How to Write Fast

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15 Responses

  1. Great tips, Dustin! The only thing I would add is that I always set aside time to go through the day’s work and handle basic editing — like adding in dates and facts. I don’t necessarily like to do it immediately after writing a post, simply because I’m in the groove for writing and I want to stick to it. But a little editing does go a long way.

  2. Some time ago I found this great little program called Q10 (Windows Only):
    http://www.baara.com/q10/

    It’s full screen and has very few feature to distract from you writing.

    … and it has a built-in stop watch for timing your writing as you described in your blog post.

    Oh, and of course it’s a free program.

  3. Excellent ideas in here. Too often I get distracted with the font,an indent,or some new feature I need to play with, so writing in Notepad, or as an email draft helps. The timer is a great idea…anything that can help us get down to business. Thanks for the post.

    DJSG

  4. gersk says:

    Sometimes I have tried to write with Q10.
    It’s a tool very useful when you have to write without distraction, you want to be alone with your thoughts, but with a goal in mind.
    Simple and good work for working.
    Thanks a lots to the author.

    grsk

  5. Jason Rehmus says:

    I know there are minimalistic text editors and word processors out there to deal with distraction. But, how about a new app that specifically addresses that annoyingly fiendish internal editor?

    It will be similar to Dark Room/WriteRoom. The added bonus is that your words fade to black shortly after you type them. You can only see the last one or two words that you’ve typed until you click a “reveal” button and are ready to edit your piece.

    Who’s gonna create this for us?

  6. Jenni says:

    Yay! Thank you.

  7. jeelago says:

    thank you for this inspiring post! I’m a very slow writer I think b/c turning the editor off is very hard for me. I can even take forever to post on twitter lol (@jeelago) Am gonna try some of these.

    But I do *strongly* agree with Thursday Bram, that last 5 minutes or another 20 minutes of editing at a later time can make a big, huge, face-saving difference! Now I get to point out that you missed a typo under #4 “helpsyu stay focused” ;~j

  8. Liora Hess says:

    This is great. Just last week I discovered the timer method after finding I was spending way too long researching articles before writing. I split the time I wanted to spend into research, writing, and final editing, and it worked well. I’ve also started using the magazine method of inserting TK (to come) or TK HERE so I keep moving.

    That said, 16 minutes is really impressive for this piece! I have some work to do before I’m there.

  9. Jeannot says:

    Awesome article! You’ve pointed out some great tips.
    I already practiced most of them but it’s always good to read them again from some else. It refresh things up a bit.

    p.s. sorry for the bad writing, english is not my main language!

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