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State of Progress

11 years ago
What helps you write at top speed and efficiency without breaking concentration?

For me, and I'm probably the only one, I make the most progress when I have a massive headache - almost hangover level, but not quite as sickening. I keep myself on a roll with loud music and forcing saucy beats into my ears at an ungodly volume. So...I torture myself to make extreme amounts of efficient progress? It's not as bad as I made it seem... but the progress I make on storygames is crazy. Perhaps a headache induces super-human levels of computational power along with fingers that type exactly without any mistakes at lightning speed. I suppose a single headache makes up for weeks of no progress towards storygames xD

State of Progress

11 years ago

EDM gets me going the fastest in anything, but I need a familiar keyboard, and a cold, dry room to get top speeds of efficiency in everything.

State of Progress

11 years ago

If I'm excited about an idea, all I need is enough coffee to stay alert, and the hours just fly by...

If I'm not... well... I abandon a lot of projects. >_<

State of Progress

11 years ago

I have to hurry up and work on things while I'm interested in them.  If I let it wait, I get interested in something else.  Same way with books, video games, tv shows. . .

I like coffee and EDM.  Also, cold and darkness.

State of Progress

11 years ago

I literally have to feel in my inspired mood, when I have an idea that physically excites me and I can write or type for hours at very high speed. There are a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes as I just keep writing without planning or thinking ahead and just letting the story unfold however feels natural. Sadly after it means I have hundreds of pages worth of writing all desperately needing proofread and once the exciting feeling goes or I'm pulled away and can struggle for weeks to write a single page... And it won't be nearly as good.

sometimes the feeling can last for days and I can make amazing progress on a project, sometimes just hours but I MUST have that feeling of being excited to explore the idea and see where it leads.

State of Progress

11 years ago

I'm the other type.  Still "have to be in my inspired mood" but: I go back and rewrite as I'm writing.  I can't stand leaving mistakes on the page.  I also delete and redo when I have a better idea, or realize a different word would sound better, or suddenly realize two people are actually brothers, etc.

According to Kurt Vonnegut:  Tellers of stories with ink on paper, not that they matter any more, have been either swoopers or bashers. Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn't work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they're done they're done.

He thinks more men are bashers and women are swoopers, but I don't know if I agree.

State of Progress

11 years ago
Hmm...I'd have to look at some cold hard statistics before I agree or disagree with Vonnegut's statement. There are a lot of women that do everything meticulously, and a lot of men that rush through the process. I suppose it'd depend on lifestyle more than anything.

State of Progress

11 years ago

Something that made me feel better about my 'swooper' style is that a lot of literary greats in writing and poetry were the same. Several actually wrote amazing works then had their wives do the proof reading because their spelling and grammar were so bad when they were following a thought line.

when I'm not in the inspired mood I write carefully and correct as I go. Usually it's following a spree of inspired writing to add extra arks or filling in a piece of the worlds history that was alluded to etc. in the inspired writing. I just find it so dam hard to make progress that way because I get so hung up. Having naturally terrible punctuation and spelling when typing fast mixed with a great hatred of bad spelling, punctuation and grammar makes for very slow writing.

State of Progress

11 years ago

I'm a basher. I think swoopers are probably more efficient, since they can adjust the big picture with big sweeping edits and not end up throwing out painstakingly polished prose. Nonetheless, I can't 'just write' and fix things later -- I have to get each and every sentence right. >_<

State of Progress

11 years ago

Defiantly not always. I once got into an inspired mood and over two days wrote several complete chapters for a book, ready to go and be read after simple spelling and punctuation correction. Rich in back story, character development and creating new lines of plot etc. and I absolutely loved those chapters. It then took me longer to go through and fix the spelling and grammar  and read through several times to take note of all the new plot lines I had created and which bits of history I would have to expand upon etc. so in the end I wasted days upon days going back over the same work whereas your style means once something is written you can move on and progress, knowing that it's right.

State of Progress

11 years ago
Sounds like you need http://www.polishmywriting.com/ to solve your refining problems :D

State of Progress

11 years ago

I'm neither. I plan major events ahead, but write smaller things on the fly. I tend to write in spurts of pages, then re-read the story to see if it all fits, changing words/events if they don't.

I don't pay too much attention to small errors, since I know I'll make them and it's more efficient to get someone else to look over my work and check for them.

State of Progress

11 years ago

I've never been able to keep from breaking concentration. My mind just kinda wanders whenever I'm trying to get something done. Something that helps is whenever I have a deadline (like when writing a paper) I designate time for slacking off. Like If I have two hours of studying to do,I'll put twenty minutes at the beginning and end of the session just for me to surf the web or do wutevs.

State of Progress

11 years ago

Well, for me, it's like "OH NOES! I NEED TO DO THIS REAL GOOD IF I'M GONNA GET AHEAD IN LIFE (even though nobody really DOES...)! TIME TO WORK HARD!"

Then I usually go into a Rocky-style montage.