Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

Control the outcome
Amplify for maximum effect
Strengthen

It’s essential to divide your rewrite into these stages. If you jump around, you’ll get lost in the abyss of rewriting.

Take this to heart: Rewriting can take forever — but only if you want it to. Maybe you want it to. If so, have fun with it! But if you want to get through it, there’s no need for that.

Instead, push through. Don’t get stuck. Express your idea as effectively as possible, and then move on, and forget about it.

Your Strengthen Plan is your guide.

Go through it step by step. Inch by inch. Break it down into chunks, just like you did for your Focus Plan. The Focus Plan used blocks of pages to help you through it. The Strengthen Plan uses blocks of time.

Grab hold of it. Steer it. Forget perfection. Just dig in.

Look, when you’ve got a whole bunch of blank pages staring at you, you need to let yourself go, and let the words pour out of you onto the page.

But once they’re on the page, you’ve got to steer them. Shape them. Craft them. You’ve got to deliberately put them in the order that amplifies their effect, and strikes that bolt of lightning.

And you can. Don’t let those words intimidate you. Any (and every) word you’ve written can be thrown out entirely. Or it can be adjusted and strenghtened. It’s up to you. Take charge!

But move quickly. And keep going.

By now, your idea should be pretty clear. Even if it wasn’t clear when you started, just by writing all those words and pushing through this process, your idea will have revealed itself.

Control this beast. Tame it. It’s yours.