Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to write fast and edit slow. When
Speaker 1: you're working on a project that requires making something new,
Speaker 1: aim to create first without questioning yourself. Then, once you've
Speaker 1: gotten your ideas down, you can be more disciplined about
Speaker 1: turning this something into something better. This council to write
Speaker 1: fast and edit slow will be familiar to writers who
Speaker 1: are often encouraged to treat writing and editing as separate processes.
Speaker 1: They require different kinds of thinking. Just as we can't
Speaker 1: really multitask by checking email while running a conference call,
Speaker 1: we're better off writing and editing successively rather than oscillating
Speaker 1: between them in one sitting. In her classic book Bird
Speaker 1: by Bird Some Instructions on writing and life, author and
Speaker 1: LaMotte urges would be writers to pen crummy first drafts. Well,
Speaker 1: crummy isn't the word she uses, but it's what will
Speaker 1: use for this family friendly show, and not very good
Speaker 1: first draft paves the way, she says for good second
Speaker 1: drafts and terrific third drafts. Lamott discourages perfectionism, which she
Speaker 1: writes means that you tried desperately not to leave so
Speaker 1: much mess to clean up, but avoiding mess may not
Speaker 1: be advisable. According to Lamott, clutter is wonderfully fertile ground. Tidiness,
Speaker 1: she writes, suggests something is as good as it's going
Speaker 1: to get. Tidiness makes me think of hell breath or
Speaker 1: suspended animation. Well, writing needs to breathe and move I
Speaker 1: love that description. When we write fast and free, we
Speaker 1: give our writing breathing room and space for movement. We
Speaker 1: don't stifle it with premature criticism. Only after we've gotten
Speaker 1: our ideas on paper are we ready to shift to slow,
Speaker 1: painstaking editing. Right fast and edit slow could be the
Speaker 1: mantra for National Novel Writing Month or Nano Ramo, the
Speaker 1: month long challenge in which hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 1: try to write a fifty thou word manuscript during the
Speaker 1: month of November that works out to an average of
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred sixty seven words per day across the thirty
Speaker 1: days of the month. You can't write sixteen hundred sixty
Speaker 1: seven words per day and do everything else you do
Speaker 1: if you stop to critique yourself every time you've written
Speaker 1: ten words. You have to keep going and save the
Speaker 1: editing for December and beyond. I wrote the first draft
Speaker 1: of my time management fable, Juliette's School of Possibilities during
Speaker 1: Nano Ramo yep I wrote in an entire draft of
Speaker 1: a book during Novem birth, but the book wasn't published
Speaker 1: until March of My editors and I spent big chunks
Speaker 1: of that time more than a year improving the novel. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I think that was about the right pace. The underlying
Speaker 1: principle of right fast edit slow works for other endeavors.
Speaker 1: Besides writing in many contexts, generating ideas freely allows you
Speaker 1: and your team to have a lot of content to
Speaker 1: work with. Then you can refine the ideas with rigor
Speaker 1: and discipline. You're better off generating a ton of ideas
Speaker 1: for how to market your new product and then analyzing
Speaker 1: what will work verse analyzing each idea as you come
Speaker 1: up with it. That's a great way to get bogged down.
Speaker 1: Being okay with lots of crummy stuff allows us to
Speaker 1: sort through the rocks to find the gems and get
Speaker 1: those gems polished to share with the world. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to make
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E the
Speaker 1: number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can also
Speaker 1: shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i
Speaker 1: heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out
Speaker 1: with all the letters. Thanks so much, should I look
Speaker 1: forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.