I am struggling with my first draft. I read reports of authors churning out 5,000 or 10,000 words per day, and I wonder if a radioactive spider bit them. Perhaps they mastered time travel, allowing them the luxury of writing, and deleting sentences multiple times. Or maybe they’ve found supercharged coffee beans. I need them for my coffeepot.

Studying successful authors, searching for clues, I discovered a plethora of tricks used to create what some describe as a “vomit” draft. Some locked themselves in hotel rooms, or garden sheds, or composed in their cars. Others, like Victor Hugo, Ernest Hemingway, and even Benjamin Franklin, wrote in the nude, with the idea that without clothes, there was nothing else they could do but write.

Writers have odd habits. We talk to ourselves and our characters, we frequent baby name websites, and please refrain from looking at our search history. I guarantee you don’t want to know. We eavesdrop on conversations, then stare into space, oblivious of our surroundings. I ask Alexa for synonyms or how to spell a simple word that refuses to appear on my screen. I am not above doing anything that will facilitate getting more words written faster.

What are your secret writing hacks?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer