72
Writing Rhythm
There are several different techniques for building and designing your writing rhythm. We want to start at the scientific end of the spectrum, and over time we will get more and more creative.
The Pomodoro technique is a very scientific method. I don't personally use the Pomodoro technique, but I do know that it works for many people. It's very helpful for some writers, and as always I'll tell you the techniques I use and the techniques that I don’t. I want to give you all the choices so that you can experiment.
Even amongst Pomodoro practitioners, there are several different schools of thought. At its most basic level, this process is about dividing your day up into blocks.
In some Pomodoro techniques, you write for twenty minutes and then you do something else. You break your day up into 20-minute blocks, and you're not allowed to use more than two blocks in a row in any single task.
Other Pomodoro techniques say to work for twenty-five minutes, take a five-minute break, and then repeat over and over again. Other Pomodoros are forty minutes of work with a twenty-minute break.
I’m not a big believer in arbitrary writing blocks. Instead, we will endeavor to find the perfect writing blocks and break lengths for you. That’s why we are going to test different sprint lengths. We are building a custom Pomodoro program from the ground up, rather than using a one-size-fits-all strategy.
Pomodoro was not designed for writers. It doesn’t make sense to stop in the middle of a chapter when you have a killer groove just because the timer goes off. There are two ways of writing, and we will use both of them to speed up your skill: writing for time and writing for topic.
I like to write until I'm done with a subject. I'd rather finish the paragraph or the section because I'm a marathon writer. While you're focusing on sprinting, you will find Pomodoro to be very useful. In sprinting, you’re focused on writing fast for very short periods of time, and that is the very definition of Pomodoro.
When you are testing this technique, track how many words you write during each block. Then track how many blocks you can write per day. Pay attention to when you have faster and slower blocks. When you notice a pattern, adjust your writing strategy. If you write quicker in the morning, move more blocks into the morning.
This is a way to get a lot of great data. I'm not anti-Pomodoro by any means. I just like using data to design the perfect blocks for you. We will use sprinting drills to find your perfect rhythm.
With the marathon running technique, it’s better to write until you reach a stopping point. That's the reason that I use Scrivener; to break my books into small pieces. Serve No Master was 93,000 words, but it ended up being around one hundred and ninety sections.
Breaking a project into so many small pieces provides me with lots of stopping points. As soon as I feel like I need to stop, it’s very easy to reach a good spot. Every five hundred words I have another stopping point.
As part of the 20K System, you will try different techniques to see which method works for you. You may find that Pomodoro is very effective for you at first. But you may find that over time you start leaning toward the marathon end of the spectrum, and you'd rather write based on content than time. You would rather finish a chapter before you take your next break.
You can also create a hybrid. You set a timer for each writing sprint and then you continue after the timer goes off until you hit a stopping point. If the hybrid method works for you, then go for it!
Each of these writing strategies is effective; just make sure that you keep track of your speed and word counts for each chapter or block of time.
Even further away from the scientific end of the spectrum is the “big chapter” method. This is where you only stop after finishing a larger section of your book.
For example, this chapter is around three thousand words. That means you might feel the urge to stop, but still have thousands of words to go. This puts more pressure on the creative part of your mind, but many authors fall into this category. More often than not, I stop at the end of a full chapter rather than just a small section.
I’m dictating this book rather than typing it with a keyboard. My word counts are controlled by how fast I speak, rather than how fast I type. All the distractions and challenges I’m used to facing while I type no longer apply. I have to learn to adapt to a whole new framework. I’m leading from the front with this experiment, and there is a record of this entire process on the 20K page.
73
The Great Dictation Experiment
When I say that I write twenty thousand words per day, I mean that this is how many words I can write by hand. Before this project, I’ve written everything with a keyboard.
I sit down at my desk, and my hands fly; I can easily do two to five thousand words per hour consistently throughout my four or six hours of writing every single day. It's easy for me to hit those speeds because my hands are so fast, but sometimes when you write so much your hands start to hurt. Your hands start to cramp because you’re stuck in the same position all day long, in the same chair.
And even though for a very long time that's been my pattern, for this book we are together on this journey. So I'm dictating everything. In just two hours of dictation yesterday, I hit twenty thousand words. I dictate so much faster than I write because I’m freed from my hands and distracting mistakes.
I find dictating into the computer and looking at the words in real-time slows me down because I want to edit everything. I have to go back and fix every little mistake, and I find it stressful. Dictating that way is very slow for me, but so far this experiment appears to be a massive success. (I am dictating my NEXT book directly into the computer, and I will share more about that experience on the 20K page.)
In the first day, I dictated nearly twice as fast as I usually write, and I'm one of the fastest writers going. Even at my level, I'm always looking for ways to go faster.
Now the question of whether or not I will permanently switch to dictation comes down to the editing process.
Will it be faster to edit as well?
I'm going to try some new editing techniques to go with my new writing technique. Because I'm dictating this book, there's no punctuation. There is no organization. I cannot edit or correct any mistakes until I finish dictating the entire book. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of grammatical errors and misspelled words.
So far I'm converting all of my audio to text using Dragon Dictate's transcription feature. I want to see how far I can take that process as we go together through this learning process.
(I have since learned that using Dragon to transcribe was a nightmare and I found an awesome transcriptionist online. I’ll post a link on my 20K page.)
When you begin to accelerate, you want to pay attention to which part of your body gets tired first. When I'm writing all day, I notice at a certain point my fingers start to make more and more mistakes that my brain isn't making. My hands and fingers are usually the first things to go.
I have a very particular setup for the height of my chair in relation to the height of my desk. I also have a special cushion under my wrist; but even with all of those things there, carpal tunnel syndrome, wrist injury from repetitive motions such as typing all the time, is a real risk. I have had days where I'm in pain from sitting at my desk. I've hurt my knee, I've hurt my elbow, and I've hurt my wrists from sitting there typing in the same position.
One of the ways I’ve overcome those challenges is practicing yoga a few times a week. I’m a pretty big fan of DDP Yoga as most sessions are only twenty to thirty minutes long and I find them very effective. I find that most of my aches and pains are fixed by strength exercises or stretching. Yoga is a great workout because it covers both my needs at once.
If I spend too long at my desk, my lower back starts to get really tight. I have some damage from a car accident in my early twenties down there, so I am very conscious of any time the pain flares back up again. Before the pai
n becomes debilitating, I fire up a yoga video. Even if my body hurts at the start of the session, I feel amazing at the end. Rather than aggravate an injury, exercising makes me feel better.
74
Dictate the Pain Away
If you’re struggling with anything like this and you start to feel pain or discomfort, consider switching to transcription.
I practice what I preach. While dictating this book, I'm sitting on my dock. Behind me now I can hear my children playing on the beach with our dog. What better way to write a book than out there living life?
The great thing about dictation, especially with some recent changes in technology, is that you can do it anywhere. You can dictate your book in the car, at the zoo, or at the park.
My microphone is set up only to hear my voice. So even though there are people in the background that I can hear, their words will not end up in the transcription. Modern microphones provide lots of freedom. When people see you talking to yourself in public, they now assume that you're on the phone.
Ten or twenty years ago people would have thought you were crazy if you were in the park talking to yourself. Their first thought isn’t, “Oh, he's dictating a book,” their first thought will be, “Oh, there is something wrong with that guy. Keep the kids away; call the police; get him thrown out of the park!” But now we always assume when someone is talking in public, until they start shouting, that they are on the phone.
(Special note. It turns out that I was wrong about this, as you will discover in a few chapters…)
The microphone I use clips to my chest, so people don't see it right away. I don't use one of the things you clip to your ear, but when people are facing me, they can see the microphone.
The ability to create your book anywhere is something very freeing and very wonderful. The 20K Writing System is a form of exercise. Whether you are using your hands or your voice, you will notice fatigue there. Your hands will cramp, or your voice will start to get sore. That is a sign that you need to take a break while your body recovers.
We need to exercise both our minds and our bodies. I find that if I don't train for three or four days in a row, my work performance slows down. I tire more easily. My body feels more flickers of depression or exhaustion. All these negative feelings start to creep in.
Writing your book while walking at the same time is one of the many amazing things you can do with dictation. Whatever your rhythm is, and that's what we're going to discover with this process, we want to be sure that you generate levels of energy that you can maintain. Writing a book over three days and then being sick for two weeks afterward is not a success. That's not something we can maintain. Instead, we want to find the rhythm for how much you can write every day, consistently. This means you're able to write five, six, or seven days a week.
75
Casual Writing
We're going to find the perfect rhythm for you. We are on this journey together. So far, I’ve discovered that I like to dictate in about one-hour blocks. Yesterday, I did two one-hour blocks. Today, I'm doing my first one-hour block.
I had a lot of work stuff to catch up on again this morning, such as dealing with coaching clients and rebuilding my membership area. I'm constantly trying to make my technology perfect, and I built my entire members area by myself.
The entire site design is all me, so anytime a customer e-mails me with a little mistake, that’s where the responsibility to fix it lands. When they message me about a glitch, I go and fix it immediately because I want everything to be perfect. I don't want a ninety-nine percent perfect experience. I want to be at one hundred percent.
Today it's already four thirty PM, and I'm just recording my first section. So as much as I'm teaching you how to write faster, you also get to experience my new experiment in real time. With each book and each technique, I have tried different things.
I believe that I can get closer to fifty thousand words a day by using some of my new techniques, but I want to finalize this book before I claim those numbers. If everything goes the way it's going right now, those numbers will become very achievable.
But I think I'll stick to just working two hours a day and hitting twenty thousand words. That to me is very exciting. I am getting more time back, rather than higher daily word counts.
76
Action Steps
Create a detailed outline before you start to write. The deeper you outline, the easier everything else. Decide what you are writing about, how each scene will play out and which facts you will use in each section.
Divide every writing task into the smallest pieces possible.
Will you start by writing for time or content?
Experiment with yourself to see where you get the best results.
Commit to trying the 20K System until you find the perfect writing rhythm for you.
Try to mix other tasks and breaks into your workday to avoid fatigue.
Part IX
Writing a Killer Outline
The more work you put in on your outline and getting the skeleton of your story right, the easier the process is later.
- Drew Goddard
77
Plan to Succeed
The foundation for any writing project is preparation. You shorten the entire process when:
you have your outline in place
you have your notes in place
you have everything properly organized
you have all the references that you want to use prepared
When you have everything organized before you start, your writing becomes unfettered. When you have to go back and look up things or try to remember what you want to do, you slow yourself down. When you have to enter different mental states, it slows down the writing process.
Before you start writing, you want to have the perfect outline in place. We want to have every piece of structure properly organized so that when we're writing, all we're doing is writing. The reason I'm able to dictate this book so quickly is that I already have an entire outline in a Scrivener file.
I open each little section on my iPad mini, and I look at it for the notes of what I want to cover in that part, and then I record it. As soon as that's finished, I hit stop on my recorder. For each new part, I start a new audio file.
Because I have all my research in place, I don't need to be online. Both my phone and my iPad mini are in airplane mode. They are not online, and I’m not going to get any phone calls. There is no chance of distraction. I don't want any of those things to happen and mess up my recordings.
Because my research is complete and organized, I can focus one hundred percent on writing.
78
Outline the First Layer
With the 20K System, we outline in waves. With a mind map, each wave is one layer farther out. We end up with three or four layers of circles that are larger with each round of outlining.
The innermost circle is your table of contents, and that is where we will start. We begin with the big picture and work our way out, filling in each new layer with more detail.
I'm a big fan of mind mapping. All of my outlines are circular rather than linear. I change the chapter order of my books all the time. I've already reordered nearly every section and chapter of this book multiple times. During my writing and editing process, I often discover that some sections need to move.
I love using Scrivener because I can move sections with drag and drop. When I was using a traditional word processor, it required a ton of cutting, pasting and scrolling. With Scrivener, an arduous process has become pleasant.
When you're building an outline, whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, the story needs an arc. It needs a beginning and an end. This book is nonfiction, but there is still an emotional journey. You can feel that we've started somewhere and that we are on the path to a destination. There is a flow to the story.
There are better books out there about outlining fiction. I'm not one of the best fiction outliners in the whole world, and I don�
�t pretend to be. Rather than regurgitate an outlining method I learned from someone else, I will point you to the books that I like to follow. If you go to my 20K page, I'll link you to the fiction outlining books that I like so that you can get your information straight from the horse's mouth.
79
A Delicious Layer Cake
Each of my books starts with a mind map built of three layers.
There's the inner layer, which is simply the titles of ten to fifteen chapters. The next layer is the structure of content within those chapters, which can be anywhere from three to twenty subsections, and then beyond that are the notes and the details that will go into each little section.
The more words in your outline, the easier the rest of the writing process will be. Create your chapter-level framework. Then create the waypoints for each chapter.
Within Scrivener, each of these waypoints is a little card that I actually write on. I have a few pictures on my 20K page to show you exactly what I mean.
The final and outermost layer of my mind map comprises the bullet points I want each section to cover. When I convert my mind map to Scrivener, these bullet points will appear on the actual text section, and as I write, they get replaced.
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