Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

Personal interference
Harness your idea overflow
Apply

Take this scenario. It used to happen to me all the time.

You sit down to start writing. You have an idea of where you’re going. Maybe you have a detailed Focus Plan, or maybe just a sketch and a hunch.

And you start typing.

You write a paragraph. And just to be sure your paragraph doesn’t completely suck, you re-read it.

But when you re-read it, you notice you misspelled a word. No biggie. You fix it, and then re-read it again.

Only... you notice that your word choice makes the first half of that sentence kinda clunky. If you just remove this word, and slide that phrase over there, that oughtta do it. Yeah, that’s better. You re-read it again.

Okay, yeah, I think that’s pretty good. But — hey — that gives me an idea!

And you run with the idea. You get another two paragraphs written before you stop. But you’re not sure what you’ve got. So you do the same thing again.

These new paragraphs require a couple little modifications, too. But it’s no problemo. Change this, tuck that, nip that over there, and presto! It’s all looking pretty good.

You re-read the three paragraphs.

Only — hang on — you had an idea, didn’t you? It was the reason you wrote those second two paragraphs. Wait a minute. Hang on. You did have an idea. You’re sure of it.

What the heck was it again? Something about... no, umm... gawd, I’m really not sure anymore.

You re-read it again. And again. And again. You can’t remember the original idea, but a new idea pops into your head.

That one should tie it back together! So you run with it for a couple paragraphs, when you do the same little fix-it routine.

But now when you re-read your page, you’ve forgotten what you even started out trying to say! You’ve got six little tangents reaching out like a crooked branch on a dead tree. The original direction is lost, but so are each of the new ideas!

It’s Personal Interference. It’s you getting in your own way!

Stop that!