Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

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Your brain’s just trying to help.

It doesn’t know any better. It sees you writing about that topic, and it wants to contribute. It wants to be useful! It’s like a little kid that desperately wants to help Dad in the garage. He keeps handing him the wrong tools. He keeps getting in the way. But you know he means well.

If you don’t blast straight through your writing, from the very first page to the very last, your Idea Factory is going to interrupt.

A lot.

With more ideas than you can shake a stick at.

And the only way you’re going to get through it is to gently tell your brain you appreciate it. “Thank you for that wonderful idea, Brain.”

And then promptly ignore it. And get back to the work at hand. (If you don’t say Thank-you, your brain will gradually stop giving you ideas. And that can’t be a good thing. Be polite and keep the relationship friendly as long as possible.)

Keep your eyes focused on the road ahead.

I know it sounds a little counter-intuitive. You’ve got all these great ideas popping into your mind, and here I am suggesting you ignore them. What if they’re great ideas? What if they’re the missing link between that Focus Plan and whatever it is that will really make this thing rock?

We’ll get to that in a minute.

For now, just don’t buy into the sales pitch.

Not every one of those ideas will be as valuable as the Oscar-winner claims they’ll be. Not every idea is worth the time it takes to ponder it.

But every single one of those ideas will push you off the rails. And cause a major wreck. Even the good ones.