Ever wonder how many successful writers publish all the time? No, it's not because writing is all they do--although that may be true as well--but there is a secret to churning out story after story that I didn't discover until this earlier year.
It is called cycling.
Dean Wesley Smith talked about it on one of his blogs this past February.
Bestselling Christian author Jerry B. Jenkins (co-author of the Left Behind series) even talked about it last month on The Creative Penn podcast.
This is something I have also started incorporating in my writing--and it has boosted by overall productivity immensely.
Cycling. It's not just for bicycles anymore.
In a nutshell, it works like this: write a few hundred words (this amount will vary with each author) until you get to a point where you either feel the need to stop or even after a certain period of time. Then, take a small break and re-read what you had written. Once you get to the end, keep writing. As you re-read, fix what needs fixing, edit what needs editing, but using your creative mind to keep going.
To some, this may seem like a slow process. Take, for example, NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, which occurs every November. The goal is to write 50,000 word in a single month, which equates to 1,667 words a day. Many writers who write their 50,000 words in November for NaNoWriMo will then say the story is crap. Why? Using the cycling method--a method that bestselling authors use--may help not make the story crap.
In Smith's post, he states that using this cycling method will keep one in a creative mode. This will keep the story fresh. I have also found that it eliminates the needless editing passovers. Don't get me wrong, stories still need editing, but cycling will boost your productivity and decrease the amount of time "working" on "fixing" your stories.
Give it a try on your next story. It may take a bit to get your personal rhythm down, but cycling is worth trying out.
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