Take control of your writing process and hit your deadlines.
Admit it, you can be a painfully slow writer
And that’s okay, because most people are. Sometimes it is for good reasons, and sometimes it’s not. We all have good intentions and are probably a little too idealistic on what we can do in a given timeframe. You just want to be great and have your work seen by others.
But damn, it’s hard sometimes, especially when it takes forever for the words to get out of your head and onto the page. When you write something down, it’s not nearly as good as you want it to be. You push forward, but all your ideas feel muddled when they hit the page. And how long has it been? Oh, it’s been an hour and you’ve only written a paragraph. That’s the worst.
Don’t make it harder than it needs to be
The problem is not because you are a bad writer, it’s because you are too hard on yourself. You are so judgmental of what you’ve written that you don’t give your words a chance to thrive. Anything you write on the page you promptly delete, adding to the time it takes to finish.
Being a slow writer isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There isn’t a rule that says everyone has to write at the same speed. However, when your writing takes longer than you want it to, doubt sets-in. You look on Medium and see other writers publishing (what seems like) a thousand pieces a month and you wonder how they do it.
Let’s just be straight about it — you’re the problem, but you’re also the solution. Everyone struggles every now and then for one reason or another. Personally, I used to be an incredibly slow writer. I would worry about every sentence and succumb to extreme anxiety every time I sat down to write. But I wanted to be a writer, and I had to learn to pick up my pace if I wanted to get anywhere and be seen as a reliable writer who could hit deadlines. I am now a professional content strategist for a Silicon Valley tech company and I have learned that my biggest impediments were a mixture of my writing process and my thoughts. I had to get out of my head and onto the page.
If you need someone to give you permission to get out of your head and get back to the page, then consider some of these ideas:
Set reasonable expectations
If you’re not writing quickly, your expectations could be too high. You could be setting your expectations too high if you are:
- Trying to make your writing perfect the first time.
- Trying to come up with an original thought for every piece of writing.
If you feel this is the case — you need to silence your inner critic. The writing process can become extremely tedious when you place high expectations on it. You can reset your expectations by changing your perspective on your writing. For instance, would you rather:
- Have a complete first rough draft, or
- Have written little because you spent so much time trying to be perfect.
I believe a complete first draft wins any day of the week. When you set reasonable expectations, your writing process will become much more efficient. You can still have standards, but be realistic about what you can do in a given timeframe.
Write on the go
Do you ever wonder how major news publications like the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal publish so many stories? Do you ever ask yourself how they are able to publish 2,000+ word articles on a major news event that occurred the exact same day?
Sure, there is the obvious answer — major news publications have a large writing and editorial staff that expedite the writing process, but that diminishes the level of work each writer puts into the final article.
Back in the day, when news writers were required to be on the ground to get the full story, they took notes and started establishing the lead before they even got back to their desk. Often times, they had to dictate a story from their notes over the phone to publish on time. In other words, they had to write on the go if they wanted to finish their work on time.
Thinking of a story? You don’t have to be at your desk. You can start piecing the story together on your phone notepad. When you get back to your desk, you’ll already have material to work with. You may not write perfect sentences when you write on the go, but at least you’re writing something. You’ll also respect yourself more for writing something than nothing at all.
Outline, research, and borrow strategically
Nothing will slow you down more than not knowing what to say.
If you’re not sure what to say, create an outline of your main points. Don’t overthink what your main points should be if you’re not entirely sure. You need to draft ideas to discover what needs to be on the page. Anything you draft can be changed later on if needed.
If your outline requires research, do it strategically. Often times, we can get so bogged down in the details that we forget that we need to be writing. If you can’t find the answer to your question in 15 minutes, move on to other parts of the writing. Return to it later and keep writing. You’ll accomplish more by writing what is easier and returning to the more research-intensive parts later.
When it comes to outlining and researching an article, don’t be afraid to borrow old content from yourself (although, be sure to reword your old content to make it new). Writers from news publications aren’t afraid to borrow from themselves. When writers are following a story for months on end, they already know most of it. The introduction of an article is usually spent catching a reader up to the recent developments. They are able to write quickly because they have written so much of it already. They just have to plug it back in. So don’t be afraid to borrow from yourself.
Looking for other tips?
Assemble your writing team — Stop trying to do everything yourself. Ask a friend, coworker, or loved one to review your material. An editor can dramatically decrease the writing process and improve your material.
Know when to ignore the rules — Think about all the books that have been written. Do you think they all followed the same rules on how to write? No, they all did things differently. Your process doesn’t have to be how others do it. Learn what to adopt and what to ignore.
Don’t compare yourself to others —The biggest way to disappoint yourself as a writer is to compare yourself to other writers. You’ll never win this game no matter how hard you try. However, you can borrow writing practices from other writers. And if those practices don’t work, get rid of them. Keep what you need, get rid of what you don’t.
Stop editing every sentence — Write the first thing that comes to your head and stick with it. Usually the first thing you write is what you actually intend to say, whether it is written cleanly or not. If you are writing an article, don’t rewrite until you have written a full rough draft first. If you are writing a book, don’t edit until you reach the end of the chapter.
Final thoughts
You may have read this article and thought, “I know all of this already!”
I find that writing tips just tend to be reminders of what we already know — cause you do know it. Sometimes we just need these reminders to get back to work. So get back to writing!