by Dave Haslett
Could you make them more exciting? If not, do they need to be in the book at all? If they do, could you shorten them and write them faster? Could you reuse old pieces of writing so you don’t need to write about them again this time around? Or could you work with someone who does find those topics exciting – and perhaps get him to write them instead?
Stop before the end
Some how-to books recommend stopping halfway through a sentence at the end of a writing session. Start the next session by completing that sentence, and you’re immediately back in the flow – or so the theory goes.
While this is great advice, and it might work for some people, it doesn’t work for me. If I don’t finish something, it bothers me so much that I have to go back and finish it. And that means I have nothing to continue working on in the next session.
Here’s a variation of this idea that does work for me…
Don’t stop before the end
First, I usually write in mini-sessions, as I described earlier. Each section is a separate piece of writing and only takes a few minutes, so there’s no need to leave anything unfinished. This section I’m writing now – called Don’t stop before the end – is one section.
This book is made up of hundreds of sections that can each be completed in a single fifteen-to-twenty-minute session. So I don’t need to leave anything unfinished, or leave myself notes about what comes next, or get back into the flow in the next session.
The idea of stopping mid-sentence is a good one for longer writing sessions – if your brain works that way. But I prefer to finish everything I meant to write in that session, or stop at a convenient point.
If I’m writing a novel, I aim to finish at the end of a scene or a chapter – usually a chapter unless I run out of time or I’m too exhausted to carry on.
If I’m writing a non-fiction book, I aim to finish at the end of a topic, sub-topic, or chapter.
If I don’t manage to reach the end of the scene, chapter or topic, I leave myself a note about the next session’s work: just a line or two or a few keywords to remind me what I’m about to say. I might make a note of some of the words I plan to use in the next sentence, especially if I think they’re particularly good or important. But I don’t put them into a complete sentence until the next session. The details are all in the outline, so I don’t need to write any more than that. It’s then a simple matter of picking up the thread where I left off last time, and carrying straight on.
But the great thing about working in mini-sessions is that you don’t need to do this. Write one section and you’re done. And it doesn’t take very long.
The next step
You’re almost ready to start writing your book, but let’s make sure you can work quickly, productively, and in the best possible environment.
10. Getting started (part 2)
In this chapter, we’ll look at the fastest ways to get started on writing the first draft of your book. There are tips on writing faster; increasing your productivity; avoiding noise, distractions and interruptions; and more.
As always, you don’t need to use every one of these tips; just pick the ones that you think will work best for you.
Dictate it
Dictating your writing session into a voice recorder or app is a great alternative if you’re in a situation where you can’t write or type. It’s also a much faster way of getting the words down, so it’s worth considering even if you can write or type.
Recording your voice means you don’t have to be able to actually write in order to write a book. It doesn’t matter if you’re illiterate or dyslexic or have limited strength or movement in your hands; you just need to be able to speak. Your words will undoubtedly need revising and editing afterwards, but this should be a simple, painless and fairly quick process. We’ll look at editing in more detail in the companion book, The Fastest Ways to Edit, Publish and Sell Your Book.
The problem with dictating your book is that you need to turn your spoken words into text at some point. You don’t have to do that yourself, of course; you might be able to persuade someone else to do it for you. And it needn’t cost you anything if you do something for him in exchange. Perhaps a student could do it for you in return for some extra tuition.
If you don’t teach what the student needs to know, but you know someone who does, arrange for that person to teach him instead. And in return you’ll walk that person’s dog, or mow his lawn, or something else that you can do. You’ll be helping each other out without anyone having to spend any money. And you can think about your book – or even dictate the next part of it – while you do it.
Think about how much time you could save by dictating your book. Most people can speak 200 to 300 words per minute, but no one can type that fast.
If you can’t find anyone to type up your dictation for you, and you don’t have the time, inclination or ability to do it yourself, most towns have secretarial services where you can drop off your recording and have their staff do it for you. You can also find transcription and secretarial services online. Follow their instructions to upload your recording to their website and they’ll send you back the transcribed text in a word processing document.
Another good option is to install transcription software on your computer. Dragon speech recognition software is highly regarded, and is what I use. But make sure you get the Professional version that can transcribe audio files from voice recorders and phones. The basic version doesn’t have this feature and only allows you to speak into a microphone connected directly to your computer.
The Professional version is quite expensive, but you don’t need the latest version. The previous version will do the job perfectly well and is more affordable. You should be able to find it in online stores such as Amazon.
An even cheaper way is to buy an unused or deregistered licence. You can find these on sites such as eBay. But take care that you’re buying a genuine licence, not a pirated copy or one that’s still registered to someone else.
Another option is to use an online service to convert your recording into text. Rev.com uses human typists and costs $1 per minute. Trint.com uses software, similar to Dragon, costs $0.25 per minute, and sends your text file back to you in just a few minutes. In tests, I found both services to be highly accurate.
Enough is enough: skip and abbreviate
There’s no need to write everything out in full in the first draft. You can expand it all in the second draft and add any missing bits.
You don’t need to write complete words or sentences. You could use contractions, abbreviations and keywords (or parts of words) and leave out the other parts – as long as it’s obvious (to you) what the full version should say. Use as many abbreviations, contractions and short-cuts as you can come up with.
Don’t bother writing your characters’ names in full every time you use them; you could just use their initials. If some of your characters don’t have names yet, put their roles instead: H for the hero, V for the villain, BF for the hero’s best friend – or whatever you like.
If you can’t think of the exact word you need, leave a gap or put something roughly similar and mark it with an asterisk on either side. Carry on writing, and don’t let anything stop you or slow you down. You can look up the word you need when you write the second draft.
If you’re writing a novel, you don’t need to use real dialogue at this stage either. Use dummy dialogue so you can finish the first draft as quickly as possible. For example, write “Stan tells Martha about the murder” instead of taking the time to write that section of dialogue properly. Expand it into the full version in the second draft.
No editing
The first draft is all about getting roughly the right words down in roughly the right order, with roughly the right spelling and roughly the right punctuation and grammar. You aren’t looking for perfection; no one else will ever see this version.
Don’t bother to read what you’ve just written. If you can’t stop yourself from re-re
ading it and making corrections, turn off your computer’s screen or tape a sheet of paper over it. You need to learn to ignore your internal critic who keeps telling you things like: “you used the wrong word there”, “your writing is terrible”, “that description doesn’t make sense”, and so on. There’s a time and a place for editing, and this isn’t it. Fix it when your whole first draft is finished.
Beating negative thoughts
Our minds are constantly bombarded with negative thoughts. They not only slow you down and tell you your writing is bad, they call you a failure and try to persuade you to give up writing altogether. If you don’t realise what’s happening, you’ll become depressed and end up with a severe case of writer’s block.
The best way to beat these stupid thoughts is to carry on writing. One of the biggest secrets of getting your book finished, and getting it published, is persistence. In fact, that’s pretty much the only secret key to becoming a successful writer.
It doesn’t matter if you think your writing is terrible at this stage. It probably is! But first drafts always are. The whole point of the first draft is to get your book written so you have something you can polish. And it’ll need a lot of polishing before it’s half decent.
Completing any piece of writing is a triumph, especially with all those negative thoughts trying to stop you. Turning the finished “terrible” first draft into something wonderful isn’t particularly hard – and it can be a lot of fun. But you need to get it finished first, so you have something to work on.
Avoiding distractions
The last thing you need when you’re writing is a stream of interruptions. They stop you from writing and disrupt your concentration. It can take several minutes to get back into the flow again after each one, and that means it’ll take you longer to finish your book.
Here are some suggestions for avoiding interruptions:
Wear a hat or a cap when you’re writing. A red baseball cap is particularly visible and effective. Make sure everyone knows that if you’re wearing your hat then you are not to be disturbed under any circumstances. In fact, you could wear any piece of clothing as long as it’s distinctive and everyone knows what it means when you put it on.
Put a note on your front door asking visitors to call back at a certain time. Hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign outside your writing room, and put “Quiet Please, I’m Writing” signs all over the house.
Get someone else to look after your children. You could look after theirs another time when you aren’t busy writing.
Turn on your telephone answering machine and leave a polite message saying you’re busy writing and will return calls later. Turn your phone’s ringer off so you can’t hear it.
Prepare food in advance and put it in the fridge. Leave a note on the table telling everyone what it is, where it is, what needs doing to it, and to start without you if you aren’t there.
Try going away for a few days on your own. Perhaps you could rent a holiday cottage out of season when the prices are lower.
House-sit for a friend or neighbour while he’s away.
Consider renting a small office, or a one-room apartment, or a spare bedroom, basement or attic in a friend’s house so you have somewhere quiet to go when you want to write. Co-working spaces are becoming popular and are springing up all over the country. You can rent a desk or a private office for a few hours, a day, a week, or whatever you like, and share the other facilities.
Many people have caravans or camper vans that sit unused on their drives most of the time. If you know someone who has one, ask if you could use it to write in.
How about a shed, summerhouse, garage or workshop at the bottom of your garden – or in someone else’s garden? If you want to work there during the winter, consider getting it weatherproofed and insulated. You might also want to install lights and a portable heater.
Have you considered a loft conversion? They can be expensive, but they add value to your home and give you your own writing space.
If it’s dry and sunny, go and sit in a nice, quiet field or a park. Or how about a beach or a beach house or a boat? If there aren’t any beaches near you, there are probably lakes, reservoirs, rivers, canals and streams no more than a short bus ride away.
Before I had my own office, I spent months working in my car. I parked it a couple of streets away, and everyone knew where I was if there was a problem – which there never was. Sometimes I’d drive a few miles and park next to the canal. I had a car charger for my laptop so I could work all day without the battery dying. And I parked in the shade so I could see the screen. I still go there sometimes, even though I have my own office now.
Noise avoidance strategies
Noise can be a real pain for writers. It disturbs your concentration and slows you down – sometimes to such an extent that it’s impossible to get any work done. Here are a few solutions:
Soundproof the walls of your writing room with special wall panels. Most large DIY stores sell these and they’re quite cheap.
Install double-glazing or secondary glazing if you don’t already have it. If you can’t afford to get your whole house done, just install it in your writing room.
Try a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. These are readily available from electrical stores and online. Or you could use a pair of earplugs, which you can get from DIY stores and pharmacies.
Play music to mask the noise. If you find music too distracting, try natural sound recordings such as flowing streams, waves, birdsong, thunderstorms, and so on.
In Chapter 3 we looked at using a mix of noise types (white noise, pink noise, purple noise and so on), where each one blocks a different type of sound or range of frequencies.
Try writing early in the morning or late at night when everyone else is asleep.
Some people have exactly the opposite problem: they can’t write if it’s too quiet. If you need to be able to hear something other than your own heartbeat or your computer’s fan, try playing music or natural sound recordings in the background, or turn your radio on and let it play quietly.
If you like having other people around you but you don’t want them to disturb you, you could record the sound of environments you like to write in, such as your favourite café or a busy office, and play that while you write. Or you could work in one of those places but put a large, clearly visible sign on your desk or table asking people not to disturb you.
Make non-writing time more productive
You can use your non-writing time to think about what you’re going to write next. Remember to concentrate on just one section of your book at a time – a single entry in your outline.
If you have any thoughts about things you’ve already written, leave yourself a note to change it in the second draft. But don’t change it yet.
If you have any ideas about parts you haven’t written yet, attach them to your outline and put an asterisk next to the relevant lines in your outline. This will make them easy to find when you reach those sections.
Writing is a job
If you’re having trouble writing your book, imagine that someone is paying you to write it. He expects you to work at a certain rate or, at the very least, to actually produce some writing, otherwise he’ll fire you. Don’t worry about the quality of your writing; imagine that he employs an editor to take care of that. All you have to do is to keep the editor supplied with plenty of rough text to work on.
Your partner could be your “boss” for this exercise. You’ll need to show him or her that you’ve produced the amount of work you said you would. And you won’t get your dinner until you’ve done it!
Write every day
It’s important to do some writing every day during the writing stage, even if it’s just a single mini-session. If you miss a day, you’ll feel guilty, which will sap your energy and enthusiasm for the project. Writing every day helps to keep the ideas flowing and it keeps the project at the front of your mind, so you’re always thinking about it.
Spell
ing checker off, grammar checker off
We’ve already noted that one of the biggest barriers to productive writing is your word processor’s built-in spelling checker. It highlights your mistakes as you write, and your natural instinct is to stop writing and make the correction there and then. This destroys your flow and takes you out of “the zone”.
Turn off your spelling and grammar checkers until you’ve finished writing your entire book. Turn them on again when you get to the editing stage.
If you don’t know how to do this, check your word processor’s help pages. Press the F1 key at the top of your keyboard to open them.
Many ways of saying the same thing
If you can think of several different ways of saying something, don’t waste time trying to work out which one is the best. Write one of them and enclose it in [square brackets] so you know you need to make a decision later. By the time you come to edit that part, your subconscious mind will have had time to reflect on it, and the decision should be much more straightforward.
If you don’t think you’ll remember every way of saying it, write them all down inside the square brackets.
I’ve found I can trust my brain to remember which lines I was having trouble with, and the alternative versions I was toying with at the time, even if I didn’t write them down.
