How author Rachel Aaron wrote a novel in 12 days

Well, not quite. It was 15.

First read her essay “How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day”.  Now read about her 12 day triumph in “12 Days of Glory”.

Amen on the pre-writing! I’d be lost without it. LOST. Sketching out scenes beforehand makes them SO MUCH EASIER to write. I can focus on the delivery, characters, dialogue, etc. instead of the events. It frees my creativity to focus on other things. Sketching out a novel beforehand does the same for the whole book. I have a simple sketch of the scene I’m going to write today. There’s no dithering about what to write. I KNOW what I need to write. So I do another more detailed sketch, the pre-writing for the scene before I jump into the day’s work. When I get the scene in my mind, the draft comes so much more quickly.

Amen on time! I’ve found my mind is like a furnace: it takes time to get hot, and if I only dedicatetake small chunks of time, I’m forever warming it up. When I get 3-4 hours a day, I far more productive on a per hour basis than when I only get one.

Amen on enthusiasm! There’s nothing worse than trying to write something that bores me. I can’t do it. And her little method for reviewing scenes is very similar to what I do.

Great posts, Rachel! Now I just need to get back into my dedicated time groove.