What Set Me Off to Rapidly Finishing My Book? Read All About It

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

                                                  

                                                         

              When Cheryl interviewed New York Times bestselling author Marie Force (see today's previous post to read reprinted article), she asked her what it takes to be a fulltime author.

              Force stated that you have to write at least 2,000 words for your book every day—even on weekends and holidays.

              That sounds simple enough. Yet how many of us will do this?

              Force writes two books at a time. She has published well over 50 books so she knows what the key to success is and it’s 2,000 words a day minimum.

              This daily goal works perfectly with my nine pages a day deadline: three handwritten pages for my fill-a-notebook-a-month deadline and six on the computer for my projects.

              To write 2,000 words a day, I write rough copy. I don’t worry about spelling or punctuation. I don’t reread or rewrite much or edit at all.

              Previously, I had written two chapters of my book: chapter 1 with an exciting situation that introduced most of the main characters and chapter 7 which had a big action scene.

              I had a plot for what my characters would do between chapters 1 and 7, but every minute cannot be action-packed excitement so I hadn’t written anymore chapters—bored, I think—until Cheryl asked Marie more questions about her writing process and she shared the answers with me.

              Force is a pantster (writes by the seat of her pants) as opposed to a plotter who plans every chapter. Pansters are happy to sit down and write every day to see what is going to happen. The danger is pantsters might write themselves into corners they can’t get out of plotwise.

              Since I hadn’t written another plotted chapter for my book, I decided to try writing chapter 2 as a pantster—and I had a blast! The characters took off doing and thinking things that surprised me. I could barely keep up with them typing as fast as I could. It was unbelievably fun.

              In the last seven days, I’ve started or added to existing chapters at every session. I’m starting chapter 9 tonight having worked on chapters 1-8. (I’m going to finish the rough draft by my next post.)

              Normally I love to write in the morning, but I find myself writing my 2,000 words in the evenings. I need the pressure of a deadline and, I guess, 2,000 words isn’t enough so I subconsciously added writing closer to the end of the day as I can’t go to sleep until I reach my goal. It’s working so I’m sticking with it.

              For added pressure, I use a timer to track my work. I started at 860 words per hour (WPH). Within five days I crossed over 1,200 WPH. And now I’ve hit 1,400. It would be fantastic to write 2,000 WPH then I can’t claim I don’t have the time.

              This week has been a dream come true. I’m a pantster well on my way to being an author—finally.