What is Currently Inspiring and Influencing Me to Write More

Raining in on the deck

At the moment I have to say that writing  more every day isn't that hard.

Why?

Because the weather is terrible and it's been pouring heaving rain for days. I can't even sit out on the deck and write like I usually do because it's so windy it keeps blowing the rain in and everything just feels damp at the moment.

And I have more free time because I now can't do any gardening (I usually like to get in an hour or 2 every day) and the dogs are laying on my bed every day, looking worried that I might want to walk them. Fat chance of that. Their 2 walks a day are currently down to zero (or a fast 15 minute walk like we had yesterday when the rain eased for a short while in the afternoon).

Today, however, the rain shows no sign of easing up at all, not even to light showers. It's just lashing down continually, the drains in the road are gushing like fountains and the road itself is a river.

But none the less, I have been writing more, and thinking about it a lot, not because it's raining so much, but because I've found two things that are really spurring me on.

The first thing (which I'm sure you're sick of me talking about) are the Jason Fladlien Products I downloaded, particularly his 48 Hour Report which teaches you how to write a report or ebook in just 48 hours.

It's all brilliant stuff. Even if you don't manage to do it in the allotted time, you'll still learn how to write faster than every before. You'll also learn how to research and organise your notes ready for writing. This information alone is a real time-saver.

It also comes with a bonus PDF called The 2 Hour Condenser which basically shows you how to write a short report or ebook in  just 2 hours that you can use for marketing, as a bonus product or to sell for around $7. It seems that there are plenty of people all over the Internet selling short reports and ebooks for such small amounts. And it doesn't take many of them for you to be earning around $100 a day.

Anyway, the second thing that I've been reading is the website of prolific author, Dean Wesley Smith.

Since  last August (2013) he's been blogging daily doing a series he calls "Writing in Public"

DWS is amazing at how much he can write and in his series he reveals daily what he writes, how many words he writes and when he writes. It's a fascinating insight into a remarkable writer.

What I've found most amazing about his methods of writing is how he doesn't get up every day until the afternoon and then writes sporadically in between doing other things and doesn't go to bed until almost daylight.

And yet he still writes so much every day.

For example, his word count for the month of August 2013 was over 124 thousand words. That included fiction writing (which he does most) blog posts, emails and non-fiction writing.

He says he always aims to write 1,000 words an hour. I worked it out that if he keeps that up (which isn't hard to do, it's only about 4 pages of typed text) then in one month (30 days) even if he only writes for 4 hours a day, that's 120 thousand words a month.

And he's proven in another series of blog posts that he can write a book in 10 days, or there abouts. He did daily blog posts about it and tracked his writing hours and his word count and he seemed to do it so effortlessly.

Admittedly, his high word count is because he never takes a day off from writing. He sits at his computer for several hours a day, every day without fail (except for holidays).

And his writing hours aren't all at once. Sometimes he writes for an hour here and two hours there and eats dinner and watches TV in between or works on other non-writing projects such as formatting and book covers.

I keep reading about how he writes every day and marvel at how much he gets done. And then I think "Why aren't I doing that?"

My days are much different that DWS's. I have many other things to do every day like cooking, cleaning, shopping (you wouldn't believe how much I dislike shopping) washing, ironing, dog walking, gardening and loads of other jobs besides, like when I applied several coats of deck oil to the front veranda floor a couple of weeks ago and then I cleaned the outside of the windows. Such joy in my life. :)

But still, there is no reason why I can't be sat writing for 4 or more hours every day AND be turning out 4 thousand words or more every day too.

I always refer to myself as a full time writer. But that doesn't mean I work full time, but rather that I earn a full time income from my writing.

So what can I do to up my game a bit more?

Well first off I need to practise writing faster. I also need to get my first drafts done quickly and then move on the next thing before I stop and proof what I've written. It's always better to put some time distance between writing and reading it back.

As an example, 2 days ago I spent the afternoon working on the content for someone's website. It's a new site and I'm writing all the content.

After a while, I thought I was going wrong with what I was writing, so eventually I had to stop and put it away and work on something else.

Then yesterday, I took out the writing again and read it through out loud. And do you know what? It was a work of genius and not the garbage I thought I'd written. I must have just been getting tired the day before because I was writing for too long.

So yesterday, when I began writing the rest of the content, I set my phone timer for 35 minutes. When it went off, I went to the kitchen to get a cold drink and then sat down to work again with another 35 minutes on the timer.

And that's how I continued throughout the morning. I worked in 35 minute segments and then stood up and did something different like hang up some washing (under cover but didn't dry with all this rain), went to the toilet, made coffee, patted the dogs.

To my surprise it worked like a charm and I felt refreshed after each short break and it was easy to continue writing again.

I've heard before about taking lots of mini breaks when you're writing because it stops writing fatigue but I couldn't see how it could work.

At first I didn't like being interrupted and wondered if I'd be able to get my train of thought back again. But it wasn't a problem and it was easy to sit back down and start writing again.

And, best of all, I got more writing done than usual. I just wish I'd kept a word count so that I can see if I'm hitting more than 4,000 words an hour.

But either way it doesn't matter. I'm still feeling really confident about being able to write more in less time.

And it's all thanks to Jason Fladlien and Dean Wesley Smith.

Both have helped and inspired me.

And now I'm going to take a short break and get to work on my next writing project.

This is great.

P.S. Every time I write the name 'Fladlien' my spell checker tries to change it to 'Flatulent'. Hilarious!