Why did I change the tagline for this blog to: Write Fast. Make Money? The reason is simple. Let me quote the words of the immortal Samuel Johnson:
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
And it’s truer now than it was even back then.
Write fast
This part of it is simple. If we are lucky we have 80 years of life on this blue marble in the middle of a vast universe. Time is the most precious asset that we have. It is the only thing that we are guaranteed to have a limited amount of, and we don’t know exactly when that time’s going to run out. We humans tend to squander our time on silly, meaningless pursuits, such as dead-end jobs that leech the creativity from our brains, unhealthy relationships, and endless hours playing Call of Duty or World of Warcraft, or wondering if the world is going to end on Snooki’s due date.
Writers feel the passage of time more acutely than the average person. We want to write. We seek the perfect time to do it. We feel guilty if we don’t get around to it. We make up endless excuses not to do it. (I include myself in this category.) For example: I need to take just one more online writing class about discovering the ancient family history of my historical romance heroine… I need to get an agent lined up for this supernova of brilliance that I’m about to unleash upon the world, but once I get started, the explosion of creative energy will wipe out everyone and everything around me because it can’t be contained… You get the idea. We’re all delusional.
On average, writers spend more time thinking about writing, talking about writing and reading about writing than they do on the act itself. They agonize over bad reviews both real and imagined. They scrub the grout between every tile in the master bathroom because they can’t imagine putting a pen to paper with dirty grout near the crapper. Writers waste valuable time seeking that nirvana-esque-perfect-time-to-write.
And let’s not forget listening to the bad advice of parents: What are you going to do with a degree in creative writing? Shouldn’t you study something practical like Chemical Engineering? Lovers: What are you wasting your time typing for? Now go make me a turkey pot-pie. Friends: Come on, man, you don’t want to waste your time with your laptop when you can hang out with us at the monster truck rally. And last, but not least, that inner voice in your head that NEVER shuts up. That voice that constantly questions your sanity, your grammatical acumen, the strength of your ideas, and your very virility (or fertility).
This is where the Write Fast part and the flash writing technique come into play. Writing fast is a way to trick your brain and inner critic into letting you get started. It helps you stop procrastinating and get something written in a non-threatening way.
Tune in tomorrow for the REAL reason you are reading this blog: Part 2 – Make Money.
