Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

Hardwiring your brain
How to reach lightning speed
The payoff

I saved this one for near-last.

It’s the Payoff.

Remember the picture from chapter 4? The image of the brain we’re always shown on documentaries? That mesh inside your head with electrical pulses pumping through it?

I want to show you how to use it — how to reach lightning speed by manipulating the mesh inside your brain.

It’s pretty simple, really. Here’s how it works.

Suppose you buy a lottery ticket every single week.

The first time you do it, you notice a big jackpot. Aw, what the heck, you think. You walk four blocks to the store. You plunk down five bucks. You get the quick-pick numbers. You wander home, and flick on the television set that night.

A little electrical pulse pumps through that mesh in your brain. It creates a memory. It’s faint. And it’s quickly forgotten. But it’s there.

The next week, you think, Maybe this week I’ll get lucky, and you do it again. The walk. The five bucks. The quick-pick. The walk back. The television.

The pulse pumps through the mesh — in the same spot. But now the mesh is twice as charged. The memory gets stronger.

The next week, you try again. Walk, buy, pick, walk, watch. That electrical pulse digs into that mesh. Same spot again.

That trip to the store is now etched into your brain.

And as week follows week, you do it again and again. That pulse is burning — searing — into the mesh.

You’re forming a habit.

It’s difficult to erase. Nearly impossible to forget. It’s “second-nature” to you now. And before you know it, you’re buying lottery tickets without even thinking.

Think about your life.

What actions are etched into your mind?

Are there certain television shows you watch every week? Do you take the same route to work each day? Do you tuck yourself into bed the same way each night? Do you greet people with the same words? Are there foods you eat regularly? Words you say repeatedly? Thoughts you play over and over again?

The mesh is the web of memories in your mind. And it’s formed by what you do, how often you do it, and the impact doing it had on you.

It makes bad habits incredibly difficult to break.

But for us writers, we can use this!

Whatever you want to achieve, simply do it. Repeatedly.

If you apply the FAST System every day... If you write pages every single day... If you write fast every time you write...

...you’ll be hardwiring your brain!

Writing fast becomes a ritual. A habit. You’ll be training yourself to write better, faster and more effectively.

And all it requires is that you do it every single day.

When your brain is hardwired to write FAST, you will always write quickly. Gradually, you won’t even have to think about it.

It’s becomes second-nature.

That’s just the way you write.

And I’ll tell you something. It’s better than any lottery ticket could ever be.