprint. I knew what my problem was immediately, though: I was overthinking every sentence. I was trying to get my story out RIGHT instead of just getting it out.

Still, I’m on the fence about this vomit metaphor. I get that you want to get your story out before you lose it and you want it to be organic. Actually, the authors of the book say repeatedly that going as fast as you can allows you to hit a better state of creativity because your speed essentially drowns out the critic. I think that’s an awesome point. But, I’ve also just spent that past five months editing one of my vomit pieces. FIVE. MONTHS. Thankfully, I’ve only started getting tired of it this month. I’m just so ready to move on to my next project!

But we’re talking about vomiting here and I need to focus. My current story was nearly 10K after I finished it during NaNo. The editor I’m giving it to by May 1st said she wanted no more than 7.5k. Cue the dramatic music. I have spent the past five months culling and shaping and questioning this story because I needed to kill 3 thousand of my precious word babies. I’m damn near there, though, I’ve got that sucker down to 7779 words. That was HARD.

I suppose if I was writing a book without such tight constraints vomiting words wouldn’t be such a big deal during the editing phase. Unless you’re an “under-writer,” meaning you always write less than the minimum words you’re given, I wouldn’t recommend vomiting the first draft of a short story.

I want opinions on this because I have a feeling I’m going to talk myself in circles. Are you pro-vomit? Anti-vomit? Ambivalent about word vomit? Let me know!

 

Fine, the book is called Write. Publish. Repeat. I know you wanted to know.

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