Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

Your head is faster than your hands
Why you hate writing
The setup

But there’s an even deeper problem.

As it turns out, your brain is just too fast. (When was the last time you got that nice a compliment?!)

It’s true.

Those little neurons are firing in your head at lightning speed. They’re forming shapes. Ideas. Brilliance.

But your fingers are madly clicking away, trying desperately to keep up. Unfortunately, they’re out here in the real world. Your fingers can’t move at the speed of thought. So it’s kinda like when you fall into a swimming pool. The resistance of the water is so strong, you can’t just jump out again. You have to climb.

So imagine you’re writing a page. You’ve got a clear idea of where you’re going on that page. But as you get into it, suddenly those synapses start firing like crazy. Ideas spark ideas.

You get halfway through a sentence, and your brain shoots out in a new direction. Problem is, it’s not the direction you intended to go on this page. But in the interest of speed (or “getting into the rhythm”), you follow that direction.

And then a couple paragraphs later, you realize you’ve gone astray. You’re dangling precariously on the edge of this branch.

Not quite sure where you were going with this thread. Not quite sure how to tie all this back into your original idea.

You’re lost. And frustrated. Again.

If this happens every time you try to write, it’s no wonder you hate it so much! You equate “writing” with “impossible,” because you can’t harness your ideas.

And before you know it, you’re in trouble. You’re overwhelmed. It feels like you can’t stay focused. And if you can’t get through one page, how are you gonna complete a whole book? Why not just forget the whole thing?

Sound familiar?