Thoughts of a Mad Man

Rush Writes

Word count means a lot.


People who do something a lot of times often do better than those who work hard on a single project.


If like me you hear a voice in your mind you have that as a word count. If you converse, that gives you a chance to practice making grammatical first-draft sentences under pressure. It's easy to sneer at the slight advantages these give you, and that's okay if it doesn't get rid of these advantages. If you want you can cultivate these options as well. You could start to narrate in your head during undemanding tasks or strike up conversations.


However these will only translate to writing when you actually put marks down. Type or write it out but know that this is where your practice will begin to gel.


It doesn't have to be a story or a poem. It might be a rant, it might be total stream of consciousness babble. Just get your fingers on the key location, whether it be a keyboard or a pencil. In a pinch a crayon can work just get writing.


I recommend doing a five minute rush write daily. This is not even measured in words it can be babble so long as your fingers take down every word they can.





I tried this and it is deeply powerful. I found that the babble was repetitious and incoherent. That was fine because this was a training exercise and the thing worked. After a few weeks I started to form off-the-cuff paragraphs. I started to have more mental activity, visualizations that supported the story I was getting on so I could come up with things to say faster and faster. While before I would perform best if I sketched a scene before work so I had time to visualize-rehearse all day, I found myself producing random daydreams that worked and had rudimentary plots.


After a few weeks, in other words, I found my mind had sharpened just by routinely taking down whatever babble passed through my mind. You might find the same.