Elizabeth Cobbe

Peaches, I am in a spot of (self-imposed) trouble. I have a (self-imposed) deadline to turn my current book into my critique readers at the end of this month, and I have at least 12K more words to write.

I am not a 12K-words-in-a-month sort of writer. My record for this book has been 10K words in a month.

Yeah. I know.

The real solution is that I will give them what I have on April 1, and then they’ll get the remaining chapters when they get them.

To get as far as I can, however, I am trying the following strategy, which I began in September and which has doubled and even tripled my pace:

1. There’s a chapter. I want some things to happen. I write down what those things are with nothing but the things that I don’t want to forget. For example: “John is going for a run when he trips and falls into a sinkhole. He hurts his knee, and he realizes just how bad things have gotten.”
2. I write an opener.
3. I keep writing until I get stuck, and then I write a tiny bit more detail on the summary. For example: “He falls face-first, but catches himself on the way down. The bottom of the sinkhole has dirty water in it.”
4. I write a bit more.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there is a whole chapter.

Reason suggests that this method ought to produce a complete draft.

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Please check out my short story “States of Matter” that released on Monday in the final issue (!) of Inner Worlds. This a personal story, one that begins with a woman who turns into smoke when she sits down to dinner with her in-laws, and ends with—well, it’s a short one. You can read it for free.

Until next time!