Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

Lightning rod boosters
Attach your lightning rod
Focus

The point here is not to make your writing rigid. It’s to give you a roadmap. Writing is partly a process of discovery, and you need to have a way to re-incorporate what you discover.

So we’ll also add what I call “booster areas” to the plan.

See, I realized that — just like in fiction writing — it’s completely natural for your mind to invent fantastic ideas along the way. Things you can’t plan for at the Focus stage of the process. Even if you nail exactly what’s gonna go on every single page, I guarantee you this — it will change later.

It changes because your mind is active. And when you’re writing, great ideas will pop into that head of yours. Most of the ideas will throw you off course. But some of the ideas will actually help you write better.

So plan for them.

At various points along the way, create space for yourself. Create areas of your Plan where you intentionally don’t map it out. I didn’t do it for this book (I didn’t know to), but if I had it to do again, here’s what I’d do.

For each chapter, I’d leave a section blank. And I’d label it “the discovery”. And in each section, I’d write what I discovered at that point in the process.

That way, during the Apply phase — when all the lightning bolts are flying around and being channeled through the rod into the grid — I’d have an outlet for that random magic.

When you give yourself that opening, it has an amazing way of thrusting your work forward in a dramatic leap.

Remember, the magic of writing does appear when you’re writing FAST.

Be sure to give yourself the opportunity to harness it.

Be sure to make it a part of your Plan.