Just Write- hints to speed-writing... By Callum Shakespeare     Do you suffer from writer’s block? Do spend hours at a time at the keyboard mulling things over, and producing a scant page of work? Do you feel your writing is crawling along with no end in site? Is the final goal hidden behind an immovable veil? Do you think; I know it’s within me, but why, oh why won’t the words flow?   Yes. I knew that would be your answer. We all have days when we are not pleased with our work. We all feel that at times our slow progress is insufferable. And we all question ourselves, what is wrong?   You are about to find out. I searched long and hard for this answer, and always it seemed to elude me. But then, in one last-ditch attempt to salvage my remaining hope for the future of my novel I found it. I was thinking too much.   Simple, isn’t it? Yet it is something so easy to overlook, so simple in fact that we disregard the notion without even considering it. Thinking too much, it was the one fix all for my problems. And it was all contained in a single exercise.   I was a sceptic at first. I was sure an exercise could not hold the answers. But it did. All I had to do was put aside my scepticism and believe, and try. Give this exercise five minutes of your time and your writing will change forever.   The Exercise   You are going to write for five minutes, just five minutes. Make sure you have a clock or watch handy so you can time yourself. You are going to write whatever comes into your mind, whether you think it good, or terrible, brilliant, or stupid. Do not stop to think. Do not pause from your writing. Do not correct mistakes, or misspellings. I cannot emphasise this enough. You must write for the full five minutes without pause.   Remember you are writing fiction, yes, you may want to be a scriptwriter or biographer, but for this time you are writing connected fictional events. It must not be a series of disjointed ideas, but a clear, understandable passage. One sentence may sound ridiculous, but leave it, keep writing. You may end up with an evil rabbit talking to an arthritic man but it doesn’t matter. Just write. Write the words as they come into your head. Do not reject any sentence, nothing. Just write.   If you can’t think of the correct word just leave a space to be filled later. If you use the same word in two consecutive sentences, it can be fixed later. Mistakes, misspellings, grammatical errors, missing capitals- later, later, later, later!   I’m going to give you three words to put into your writing. You must start the first sentence with one of them and the other two must appear in the first paragraph. Remember, don’t stop to think, don’t procrastinate over words- just write!   Got your pen and paper ready? Got a clock nearby? Click HERE to get your 3 words   After the Exercise   How did you go? You probably wrote anywhere between half to three quarters of a page of handwritten text. If you did more, that’s great!   But more importantly what did you discover? How did this writing compare to your normal writing? I know this sample is full of spelling mistakes and missing words, but putting that aside can you see potential in this passage? Is there perhaps some harsh humour or sarcasm? Do you question a societal value? Or is it just fast moving, of the pace that gets your heartbeat up?   You may want to have a second go with this exercise. I certainly did and I achieved much better the second time when I knew more what I was doing. If you aren’t satisfied, then simply pick another three words and try again.   Whether you were pleased or not with what you wrote in this exercise put the principals you learnt here into your own general writing.  Don’t procrastinate over choice of words Don’t edit while you’re going along (be careful, you may find that subconsciously you go back and edit) Do not read the prior sentence before writing the next- you know what it says! You’ve just written it! If you can’t think of the right word, just leave a space. Don’t worry if the computer tells your grammar is incorrect, or your sentence fragment. Editing is for later, now- just write!    To save time formulate a basic plan before you begin your writing so you know the direction your text is heading in. Then you can write almost without pause and won’t have to stop to procrastinate whether John should enter the evil castle. You won’t have to question your direction- you would have planned and reasoned it out already. Keep the plan close by while writing so you can refer to it without a frustrating pause.   Most important of all, don’t think too much! This is the number one rule that will spell life or death for your writing.   You may like to use the above exercise to get your ideas going before starting your main project. But remember, it is not a matter of getting the words to flow, the words are always there- the problem is you are rejecting them. Fix this, and implement what you have learnt and your writing will advance beyond your wildest dreams.     Keep the thinking to a minimum, and until next time- just write!