How to Be Prolific · 6:24am Jan 17th, 2019
Ho boah. This one. I've been asked by multiple folks on multiple occasions—but those multiple occasions were not by the same multiple folks—about how I write so damn much. There's the obvious reasons: an abundance of time without much regard for quality. But it goes deeper than that—advice and habits offered by the great writers before, all to be seen below the break.
Installment 1 | Writing
How to Be Prolific
Before we begin today's lesson, a note:
Being prolific means you do a lot of the craft. You write a lot. You draw a lot. You do a lot of a lot and then wonder why a lot. This essay has nothing to do with quality—that aspect will be locked in the back of our minds, observant, seeping through our fingertips whenever it wills itself so.
No. The focus on this essay is quantity. Don't be fooled by my tone of voice: I am neither SS&E or Isaac Asimov—but I am inspired by them both. The advice of the prolific may not apply to all; what works for one may not work for everyone.
But what you are about to read is still good advice to keep in mind. Absorbing whatever is useful from the following pages and then do as you please. Recognize that line? Good on you. That’s my boy Bruce Lee speaking there:
Now then. With our aim set to write prolifically, and write as well as our quality permits, we can get a move on with today's piece.
What is our first goal, gang? To get our fingers typing.
It’s easier and harder than it sounds. What more is there to it? Sit in your chair, open your word processor, and let the clicks of your keyboard echo off the walls for the oncoming hours of silence (or music) and continuous composition.
Let’s be real here for a second. It’s never that easy, is it? You know it; I know it. Neither of us wish to know it. It's horrible. Really and truly: horrible. Something sounding so easy suddenly becomes so difficult. An invisible barrier erects itself between our fingers and our keyboard: a wall thin and as fragile as glass, yet it repels us so easily.
In short:
Procrastination is a bitch.
There are many reasons why. Some days, we sit down, and that's that. And on other days, we don’t touch a word processor, think endlessly about doing so, worry and waste the day away, and come time for bed, we are without words to show but an extra wrinkle on our forehead.
But at some time, on some days, for whatever reason, we beat that barrier easily. Something or someone compels us to the page, and once there, we are locked-in, subdued by a state called “The Zone.”
Once we have started, we are in, baby. We can talk and leave and do whatever, and for whatever reason, coming back isn't as hard as when we first started. Like getting the engine started in a car, so too must we do the same with writing: we must start up the process before the words pour from our fingertips.
Like that quote from Dan Harmon: “After the first thirty seconds, you wonder why it was hard to begin with.”
A writer can't sit around doubting the quality of his writing. Rather, he has to love his own writing. I do.
- Isaac Asimov
I wake up every day, groan, then try to recall my dreams and nightmares.
Conscious then strikes: reminding me instantly with the horrible, vile knowledge that I am still alive, and far worse, worse than that: that I am still me, that I am still B. The first five minutes are spent recovering from that revelation—only to endure another.
My computer sits across the room, towering over my bed on the floor, demanding five hours of non-stop writing.
I groan some more, slipping beneath the covers of my bed, and pull my phone to before my eyes.
My angst lasts for only a second longer.
Then giddiness ensues.
Why?
Because I load into Fimfiction and allow the endorphins and the sense of temporary validation to shiver down my body. I shake with excitement. My heart beats painfully, though the sensation is pleasant. Call it glee or a heart condition. That's what happens to me.
And when my wake up call is done, I scroll through the results of previous nights efforts: Did my story make it into the box? How many comments do I get to read and reply to? How much hollow joy may I indulge in—this of course measured by how many followers I've accrued overnight.
With that done, I am pumped for the day. Caffeine is no longer required. My mind ready to secure my next supply of dopamine.
But I don't get to writing right away. Breakfast. Shower. Chores. Walk the dog. Look for work. The duties of real life demand my immediate attention, and I compile with them. It makes me feel like I’m slacking from my writing, which allows me to do my chores with ease and a little bit of glee.
With the dues of the day paid, it’s time for work. Allowed to be awake and alive for a little while, I am no longer stiff physically or mentally. I soon take a seat at my computer, the invisible wall greeting me, though I smile, knowing the trick that will allow me to type.
Ramble in a room filled with people, and soon enough, you'll be rambling in an empty room.
Worst still, is rambling on paper.
Real quick: did you believe that?
Because of those first two lines, do you now think rambling to be some sin that the concise despise? That such an act could have no favorable aspect? It's such a thing truly to be thrown down as useless and walked across by those sprouting: “Brevity is the soul of wit!”
Fuck 'em. They're not wrong—but fuck 'em anyway.
Listen. When you have a mindset that says: “Hey, this needs to be perfect. I need to express this aspect, explain this topic, and cover all this and under said amount.” You are too self-conscious. You can't approach the empty page with a loaded gun but being slightly afraid.
Well, you can—so long as you are also excited. (Minus the gun.)
TIP 1: TYPE NONSENSE FOR THREE PAGES (MORE OR LESS)
The first step to being a prolific writer is to adopt the proper mindset. Be excited to write, to throw yourself down on the page. To clear the gutter in your mind and drain the poison that’s been boiling within your heart.
But think too hard about such concepts and you'll never be able to pull them off.
No. What you must do, if it is your wish to write a lot, is first to sit down at your computer. Once there, open up your word processor—don't sweat: you won't be put to work just yet. Rather, just open an empty document. Anything will do. Got it?
Good.
Now then, regardless of the current state of your nerves, I would encourage you to ramble. Seriously. For as many pages as your pretty (and hopefully beating) heart demands, write whatever will come out of your hands
We are going to work under the assumption you are trying to get into the project. Thus, 'flow state' is what we desire—it's writing hot and allowing everything to pour onto the page. It's getting immersed in a scene and letting it drip from your fingertips.
The quicker you blurt, the more honest you are. It's the most honest style a writer can adopt, for it leaves bare their subconscious upon the page. Getting into a flow state is an ideal way to write, and for the sake of this tip, this is the state we'll be going after.
(Write hot; edit cool)
Now then, after a bit of hesitation, we've loaded up the blank page.
What's next?
Write!
Not as easy as it sounds, right? Hard to get rolling when the engine isn’t even started. The trick? Let yourself ramble on the first two to three pages. Do it. Fiction or nonfiction. Allow your present thoughts and feelings to bleed into words.
You may not be able to write, but you can always write about how much you don't want to write. If you must write about a subject, then address the rambles like you are writing a letter to your mother, explain how you can't describe the subject, going into detail about the things that work and the things that don't. Most often, as you write about the problem, you'll invent its solution.
Just delete the 'Dear Mother' at the top when you're done.
But yes. This is my advice (stolen from the book: Draft four). I see no use in staring at a blank page. Worrying about the coming words does nothing to polish their quality—or even guarantee they appear on the page at all.
But writing does. Writing about anything gets you into the flow state. If you feel like getting to that state is still a waste of time, then call those rambles your journal—it's good to keep one, if only to record yourself, express yourself, and cure yourself.
But I should say your rambles should go on no longer than 2k. At that point, you are writing a piece that is too long to be simply tossed away. Either end it quickly or find a way to make it into an informal essay.
Now then. Those rambles are done, yes? You should feel yourself near the flow state—the words having been typed easily and quickly. Their quality matters not; their function has been done. Hesitation to write may linger within you still. It’s prone to be like that on the harder days. But relax. Save what you have written and then move on.
So. That’s the first tip into starting the writing process. Don't waste any time focusing on a blank page—fill it with rambles to rid your shivering self of your jitters. Get maybe three pages done, and you'll have explained and expressed your own confusion to yourself, and in a blink, know what you must do, or at the worst, have the ability to plunge into the work itself.
We’ve learned how to get started.
We must now learn how to keep going.
So you've found the trick on how to start writing anywhere and anytime: congratulations!
It was a neat trick when I found out about it, and, to be honest with you, it's the main reason why I'm able to write so much. Doing something is better than doing nothing—even if that sometimes means doing the wrong thing.
Which brings me into the next section of this essay. If our goal is to write a lot, we must then have a lot of projects to work on, ideas to be explored, and all that other jazz. Along the way of writing a lot, you'll hear a term that pops up a lot, called: “Writer's block.”
Don't believe that line for a second.
Am I saying it's untrue? Not at all. Sometimes, our projects require we take a break from it. We must have our minds refilled with new material so we are properly equipped to go where the story next demands.
So, yes. In that sense, writer's block is a thing. Like how you shouldn't attempt a dangerous thing before learning everything about it, so too does the same logic apply to writing. Not a fan of the term, but I get what it's trying to preach.
But writer's block isn’t an excuse to not be prolific. Many prolific writers before have faced this similar problem for different reasons, and though it's up to you to figure out what those reasons are and to resolve them, the act of writing itself should never be abandoned.
TIP 2: WORK ON THREE PROJECTS AT ANY GIVEN TIME
If your goal is to write every day and the same amount of words every time, then you'll have to get used to the idea of writing multiple projects at once. I'll allow Isaac Asimov (huge fan) to say his piece:
"I don’t stare at blank sheets of paper. I don’t spend days and nights cudgeling a head that is empty of ideas. Instead, I simply leave the novel and go on to any of the dozen other projects that are on tap. I write an editorial, or an essay, or a short story, or work on one of my nonfiction books. By the time I’ve grown tired of these things, my mind has been able to do its proper work and fill up again. I return to my novel and find myself able to write easily once more."
There's nothing to gain from worrying all the damn time. More often than not, doing reinvigorates us with the motivation to finish the task at hand. If you are struggling to write one project, then, by all means, move onto another: your subconscious will thank you, and you will have more joy in the process.
You must never be a prisoner of some block. Underneath the skin, we're all alike, and if there's a quality that's universal to us, then it is this: If we can feel like we're slacking from something, then we do the current task with a bit more glee.
With that said, I would suggest no more than three projects. Replace finished projects with new ones. Try having an essay or blog or review or something personal that’s not very taxing.
Often enough, by writing as ourselves, we quickly enough figure out our problems.
"By the time a particular book is published, the [writer] hasn’t much time to worry about how it will be received or how it will sell. By then he has already sold several others and is working on still others and it is these that concern him. This intensifies the peace and calm of his life."
Here is where the essay turns controversial, gang.
Allow me to be the first to state that yes, kiddo, you should be doing a second draft. When you finish a story, read it over. Correcting your mistakes here reduces how many you will make in the next project. Doing this will improve your overall ability as a writer—the thing that matters above all else.
But that is not the subject of today's essay. No. Not one bit. We are talking about ways to write more without regard to the quality you produce. Right now, the writer should either be decent or good, knows their shit without much room for improvement.
And here, gang, is the third tip.
TIP 3: REVISE ONCE AND MOVE ON
If I had the critic's mentality (which I emphatically don't) I would sit down and try to analyze my stories, work out the factors that make some more successful than others, cultivate those factors, and simply explode with excellence. But the devil with that. I won't buy success at the price of self-consciousness. I don't have the temperament for it. I'll write as I please and let the critics do the analyzing.
I keep telling writers to look at the Science Fiction writers of the '50s
Why? Because they were doing good work, hard work, but ultimately, had their genre shamed by the general populace—much like us. Whether we liked to admit it or not, fan fiction writers don't get much in the way of street cred. Doesn't matter if you write brilliance if it's categorized as “My Little Pony Fan-Fiction.”
Sad truth. Really. Doesn't matter how much you watch and read to improve your craft; it does not matter how many hours you spend writing or revising: all that work, real work, is still seen as a waste due to being used in relation to poni poni poni.
And that's where the trouble is. You do the same efforts and tasks with a normal novel, and suddenly, you're respected and doing respectable work. Same work; different context. It's hard to feel pride when you’re marching underneath a banner with a drawn Scootaloo, but damn it, you should still feel proud about your work anyway.
But enough of that. Let us move away from that tangent. The next segment involves what is to be done when you finish a project. Our guides will be Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison.
These two wrote a lot. That's all you need to know. They often wrote “forward” as it were. Meaning, they would sit down and write, and continue to do so once the work is done, then begin almost instantly to the next project. These two were not stunted by revision—they simply desired to keep writing forward.
So they wrote their stories and then let them go. Once a story was done, they would take it to a separate desk and start correcting. They'd omit anything needless and correct mistakes, but beyond that, their first drafts bore a strong resemblance to the second draft.
If you want to be prolific, then I think that's the way to go about it. You should give your work at least one look-over, correcting mistakes and removing needless material, maybe touching-up on some dialogue here and there. But ultimately, accept the story for what it is, then move on to the next project.
If revising or proofreading gives you trouble: take my advice.
Finish writing as quickly as possible. Be passionate. When the words have ceased because the story is done, you should be internally panting, unleashed with relief after some great deed.
Take a moment to step away from the work. Go for a walk, maybe talk to someone—hell, jerk off. You deserve it. Whatever you do, take a short break from your work. Many suggest two weeks, but really, twelve minutes will do ya fine.
When you return to the work, start by editing from the bottom of the page. No no. Don't read the paragraphs backwards. Rather, start from the bottom paragraph and start correcting till you reach the first. This removes the cringe or the horrible feelings about one’s work.
Do this until you've reached the top. Should you feel willing, go back down, removing sections of text or catching minuscule mistakes. Once done—that's it. Send it to an editor if you please, but besides that, submit and move on to your next text.
Isaac Asimov was against revising. His shtick was this: if a piece required too many revisions, then that piece was a failure. In the time it would take to salvage such a failure, he could write another piece altogether and have more fun in the process.
(Taken from Wikipedia with love.)
He also equated revising to: “Like chewing on used gum.”
What a fucking man, folks.
“So what if it limps. Its purpose is to get you into the next stage of the story and you take off from there. Time enough when you go through the novel again to correct the transition. For all you know, the material that you will write much later in the novel will make it plain to you exactly how the transition ought to have been. No amount of rewriting and repolishing now will get it right in the absence of knowledge of the course of the entire book. So let it limp and get on with it …
Think of yourself as an artist making a sketch to get the composition clear in his mind, the blocks of color, the balance, and the rest. With that done, you can worry about the fine points.”
We're nearing the end, my friends, so read tightly.
This tip hits me personally. More often than not, when we write, what stops us is not necessarily the writing itself but ourselves—some bad mindset or habit set to make our self-esteem and our ambitions self-destruct.
I am certain, if only of myself, a writer ought to be confident. They must believe in their potential to be better. I do not mean to bore you with vague words, good folks, but please, give me a few seconds get this ramble to start shambling.
To write so many words, everyday, requires passion. It must be something you want to do. If it is, you'll do so with ease after a while. Without a doubt, I enjoy to write, but it's how I view writing that detracts me from the craft.
Dread of the work. Comparing myself endlessly. Guilt for bad guilty.
I like to think I bear those shame cards in stride. My motto is #ShameLess. But the truth of the matter is this: negativity drains the soul and depletes the will. Comparing myself to others and despising everything I write can’t sustain itself. No. There must be some kick-back.
And it comes at the cost of losing my ability to do.
What I feel, what I think, what I do, affects everything I put on the page and my ability to do so. Living in such a negative aspect in being a writer ensures my will to write is zapped and my passion stomped out.
Because that's something ya gotta know about me, gang. Quality is never within my domain—it swoops down, occasionally, blessing me with its spirits. But soon enough, it flies away. I can never depend on when it may fly back again.
TIP 4: BE WILLING TO ACCEPT QUANTITY OVER QUALITY
I've since decided that I would not choose quality. I admire it, without a doubt, but it's something I cannot depend on. No no. What I have chosen is something always within my control: quantity. I can always write a bunch of words, without a doubt, but the moment I demand them to be good, I am often left with an empty page.
Once more passage from the good doctor:
"The ordinary writer is bound to be assailed by insecurities as he writes. Is the sentence he has just created a sensible one? Is it expressed as well as it might be? Would it sound better if it were written differently? The ordinary writer is therefore always revising, always chopping and changing, always trying on different ways of expressing himself, and, for all I know, never being entirely satisfied.
“A prolific writer, therefore, has to have self-assurance. He can’t sit around doubting the quality of his writing. Rather, he has to love his own writing… If I didn’t enjoy my writing so much, how on earth could I stand all the writing I do?”
-Isaac Asimov
You may not always be able to write well—but it’s better to throw away a bad work than to have no work away. Nothing is ever lost; every work invites at least an iota of improvement. You may not like how an essay came out, but you can easily write a similar one again with a slightly different thesis.
If we’re being honest, it’s really just a game of trying to get it right on the first time.
When it comes to viewing your own work: forget about it. Write. That’s all you must do. Read others, admire the greats, but proceed to write always as yourself. Should you absorb something useful, it’ll worm its way into your subconscious, and from there, find its way onto the page.
But improving at the cost of being self-conscious is a risky business.
You must keep on writing, because quality is a gamble, and the chips drop onto the table only when your fingers are pounding out a new story. Now then. Harlan Ellison to end this essay with a few words.
"You never know what the big one is going to be. I've written stories that I have dashed out in an hour, sat down and started to boogie, and when it was all done, I sent it out. The next thing I know, I'm holding up an award.
You have to keep your chops working. Ya gotta keep boogying, because if you don't, time and space, and the flitish nature of the audience, will turn away from you., and forget you completely.
And then you will have walked that long, long long road and left no path behind. One writes for posterity, I think. One writes for oneself. One writes to be remembered.”
- Harlan Ellison
And that's a wrap, folks!
I hope those points were of some use to you. Ramble first to get the words on a page; have multiple projects to ensure a continuous flow of words; revise once and be done, and have self-assurance in your quantity with hope that the next project will be better.
Some of those tips are to be held with caution. Tip three, for instance, should be broken the moment you are able to apply your skills. When many writers read about, well, how to write well, they sometimes can't merge their conscious knowledge into their subconscious. Thus, they struggle with one, two, three, sometimes four drafts with the overall quality remaining the same.
The issue is that their accrued knowledge hasn't had enough application to be properly used in revision. This is easily resolved by writing a lot. Your conscious knowledge will merge with your subconscious understanding. When this happens, you'll be able to see your work a lot more objectively, allowing you to put what you know into use.
When this happens: break tip three. Those second and third drafts will then ensure you have better first drafts—and a better understanding of writing on a whole.
Also, shout out to Flopple for helping edit this essay!
Keep at it, boys.
~ Yr. Pal, B ~
This is the one tip I can’t see myself agreeing with. Writing bad shit is better than writing nothing at all? I disagree.
I write for many reasons, but my writing is an expression of me. If it looks bad, it makes me look bad. How often have you looked at a shitty story and thought to yourself: “Man, the person who wrote this must be a loser.” I do it every day.
The rest of this seems pretty reasonable. I do wish I devoted more time to writing, but I honestly think it kind of bores me in the long haul; that’s why it takes me so long. It’s a calming exercise for me, actually. Some of my best writing is produced under extreme stress. If I’m chilling? No writing gets done.
Yeah so expect more from me come spring when I have upcoming back-to-back calculus and physics homework.
4998246
I would begin with stating the thesis of this blog is to be prolific as opposed to writing well. With that out of the way, we can begin.
1) Writing badly is required to start writing well. Most of the time, you need to sketch out the whole piece before you can work on the finer points. Not only that, but the more you write, the more you start to self-correct, and the tighter your prose will become as a result of long exposure to writing.
2) Writing is an expression of an aspect of you. Your writing reflects you as a writer. It doesn't have any bearing on you as a person. Should we not admit we are writers first, then when we write badly, it implies that we are bad. It is much better to be a bad writer in that respect. To judge someone (on the whole) by the quality of their work is superficial.
3) Different strokes for different folks. Your mindset about writing may be limiting you in that regard—or writing may be something akin to a summer cottage you visit every now and then for limited periods of time. Maybe fiddling with how you view writing will allow you to write more. But I'm not you, so I can't suggest much.
But yeah. Write my SweetieSpike.
~ Yr. Pal, B
4998246
I think there's definitely an argument to be made, especially for new writers, about just pumping out as much text as you can and not fretting too much over how great that text is. In my own experiences when starting writing I always second guessed nearly every piece of text I put on the screen. Things like: "Is this dialogue fleshed out enough, are the characters accurate to the source material?" or "Did I put enough detail i this scene, or is it actually too much and I'm lingering too long on this part?".
I think focusing too much on making everything you write immaculate greatly slows your ability to just write more and try new things with your storytelling. I personally wouldn't go so far as to say you shouldn't re-read what you write to see if there's anything that could be improved, but you shouldn't linger too long. Then again, I think having other writers to bounce ideas and concepts off of is the best way to tell a good story, but it's by no means necessary and I know some people prefer to write completely alone.
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4998246
I'd like to bring to attention an experiment done with a college class a while ago. The objective was to produce different kinds of flower pots. The class was split into 2 groups, each with a different focus. Group 1's focus was to make a working pot of higher quality than Group 2, while Group 2's objective was to make working pots of a higher quantity than Group 1.
Interestingly, Group 2 ended up with the most consistently good quality of pot by the end(better in more ways than Group 1), simply due to practical experience taking over after a certain point. They saw what worked with 1 pot, and applied that to the next pot, discarding what didn't.
While Group 1 fretted over 1 pot for the entirety of the experiment, only ending up with 1 semi decent pot and a couple half finished failures.
Quantity can have a quality all its own.
Hot diggity dang does this hit the spot for me right now.
Thank you for this.
I just want to say that I've had this tab open in the background of my browser for two months and have yet to get around to reading it. If that doesn't say something about my writing I don't know what else will.