And we have a guest...

One week = a novel??

Hello!!

One of the things that I love to do with my Substack is have friends come and guest on it to give their own ideas—effecting a more rounded and full view of speed-writing as a sport, adventure and wargame needing its own tactics.

I invited Elisabeth G. Biggs (link) from The Key of E from to write a post on speedwriting after her feat of completing 50k word novel in a VERY short period of time.

With no further introduction, I leave you to the article.

…

What does it take to write a full length novel in eight days?

• For starters, an incredible amount of motivation.

• Secondly, the will to send your Inner Editor on vacation.

• Thirdly, an idea - or at least the beginnings of one.

But let’s start with a classic introduction. Hi, I’m Elisabeth Biggs, obsessive author, and last week, I wrote a fantasy novel.

One of the most important starts to speed-writing is turning off your Inner Editor. If you’re like most writers, you have a little voice in your head that’s always trying to correct every sentence you write or ensure your punctuation and grammar is impeccable. While he can be incredibly helpful, the Inner Editor is also one of the greatest deterrents for a writer.

So, most important part of speed-writing?

Send your Inner Editor on vacation.

It isn’t always easy, but whenever you feel the temptation to stop writing and fix a sentence or puzzle over grammar…don’t. Tell yourself, “It’s ok, I can fix it later.” Tell your Inner Editor to hush up and let your Inner Writer have the time of their lives. Remember:

“You can edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

~ Jodi Picoult

After your Inner Editor has been banished from the workshop, you can get to really writing.

There are a couple of different tips/methods to speed up your writing (I think Noah has made a post with some before - so go check that out!). I used a timer, set to hour intervals.

At the beginning of the hour, I would hide my word count and then write as fast as I could, without distractions, until the timer ran out. With this method, I discovered that I averaged about 1.3k words per hour. There are plenty of other methods for motivation - promising yourself a treat (chocolate and ice cream are two famous ones among my writing community), or competing against yourself.

But the elephant in the room still stands. Content. What to write about? I know all of you reading this, if you are a writer, probably have one - or twenty - creative projects you’re working on.

So write on that. It’s okay if it’s not the best thing you’ve ever written. What matters is that you are setting aside time dedicated strictly to writing.

For me, fantasy is the easiest thing to write swiftly. I don’t need to do extensive research into historical events. In a fantasy world, I can just make up whatever I want in the moment and edit it later. (That part, again, is crucial to speed-writing. You can always edit it later!!) If you’re not a fantasy writer, then you can plan your research ahead of time or just leave a little note in your document margins. Remember, this is a first draft…and first drafts are just telling the story to yourself.

Last, and of a different sort of importance than banishing the Inner Editor:

Love your work.

One of the biggest pitfalls for a writer is comparison. Perhaps you’ve been there too? “I can’t write, because I’m just not as good as [insert name here].” Or maybe, “I don’t have any motivation to write because it seems like my writing always stinks.”

For the longest time, I used to hate getting feedback/comments that went: “I loved this story! It was so very Elisabeth!”

Like, what does that mean?? I don’t want my story to be Elisabeth - I want it to be epic and like [author’s] writing.”

During my mad writing dash last week, I finally figured out what people meant by a style that’s “so very me.” As the week continued, I learned to love it. No, I don’t write like my favorite authors. But the thing is - they can’t write like me. Only I can tell the story on my heart.

Discovering that was eye-opening for me.

---

So, what does it take to write a novel in eight days?

Or rather…what does it take to start writing simply for the joy of it?

• Send your Inner Editor on a long vacation

• Motivate yourself!

• Write now, research later

• Tell the story you want to tell, in the way only you can.

Good luck with your stories! May your pens/keyboards move with speed and a multitude of words.

…

I hope you learned something and make sure to check out Elisabeth G. Biggs on Substack!

Until next time!