One of the most frequent questions I get from writers is: how am I (Mary) able to write so fast? Especially after they hear that I usually knock out my first draft in about 3 months…everyone wants to know how. 

So here it is: my answer. 

There’s one common habit shared by almost all writers who struggle with their writing pace—and I’m going to tell you what that is and how to fix it so that you can write more quickly if you want to. Let’s go.

Ready? I’m not going to make you wait till the end. 

The number one thing you need to stop doing to write more quickly is to stop editing as you go!

Stop. Right now. Stop. 

If you’re writing slowly, 9 times out of 10, you’re editing as you go. 

What I mean by that is writing a paragraph or even a sentence, and then going back over and criticizing it and rewriting it, line by line, while you’re still trying to get the first draft down on paper.

If you don’t want to take a million years to write your first draft, you need to stop doing this. 

If right now you’re thinking “oh gosh, that’s me,” I suspect this is going to be hard for you.

Editing as you go is a hard instinct to resist. But…you have to. I know that is going to sound impossible for a lot of you. So let’s get into some ways you can avoid doing this and actually finish your first draft. 

Then, I’m going to tell you why you should trust me when I say that doing this will make your book better. 

Okay? Yes, that’s right: not editing as you go will make your book better, not worse. But first, let’s talk about how you avoid editing as you go. Then I’ll tell you why it will make your book better. 

Tip #2: To avoid editing as you go, handwrite your draft

This tip completely changed the way I write a book. 

The first time I ever wrote a novel, I Googled “how many words are in a novel?” The internet told me: about 70,000. So I just wrote until I hit that number. It was terrible. So I rewrote it again. And again, and again. 

I was 29 and single, and because I tutored in the evenings for work, I had hours and hours a day to stare at a computer screen, killing time, waiting for genius to arrive. 

Finally, I sold that novel. And then I sold my next novel based on a proposal, meaning, I hadn’t written it yet. 

But this time, I was in very different circumstances: I had just had a baby. I had a newborn at home. I was really under-slept.

For the first time in my life, I’d stare at the computer screen and not know what to write. I’d heard of writers being daunted by the screen before, but this was the first time it had ever happened to me. 

After reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which I highly recommend by the way, I decided to try writing by hand. 

And it worked! 

Over my 8-week maternity leave, in about 2 hours a day, I wrote my book. 

Writing my draft by hand and transcribing has been transformative for me, and I’ve written my books this way since. I’ve taught it to dozens of other writers, and it’s liberated them as well. 

This is true for a few reasons. 

When you’re handwriting—especially using a pen—it’s easier to resist the temptation to go back and rewrite what you just wrote. You’d wind up with pages of strikethroughs and that seems to be enough of a deterrent that most people just keep moving along. 

It eliminates all of the distractions that I’d otherwise have on a computer, like text and social media alerts, and it grounds me in the writing that I’m doing in that moment. 

Now, this isn’t always a good fit for everybody—I know that. But if you’re able to, I really suggest giving handwriting your first draft a try. 

Tip #3: Write in writing mode, not editing mode

Here’s a quick exercise: imagine you’re sitting at the perfect place to write, and you’re having the best writing session ever. The words are flowing, you can see the world you’re building clearly.

How do you feel? Creative? Fun? Inspired? Connected or immersed, maybe open or playful?

Now imagine you’re reading something that you’ve been asked to edit. How does that feel? Analytical and critical? Appraising, attentive to detail? Maybe monitoring or vigilant?

I want you to feel the difference in your body right now. These are very different modes, right? Your whole body can tell.  

If, when you’re writing, you feel more like you’re in editing mode—remember those words? Analytical and critical? Appraising, attentive to detail? Maybe monitoring or vigilant? That’s neither fun nor productive. 

We need to shift your mindset. 

If you write with the mindset of looking for things to fix, you’re going to spend way too much time on individual sentences or passages instead of actually getting through that draft.

“But I’m a perfectionist!” you might be thinking. Fine, I’m going to address that in a moment. 

We still need you to write in writer mode, not editor mode. Your perfectionist will get her moment in a second.

Tip #4: Time yourself

Timing your writing sessions can be a gamechanger for a lot of writers, and can be really helpful for people who only have a limited amount of time available to them for writing each day. 

Knowing that you only have a certain amount of time to get those words down can be the kick in the butt you need. 

A second ago, I mentioned that I wrote my novel Privilege in about 2 hours a day over an 8-week maternity leave. 

Having to squeeze it into those 2 hours because that’s when I had childcare was really good for me. It forced me to, well, write, and not dilly dally. 

The Pomodoro Technique is one way of timing your work in those shorter sections, where you work for about 25 minutes, then take a short break. You can alternate between work and break time as many times as you want, too. 

And, on a limited time frame, you’re less likely to slip into editing mode—there’s just no time for it. It’s not right for everyone, but if you haven’t tried it before, give it a shot—you might surprise yourself with how much you can write in an hour, or even just twenty minutes. 

Tip #5: Practice reading in reader mode

Remember the writing and editing modes I was talking about earlier? There’s a third mode I talk about with writers in my program, the Book Incubator: that third mode is reader mode. 

How do you feel when you’re reading something really good? How would you describe that feeling? Curious, or transported? Entertained? Open? Excited? Single-minded?

As readers, we don’t read with the critical eye of editing mode. I’m not saying we turn off our brains. But we’re rooting for the author—we’re on the same team. We’re looking to be transported, not looking to fix. 

None of us crack open a book on vacation hoping to circle some grammatical mistakes. When we read for fun, we just want to read a good story, to be transported somewhere else, to learn something new. 

We want to like what we’re reading. We want it to be good. 

The reason I want you to remember this is that you’re writing for readers, not editors. 

When you go back and read your own work—which, by the way, I advise not doing until you’ve finished a draft—remember to review it in reader mode, not editor mode.

Editor mode will help you fix what’s not working, but reader mode should be how you identify if it’s working at all…because that’s who you’re writing for.

Tip #6: Remind yourself that your future self is better at revising than you are

For a lot of us, the instinct to edit as we go comes from the desire to not write something bad. 

A lot of the anxiety that we experience as writers is because we are trying to do everything at once. If you were to build a house, you would’t try to paint the walls and choose the window trimmings as you were building the foundation.

It would literally end up being a pile of materials. The same is true when we Try as writers to both get a story down on paper and worry about how it’s being presented at the same time. Those are completely separate tasks. 

They are as different as hammering a nail and painting a wall. You cannot get a story down, and by that I mean creating something out of nothing, and also worry about whether it’s and its most presentable form yet.

I think when people say they are perfectionists, that’s not really what’s going on. Perfectionism sounds like it’s high standards…but I have high standards, too. 

I just know that when I’m building a house, that’s only the first phase, and I’m going to be able to apply my high standards later when I’m worrying about what that house looks like. You have to trust your future editor self to come in and clean things up. 

And until you do, it’s very hard not to be stifled by this kind of thing, slowing your progress. What you’re describing is extremely common. Most of the writers who come into my program are struggling with this and it’s part of the reason they want to work with me. 

So I get it. You aren’t alone. But I do want to encourage you to trust your future writer self to paint the walls of the house. This will help you knock out your draft more quickly, and it will give you a better foundational draft. 

Ready to write your book?

If you made it this far, I’m guessing that you are writing a book, or want to write a book. If so, I want to talk to you. 

When I’m not writing, my mission in life is to help talented writers write their dream books. I love it. I live for it. 

Because before I published my novels, I first had to figure out how to write one. It wasn't easy because none of the writing classes I was taking showed me how to actually write a novel.

Not until I had a newborn and only a couple of hours to write did I come up with a process. The process worked. I wrote my entire novel during my 8-week maternity leave.

Now, I teach it in my program the Book Incubator and it works for dozens of other writers. 

If you're curious to know more, I have a free video walking you through my exact process for writing a book. You can get it by clicking below and answering two questions to apply to the program. You get the video whether you join or not—no pressure to enroll. 

Just click below to tell me a little bit about you and your book—you can fill out a form online. I’m so excited to hear from you!

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