As mentioned before, I’m going to be doing a speed writing event on the weekend that ends with MLK Jr Day, and I invite you to come along.  I’m going to write about 12,500 words a day from Friday Jan 17th through Monday Jan 20th.  You can set more modest goals and only participate a few of those days if you please.  Fiction or non-fiction is fine.  Post in the comments or elsewhere with links in the comments, or be shy / inviso and just mention your word count when you get to resting points.  I’ll read yours if you read mine; critique can be as baby-gloved as you please.  Holler in the comments if you want to join…

And so,

I must go fast, like autistic icon Sonique the Hedged Hogge.  12,500 words per day sounds like a lot, but if you’re well prepared, and you make an effort to write during every opportunity throughout the day, it is actually very doable.  Most professional writers don’t bother going hogge berserque like that, but I have heard one say you should try to write your first draft in one uninterrupted go, to get it out as one cohesive idea.  Don’t recall his exact phrasing, but I have a strong feeling on the subject myself.

You gotta break it up.  If you don’t have the resilience of youth, this is likely to hurt your hands.  Write in big chunks with enough time between sessions for your hands to recover.  I don’t really know why, but writing before you go to sleep and right when you wake up for days in a row can lead to better word counts than just doing X amount of sessions in the latter half of the day, even when you stay up late.  Maybe it’s the hand thing.

But more important, you need to have all questions answered.  This is almost impossible to nail, I think, because how can you predict every piece of knowledge or decision you’ll have to make in the entire book without practically pre-writing it?  But consider it aspirational; the more you do, the less you’ll be slowed down.

By questions I am talking about things like research.  As a first draft, you can (placeholder) info you want to look up later, but compulsion can drive you to distraction and make you cave, make you lose your focus and end up in a wiki-binge.  I also mean stuff like a map, for stories where place names and spatial relations are important.  Character names, major and minor.  Affectations you want to use in dialogue (X guy has southern accent, everybody talks faux-medieval, etc.), stylistic intentions.  And, of course, what happens?

That’s the plot outline.  In a speed writing event where your aim is to actually complete the story (which I rarely achieve), you can’t go in without knowing how the story ends.  I know; it can feel like spoiling yourself, make the writing feel lifeless or inevitable.  Think of it this way: you can still change it.  If lightning strikes and you come up with a different idea as you get close, just jump the rails and do that shit.  If that doesn’t happen, at least you got enough direction to charge toward the conclusion without stopping to ponder.

Again, if anybody wants to join, holler.  And whether you do or not, suggestions for speed are appreciated.

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