Anne Janzer

Author

productivity

Two Reasons Not to Revise As You Draft

red pencil

You’ve heard many versions of this advice before:

No matter how it’s phrased, the advice is sound. Resist the temptation to revise and polish your words while you write the first draft. Revision and drafting use different cognitive systems, and they can get in each others’ way.

Revising while drafting can shut down creative input and flow.

Using the Muse and Scribe analogy, if you try to revise and wordsmith as you set down the first draft, you’re giving the steering wheel to the Scribe. The Muse is likely to take off and do something else altogether.

But cognitive systems aren’t a compelling argument for many people. So, this post is for anyone who really likes to polish and choose every word as they draft, or who otherwise thinks they can combine drafting and revision and end up with a good first draft. You’re taking a big risk.

A Disclaimer

Can you truly separate revision from drafting? Not entirely.

Drafting and revision are the yin/yang of writing.

coffee beans black white

No matter how much you try to delineate them, a little bit of each happens in the other.

For example, you’ll think of a stronger verb as soon as you finish a sentence, or rephrase something as you draft. It happens. Likewise, when you’re in the revision phase, you may discover that you need to write a transition or come up with a new segment.

Few of us can completely separate these two phases unless we hand over the revision process to someone else entirely.

But once you open the door to revision while drafting, it can be difficult to close it. It’s so tempting to imagine that you’re capable of spinning out brilliant stuff at the first pass.

Most of us aren’t.

If you insist on revising and polishing while you write, you risk either wasting your time (stealing time from other writing) or compromising the quality of the finished work.

Wasted Time

Perhaps you prefer to polish and revise as you write. You may believe that you spend less time by doing it at once than by saving revision for a separate process..

That may work for something short, like a blog post. But what about a longer work with structure and linear flow, such as a paper, dissertation, or book?

The first step of the revision process should be reading through from start to finish and asking the big questions about order and flow. Even if you worked from an outline when drafting, the act of writing often reveals issues you were not aware of when starting.

If you’ve written a nonfiction book, when revising you should confirm the following:

  • Is the information presented in the right order, at appropriate depth for my target audience?
  • Have I left something out?
  • Does the text include unnecessary details or digressions?

You cannot always answer these questions until you have a little distance from the rough, first draft. If you let the work sit for a day or so and then return, you may discover that you need to pare down some areas, flesh out others, move sections around, and perhaps cut something altogether. A developmental editor may help you with this phase of your book.

Only after answering those questions should you start fine-tuning sentence constructions, choosing stronger verbs, and otherwise polishing and refining the prose.

What happens if you revised and polished the words while writing the first draft? That work is extraneous, and may be left on the cutting room floor.

Revising while drafting is like choosing the curtains before you build the house.

Compromising Quality

Suppose that multiple initial reviewers tell you that your book or research paper is best served by cutting out a section. But you have spent hours during the drafting phase polishing and fine-tuning the prose. You’ve come up with several clever, tweetable sayings based on that ontent.

If you revise and polish as you draft, you risk becoming so attached to the sheer artistry of your prose that you cannot bear to cut it out. As a result, you leave in content that does not serve the reader.

If you cut the section (as you probably should), you essentially lose all of that work, in which you have invested time, effort, and belief.

It’s hard to cut text that you have polished with care.

This is a variation on the Ikea Effect, in which we overvalue things we have helped to create. Cutting that section feels like a personal loss, and you are less likely to do it.

So there you go – two more good reasons to just write the ugly first draft and then get down to the business of revision!

Writing Productivity: Why Counting Words Can Mislead You

Whenever a group of writers gets together and the topic of productivity comes up, inevitably the discussion turns to “words per hour” or “words per day.”

“I once did 8,000 words in a day.”
“I can write 1,000 words an hour, easily.”
“I had a terrible session, only 500 words.”

This conversation might lead an insecure writer to believe that there’s some ideal benchmark of words per hour to achieve, and anything less is falling short.

I don’t believe that.

Counting words per hour or day has its use, but not as a measure of writing productivity.

What does it mean to be a productive writer?

Let’s say that you can crank out 1,000 words per hour, and work at this pace four hours ever day. Wow, you feel productive, right?

But if you don’t like what you write or if it doesn’t serve the purpose that you’ve set out to achieve, then that time is not spent productively.

If those thousands of words are never published, your real-world productivity is zero.

People who speak of words per hour are measuring the drafting phase of the writing process. But a rough draft isn’t the end game. The true measure of writing productivity is how many completed works make their way into the world – published works that meet the needs of the audience.

Real productivity is measured in finished work, not word counts.

The factors that contribute to real-world productivity

The first draft is only the midpoint of the writing journey.

Before you ever sit down to write, you think about the topic or research it. You may talk with people about it, rehearsing and exploring your ideas as you speak.

Next you plan and outline what you draft. You may also let the thoughts incubate, giving them time to simmer in the background processes of the brain.

These processes, which take place before you sit down to write, set you up for being productive in the drafting phase.

Then there’s the work entailed in getting the project out into the world: revision, editing, approvals, proofreading, publication. Projects that get bogged down in those phases may never see an audience.

The truly productive writer moves through this entire cycle as efficiently and effectively as possible. It doesn’t matter how many words per minute happen in the drafting phase if the products roll out the door on schedule and reach readers.

A better use of the “words per hour” metric

Despite the title of this post, I do pay attention to roughly how many words I write during drafting sessions. The word rate offers a reasonable measure of how well I have prepared myself to write and adhered to my process.

The work you do in the early phases (researching, incubating, outlining) primes your brain for drafting. If I follow my process and do the groundwork, then the drafting is usually rapid and fluid.

Most of us have an ideal writing rate—the speed we compose in a state of flow or “in the zone.” I have some sense of what that number is for me, and it  becomes my personal high-water benchmark for a well-prepared drafting session. I also know what my usual writing speed is, under ordinary circumstances.

When you manage a high number of words per hour (compared to your normal speed), it’s probably because you’ve done the work ahead of time to set up the writing, so that you might get into the flow.

An unusually slow writing pace often signals a problem:

  • I haven’t thought deeply enough about the topic, or have an unresolved problem to address.
  • I’m not drafting in the right environment; for example, I’m distracted by other things, or not feeling well.
  • I’ve tried to short-cut the writing process and go straight to drafting. (Somehow I feel like it will save time.)

When this happens, I’ve learned to move on to other things, letting the unwritten draft “simmer”  in the background. Even if I didn’t manage to get many words written, I know that the struggle of trying to write is productive, as “immersion” in the problem represents the first phase in the overall creative process.

By all means, keep an overall eye on your “words per hour” during drafting sessions. But rather than claiming bragging rights, use this number track how well you’re managing your overall process. And don’t forget the end game: the quantity and quality of ideas that you put out into the world.

 

Productivity for Creative People by Mark McGuinness [Review]

How do you schedule your writing time each day? How much time do you spend handling emails? What happens when you get a backlog of other work – do you put aside the writing altogether?

The distractions of daily life can derail writing, stealing the time, focus, and attention you need for creative work.

In his new book Productivity for Creative People: How to Get Creative Work Done in an “Always On” World, MarkMcGuinness offers practical strategies for these challenges and more.

If you enjoyed The Writer’s Process, check out Productivity for Creative People. It offers valuable advice for writing (and doing other creative work) productively in the modern world.

It’s a short book packed with great ideas. Here are a few of the strategies that I found particularly applicable:

  • Putting “hard edges” in your schedules and creating templates for your days
  • Being smarter about picking up the smart phone
  • Writing small, irrevocable to-do lists for each day
  • Answering emails one day later

Procrastination vs. Incubation

One of my favorite parts was the discussion on incubation vs. procrastination.  I’m a firm believer in incubation as an essential part of the writing process – letting your mind work on the project while you do other things. Using the bread-baking metaphor, as in the post Why Writing Is Like Baking Bread, incubation is like letting the bread rise.

Yet it’s tempting to use “incubation” as an excuse for avoiding work. Of course, the bread won’t rise if you haven’t mixed and kneaded the dough first.

McGuinness distinguishes between unproductive procrastination and productive incubation as follows:

Procrastination happens before hard work.

Incubation happens after hard work.”

Leave it to a poet to come up with a concise, elegant way to articulate the difference.

A Quick Read With A Long-Term Payoff

A small amount of time invested in reading this book will pay off in greater productivity over time.

And forget the old adage about free advice being worth what you pay for it. The ebook is free right now on Kindle, Kobo, Apple, Barnes and Noble. To get all of the links, visit LateralAction.com.

Step Away from the Writing Desk

Rower2
One of my favorite writing productivity tools: the rowing machine.

Writing Productivity Tip: Write When You’re Not Writing

When people speak about writing productivity, they usually talk about the drafting phase of writing. How many words can you write in an hour? How many pages per day?

More relevant, of course, is the question of how quickly you can turn around a project.

Optimizing writing productivity isn’t simply about managing the time you spend with pen to paper, or fingers on keyboard. It’s about managing the sum total of time you have for the project, and setting your brain to work using different kinds of focus and attention. Use your non-writing time well, and the drafting phase becomes more efficient and fun.

Two Types of Attention

In the book Focus, Daniel Goleman writes about multiple kinds of attention, including goal-oriented, top-down attention, and open, bottom-up attention.

Clearly, writing requires top-down focus. But you’ll write with more fluidity and creativity if you set aside time for the creative, wandering thoughts. Says Goleman, “Open awareness creates a mental platform for creative breakthroughs and unexpected insights.”

When working on a writing project, I intentionally schedule time with bursts of focused attention (researching, outlining, drafting), and breaks. In those breaks, I let my brain work on the writing in different ways.

The fastest path to inspiration is to remove yourself from the writing environment and go someplace where your mind can wander.

  • Take a walk outdoors.
  • Go to the gym – I find that the rowing machine is a terrific writing/thinking environment.
  • Take a shower. (The drought in California has put a damper on long showers, alas.)

While you’re walking or wandering, invite yourself to think about the topic you’re working on. Instead of trying to focus, let your mind wander and return to the subject. During open attention, new insights and connections often appear.

If that happens, write them down as soon as practically possible. The awkward truth is that the best insights arrive when it’s least convenient to write them down. Keep a pen and paper handy, record a voice note in your phone, or create a mnemonic so you can remember the idea.

When you next sit down with focused attention to write, you’ll be starting from a different place, and the process should be smoother and faster.

 

 

 

 

Writing: Rest Before Revising

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Writing Productivity Tip #5: Give the Draft Room to Breathe

You’ve dismissed the inner editor and created the first draft of your blog post, report, book chapter, whatever. You’re on a roll – what next?

Now walk away. Give it some breathing room.

Writing and revising are separate disciplines, and don’t work well when they crowd each other.

If you start revising immediately after drafting, you’ll miss things.

  • You cannot see problematic sentence structures, typos, repeated words, or other problems, because you know what you meant to say and see that instead.
  • You also don’t notice the parts that read well or are pretty darned good, because you remember the struggle.

You’re too close to see both the flaws and strengths of a draft until time passes.

Fit Rest into the Writing Schedule

When scheduling a project, leave time between the drafting and revision phases. If you were creating a recipe for productive writing, the instruction would be this:

For best results, let sit overnight.

When I skip the overnight rest period before sending or publishing, I often notice errors, typos, and other things I could have improved. I missed an opportunity to make the piece better.

What if you don’t have the luxury of waiting overnight?

If you’re in a rush and need to revise right away, go for it. But try using the following practices to improve the quality of the result:

  • If possible, run your piece past someone whose judgment you trust. Ask for the level of input you’d welcome, such as error-checking and proofing, or reading for flow and clarity.
  • Create distance in space and format. Print out the piece, get up from your desk, and read it out loud in another room. The change of venue offers distance, and the act of verbalizing the writing lets you ‘hear’ as well as see it. You’ll discover parts that don’t work when you trip over reading them aloud.
  • Combine the two practices and read the piece to someone. (This works best for short pieces, with a tolerant listener.)

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Image from Ryan McGuire on Gratisphotography

Secrets of Crazy-Productive Writers

Negative Space writing photo

Everyone cherishes the image of a tortured writer, laboring long hours, crumpling sheets of paper, drinking in a back room, spiraling into depression.

That doesn’t sound like much fun for the writer.

I’d rather be someone who writes fluidly and creatively, while engaging with the world, family and friends. A normal person, in other words.

As a writer, your objective is to be crazy-productive, not plain crazy.

A friend remarked recently that I was the fastest writer he knew. His comment gave me pause – he is as ‘verbal’ as I am, and no doubt capable of writing as well, or better. But many people don’t know how to set themselves up for writing productivity.

Over years of writing as a career, I’ve developed a personal system of habits and techniques that shorten the unproductive parts of the writing process, so I can deliver thoughtful, well-developed work in relatively short timeframes.

Using these tactics, I spend more time in a state of “flow” with my writing, and less time in beating-my-head-against-the-wall frustration.

My writing mantra is: less frustration, more joy.

Great writers talk about their processes all the time. But people don’t realize that the strategies that work for the greats might apply to their own, everyday writing tasks and challenges.

With NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) just around the corner, this seemed like a good time to share my writing practices in this blog. Whether you’re writing a novel, a nonfiction book, a report or a blog post, these strategies may help you become a more productive writer, and have fun along the way.

Here’s the first writing productivity secret:

Writing Productivity Tip #1: Procrastinate with Purpose

The first trick to being a fast,  productive writer is paradoxical: don’t start writing. Not right away.

More precisely, don’t start working on a draft of your finished product. If you start drafting before you’re ready, you’ll soon find yourself in the frustrating state of staring at the blank page.

Do start priming your brain for the project as soon as you can. This might include:

  • Reading related pieces
  • Researching
  • Talking to people about the topic, whether in informal conversations or interviews
  • Freewriting, mind-mapping, or otherwise exploring what you know about the topic (this is the topic of the next writing post)

Then go off and do something else for a while, so your brain can get to work. (You’re smarter than you think you are.) Ideally wait until the next day. When you’re ready to start, your brain will be primed to gather your thoughts and create an outline.

Productive procrastination plays out differently depending on what you’re writing. If you have a paper or report to write, you might spend a few hours researching or interviewing people. For a blog post, time spent sketching out thoughts and ideas might be enough to get your brain going.

I’m not a fiction writer, but I imagine that a similar strategy applies: explore ideas and thoughts for scenes or sections in freewriting or mind-mapping before committing them to a draft. If you’re a fiction-writer with a similar technique, let me know.

Revisit this blog, through November and beyond,  for more of my writing secrets. Let me know, in the comments or by email, if any of them work for you.

Image by Negative Space on Unsplash.com