5 Tips for Increasing Your Writing Productivity

1.     Write at the same time every day

If you write at the same time every day you create a habit. This habit trains the brain and your muse to be prepared to do a specific activity at the same time each day. So when you sit down to your computer at 10.30 every night for 21 days (the time it takes to form a new habit) and demand that your brain let you introduce Harry to Sally, then that’s exactly what you will get.

2.     Schedule your internet

Most people head straight for their inbox first thing in the morning and start freaking out. By the end of the day you may end up with an empty inbox, but it's likely that you’ll have accomplished nothing else.

3.     Stop multi-tasking

Switching rapidly from task to task decreases your IQ by an average of ten points. That's a greater reduction than if you were strung out on drugs. We all have to do multiple things during a day, but when you can, you should focus on one activity at a time. Don't try to empty your inbox, talk on the phone, iron and defuse a bomb all at the same time, because something will blow.

4.     Write while you sleep

You can literally "sleep on it" by guiding your mind to work on writing problems while you rest. The hypnagogic state occurs between wakefulness and sleep. Some writers take power naps and focus on a problem with their WIP as they drift off. This is when the ideas come. James Scott Bell also recomends using the dream state to assist with writing. He suggest writing down any questions you may have regarind your WIP right before you go to sleep. Then before you do anythign else in the morning write down as many answers as you can to those questions.

5.     Track your success

When are you at your most productive? Do your write better in the morning? At night? On a train? With a gun to your head? If you can write 5K in an hour in the morning but only 500 words over five hours late at night, then it makes sense for you to be writing in the morning. To work out when you’re at your most productive keep a log for a week, including the time you start writing, the time you finish and how many words hit the page. By the end of the week you should start to get an idea of what your optimum writing times are.

Happy writing!

The Writer's Productivity Trap

There seems to be a lot of pressure out there to pump out manuscripts and send them off to submissionland. If we’re not writing 150 bestsellers a year then we think we’re not writing fast enough. If Mary Sue down the street has submitted ten times in the last month and we haven't, then there’s something wrong with us. So, we take courses on how to write faster, better and in our sleep. We read books on how to write a book in a year, a month and 3.3 seconds.

Actually, some of those courses and books are quite good. But my point is that if you’re feeling anxious about the number of words you did or didn’t write yesterday you're not alone, you've fallen into the Writer’s Productivity Trap.

The problem with WPT is that it can result in an inability to write at all. Something that had once been your passion is suddenly so pressure packed that you’d much rather clean the toilet, iron your bedsheets or even paint your neighbour’s house. It’s human nature to avoid scary things, so don’t take this as the ultimate sign that you’re just not supposed to be a writer.

Donald Maass divides writers into two categories: storytellers and status seekers. What’s really interesting is that while you may start off a storyteller it can be easy, under the pressure of the industry, to start adopting status seeker traits.

So what is a storyteller and what is a status seeker? Donald Maass identifies that a storyteller's focus is on their story and making that story the best it can be by developing their craft. While they may be bewildered by some rejections they also recognize that something is missing from their writing and resolve to do something about it.

Status seekers, on the other hand, tend to live by the motto “get it in the mail, keep it in the mail”. They want to know how they can make their manuscripts acceptable and tend to be obsessed with promotion e.g. “Why throw money at authors who are already best-sellers? How am I supposed to grow if my publisher doesn’t spend some bucks pushing me?”

In contrast, Maass identifies that a status seeker will rush to send him “the first fifty pages and an outline a few months after the workshop” whilst a storyteller won’t show him their novels again for up to a year or more and certainly after several new drafts.

There will undoubtedly be status seekers in the industry with the sole intention of achieving the same sort of “glory” that JK Rowling did but there’s very little chance of that because they’ll be missing the key ingredient that inspires that sort of success and that is passion.

It makes sense that a storyteller, when exposed to the likes of social media and the productivity (whether real or imagined) of others could start to adopt the traits of status seekers. Suddenly there is enormous pressure to submit that partial in the shortest time possible, to always have something submitted, to churn out manuscripts. And it can happen in gradual way so that you don’t even know you’ve gone over the dark side.

But as Donald Maass identifies, he’d much rather you be a storyteller. He’d much rather you send him the novel after a year than in five minutes. He’d much rather you have a storyteller’s passion and desire to write the best story possible than to churn out manuscripts as though you’ve been bitten by a radioactive spider (poor Mary Sue). Your editor isn’t going to forget your existence in less than three seconds.

We’re not in this to write the most books in history. We’re in it to write a story that no one will ever forget.

The speed you write at is perfect for the next international bestseller.

You can find The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass at:

Amazon

Amazon UK

The Book Depository

Not writing? A post about writers' block (but not as you know it)

Don't worry, this isn't going to be one of those hardline posts declaring there are no excuses for not writing, that if you aren't writing then clearly you don't want it enough. You know the kind of thing "Well, I completed edits to my best selling novel whilst giving birth and navigating my way through the Sahara..."

Okay that's a little extreme but in reality not too far removed from some posts I've read. For mere mortals though there are going to be times when not inconsequential matters like ill health or family demands impact your writing. And unless you're happy to traumatise your kids by shutting them in a cupboard all day, well it's something you need to try and work round.

There are other barriers to our writing though and if we are utterly honest with ourselves sometimes we do make excuses. I'm not here to slap your wrist for that, if I did I'd be a complete hypocrite, but I am interested in WHY. Why do we delay finishing that manuscript or submitting our work? I think fear, in one form or another is to blame - fear that if we do submit and are rejected again we won't be able to cope with it.

Last night I was angsting about something non-writery and finally irritated myself so much I finally mumbled "Oh get over yourself and just get on with it."

I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the most successful writers I've met have an incredibly thick skin when it comes to rejections. They didn't waste time sitting angsting (and have little patience with mine!), they just got on it with it - kept writing and subbing, subbing, often with multiple submissions out there. And now they are reaping the rewards of their perseverance and resilient mental attitude.

So, although I don't profess to have the answers I do have a suggestion:

(1) Get over it.

(2) Get on with it.

and because I'm not a completely heartless cow:

(3) Good luck!