Writers are always looking for a way to write faster, and sometimes, writing more means starting out with less.
For this year’s NaNoWriMo, I tried something different to see if I could raise my word count and productivity, and get a finished first draft faster. Since my goal was 80,000 words, I’d started a few weeks earlier than November 1, and planned to finish the first draft by November 30.
In seven weeks, I wrote my 80,000 words, 50,000 of them during NaNo.
What constitutes a “fast first draft” varies by writer, but for me, that’s at least half the time it normally takes me to complete a first draft, and a third of the time for those harder-to-write books. That’s an improvement of 50-66% over my regular drafting process. Writers who already write that fast might be able to shorten their drafting times as well.
Being able to get a first draft down in six to eight weeks means more drafts for me in a year. I also suspect I’ll get faster as I continue with this process, and I’m aiming for a draft in a month by the end of the year.
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