Polls for Christian Writers discussion

I've been working on the current draft of my passion project, Shattered Embers, for almost a year now. And I'm at over 20,000 words!

What I really want is to have it done by the time I graduate this June. Not published, not edited--but at least complete in some form.

sadly...that's seeming less likely as time goes on. I'm a slow writer by nature; I've gotten faster, but I still take at least a few days to write each chapter.

How should I fix this? How should I carve out time, with my busy schedule? How should I make myself stop procrastinating when I do get time? (lol) And how should I write faster in general, without sacrificing quality?

Raevyn wrote: "I've been working on the current draft of my passion project, Shattered Embers, for almost a year now. And I'm at over 20,000 words!

What I really want is to have it done by the time I graduate th..."

Don't be too afraid of sacrificing quality. You're probably better at maintaining quality while speeding than you think. I was surprised at myself when I pushed my personal speed limits and found my writing didn't suffer nearly as much as I had expected.

Try setting a timer for the amount of time that you think you can comfortably focus and see how much you can get written. Or start a stopwatch and see how fast you can get a certain amount of words written. Don't let it make you nervous. Just experiment and try to find your sweet spot for a good writing session.

I get up and pace a lot while I' working. Let your mind take breaks and look away from your page now and then.

This is just a lot of random stuff, but I think a major key to writing fast is taking the stress out of it.

There may be a few things to do, and there are several aspects to this, as well. One, though I know you are busy, you will have some time later. Instead of procrastinating during that time, (which I know is all too easy) make it a goal to enlarge that extra time as much as possible. If you're striving to make as much writing time as possible, you should think, "Wow! I have x amount of time to write today!" If you're excited about the amount of time you have, you should be less likely to waste it.

That said, if you really don't have enough time, don't worry about it. I agree, it's nice to make the goals we set. But if it's not possible, don't fret. But also, don't give up on your goal just yet. There's still plenty of time; keep writing, intending to finish the draft by June.

Also, like A.L. said, don't be extra worried about quality for this first draft. (It is a first draft, right?) If you get the general structure down, and make your characters developed through that, you can fix the too-much-telling or the extraneous dialogue later. Don't try to find the perfect word here and there; you'll fix that in the later drafts or during the edits.