Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

The objective of this phase
Inspect what you have
Strengthen

_“Books aren’t written — they’re rewritten._”

—Michael Crichton

10 Inspect what you have

Wow! You made it through! You didn’t think you could, but you did. Towards the middle, you thought you were a goner. You almost gave up, even! But no. You persevered.

And you filled up all those blank pages!

Incredible.

Tell me this isn’t the greatest feeling in the world!

Listen. Now that you’re here, you’ve gotta do something. And it’s absolutely essential if you’re working on a long-form project.

You’ve got to reward yourself. Take yourself out to dinner. Go on a vacation somewhere. Buy a trinket. Something.

Because what you’ve done is really quite amazing. You have conquered what most writers agree is the hardest part of writing: Getting words on the page.

(Nobody needs to know it wasn’t really that hard after all.)

And you know what’s even better?

Your words aren’t half bad!

Oh, sure, there’s some pretty dodgy stuff in there. But if you’re honest about it, you’ve gotta admit, there’s some pretty good stuff in there, too!

We’ll find out for sure soon enough.

Because now that you’ve got words on the page, you finally get to do what you’ve been dying to do ever since you started.

You get to shift gears, and start shredding.

You get to unleash the Movie Critic.

See, you’ve reached the middle of the FAST System. And that’s no small thing.

The midway point is a major transition.

You’re not trying to squeeze ideas out of your head anymore.

All you need to do now is fix them.

You’ll tear your work to pieces, rip it apart, twist it around, hold it upside down, and jiggle the loose coins out of its pockets.

And you’ll whip that scrawny little runt into shape.

It’ll be a world-class competitor before you know it.

The objective of this phase

Last section — the Apply phase — had one purpose. To fill those pages with words. Any words.

Here’s why.

You can’t fix what isn’t broken. You can’t modify what’s invisible. You can’t improve what doesn’t exist.

Or, think of it this way: You can’t write until you’ve got words on the page!

Remember the cliché “all writing is rewriting”? Well, it might not literally be true, but you can’t turn words into a masterpiece until you have some on the page.

Well now you do. Now you’ve got something to fix.

S is for Strengthen.

And this phase of the FAST System has one purpose, too. To take what you’ve got, and make it better.

Don’t complicate it. That’s all this phase is about.

Yes, it can be a little tricky. You’ve got a million questions. For starters, how do you make it better? How do you even know what you’ve got?

We’ll break it down into three “movements.” And each “movement” is a chapter.

First, you’ll inspect what you have. See what’s there. You can’t know what to change until it’s clear. That’s this chapter.

Second, you’ll decide what needs to be done. There are four possibilities. Chapter 11 shows how to make those decisions.

Third, you’ll amplify your work. When you know what you’ve got, and you’ve decided what to do, all that’s left is to do it. Chapter 12 has techniques to get you moving.

In short, we’re about to turn your words into gold.