I finished writing the second chapter of my novel today. It’s also been a month of consistently writing every day, which is a big achievement for a veteran procrastinator like me.

I’ve learned that when I get stuck in my writing or my mind starts to wander into the depths of the internet I need to pull back and do a quick draft of whatever it is I am working on at the moment.

I’ve also learned that when an idea comes to my mind I need to write it down as soon as I can. That means carrying a pocket notebook on whenever possible, but also writing things on scraps of paper or my phone and sorting through them as soon as I get home.

Finally, I’ve learned that I need to “brake for nobody” when I write. No looking up anything, no pausing to find a better word, no contemplating the merits of this name over that one. Get it all out on paper or on your computer, then go back to edit, polish, do the research, and figure out the nuances.

In writing like running, stopping for anything just makes starting back up again ten times as hard.

Went running in the park today, and saw several things that would make for great story ideas:

• Blind Paralympic runner running with his seeing mate, she talking him through his run, he smiling like crazy.
• Haredi family sitting on a bench, surrounded by runners and bicycle riders in tight minimal clothing.
• Dog owner begging dog to pick up its ball and come home. Dog completely ignores owner.
• Group of dog owners and dogs getting together for their daily meeting in the park.
• Woman running in the park, her right hand showing visible severe burn scars from long ago.

Story ideas are everywhere. I just need to remind myself to peel my eyes off the phone and take a good look around me.

Somedays you don’t really feel like working on your novel/story/article/paper, and then while procrastinating online you’ll find this piece of advice: “write something every day. It doesn’t matter what you write, so long as you write”. Write a journal entry, a blog post, a tweet or Facebook status: everything counts.

But does everything count?

If you’ve ever done any writing before you know that there is writing, and then there is “writing”. Writing a journal entry or a blog post doesn’t require the same level of effort that writing a short story, a novel, an essay or article requires. When you tell yourself that they are the same, are you not cheating yourself a little?

Blog posts have value.

Journal entries have value.

But at the end of the day, when you look at the work that you’ve done, do you count them when you say, “I’ve written X stories, Y articles, and a novel?”

Today’s post is short, because I spent what little writing time I had pounding out 700 words for my novel, instead of 300 words here. I think I made the right choice. I think I made today count.

So I just finished writing my first chapter, and it went quicker than I expected. I think that after 7 years of academic writing, I finally figured out how to get myself to write quicker. Of course, this would happen when it’s already too late to help me with any of my degrees, but what can you do? Writing isn’t easy, and there really is no magic formula. There is only trial and a lot of error.

I used to handwrite in long hand draft after draft, and only when I was semi-satisfied type it up and polish it. That was painfully slow, so I cut it down to just writing my “shitty first draft” in long hand with (fountain)pen and paper.

Behold the reams of paper required to produce just that rough draft:

This was not working.

My draft was over-polished for a rough first draft, and so it took too long to complete.

Once I completed it I didn’t feel like typing it up in Scrivener.

Once I typed it up, I often discovered that I had managed to go off on a tangent, or dig myself into a useless hole, so I had to rewrite half the paper again.

Again — this was not working.

I tried writing directly in Scrivener, but I think better when I use pen and paper. So cutting out the analogue part of my writing process just made me produce really mediocre papers which I had to work twice as hard on during the loathed editing and polishing phase.

The solution for me is just to do a handwritten quick draft of the overall piece , and then start writing in Scrivener. If I get stuck, or want to try out a few options, I just quick draft each one, and then continue typing along. So my writing method still combines analogue and digital, but the balance between them has changed. I spend less time planning, and planning, and planning, and more time just doing the writing and seeing what works.

After all, I can always go back and change it later.

I started using Scrivener during the late stages of my MA. If I would have known of it sooner, then believe me I would have used it throughout my BA and MA.

What is Scrivener?
It’s a writing application. A thumping good writing application.

But I have Word for that.
I thought Word was a writing application too, until I downloaded Scrivener’s free trial and gave it a spin. Word is great for word processing (i.e. formatting things, playing with fonts and tables and tables of content), it is a very poor writing app.
Why? Because it tempts you to play with the font and the paragraph formatting, and fiddle with footnotes and endnotes, etc. Scrivener is keyed towards the writing process itself.

To see what I mean, download Scrivener from here, and open a blank project (there are other great project formats there, but for now a blank project is all you need), create a new text file under “Draft”, and just start writing. If you are a distraction prone writer (who isn’t?), press on the full composition mode button on top (I dare you to have trouble finding it), and enjoy an all encompassing writing experience.
Notice the lack of font-and-margin-and-style buttons on top? That’s because Scrivener wants you to finish all of your writing (and your veggies), and play with formatting only during the compile phase, which happens after the text is finished.
You can do all your writing in a app that respects your writing process, and then chuck the whole thing easily to Word for formatting, or do the formatting during the compile phase and create Word documents or ebooks directly from Scrivener itself.

Try using a writing app for once – I’ll bet you’ll like it.