Ok, it's the time you've been waiting for it's time to WRITE!

There are no lessons in this section, because you need to spend your time writing. However, I AM going to share with you a series of tips so you can get the MOST out of writing your rough draft. 

You should already have your characters, outline, and world creation/building done. This will help you stay organized and focused as you write.

In fact, don't worry about perfection at all. A rough draft is just that - rough. Don't worry about getting everything perfect the first time around. Focus on getting your ideas down on paper and worry about editing and polishing later.

After all, everything can be fixed in editing , but you can't edit a blank page. So let's make sure that page is not blank. 

When writing a rough draft, it's important to let your ideas flow freely. Don't worry too much about grammar, punctuation, musicality, or even spelling at this stage. Just focus on getting your ideas down on paper.

It’s tempting to write out the whole story at once, then break it into chapters later, and that’s one of the worst ways to write. Planning out chapters as you write, helps you with pacing because they should end on a cliffhanger of some kind. This helps build up the suspense of your story.

Writing a rough draft can be exhausting, so be sure to take breaks when you need them. Step away from your writing for a few minutes, stretch, or do something else to clear your mind and recharge your batteries.

Once you start writing, keep going until you've finished your draft. Don't stop to edit or revise along the way, as this can slow down your progress and disrupt your flow.

If you feel like something needs to change earlier in the story, make a note in the margins and keep going as if the change has already been made. The same is true if you need to combine a character, or change their name or even a point of view. Just keep writing as if it had always been true and change it later.  

Write as quickly as possible, without stopping. If you don’t know how to spell something, spell it as close as you can and move on.

If you’re not sure what happens next, but you know what happens after that, just write ‘something happens here’ and keep writing. You can fill that part in later. If you’re not sure about your character's name, use a placeholder name that won’t come up organically through the book like Blank or Rutabaga. Then use the find and replace feature to change the name later. Write as much as you can for as long as you can. Don't worry about making everything perfect; just focus on getting your ideas down.  

You also want to write as quickly as possible because on average it take 3x times longer to edit than it does to write, so if you write a rough draft in a month, it will take you three months to edit, but you take a whole year to write it, it’s going to take about three years to edit.   

Write as quickly as possible, without stopping. If you don’t know how to spell something, spell it as close as you can and move on. If you’re not sure what happens next, but you know what happens after that, just write ‘something happens here’ and keep writing.

You can fill that part in later. If you’re not sure about your character's name, use a placeholder name that won’t come up organically through the book like Blank or Rutabaga.

Then use the find and replace feature to change the name later. Write as much as you can for as long as you can.

Don't worry about making everything perfect; just focus on getting your ideas down.  You also want to write as quickly as possible because on average it take 3x times longer to edit than it does to write, so if you write a rough draft in a month, it will take you three months to edit, but you take a whole year to write it, it’s going to take about three years to edit.   

If you're neuro diverse like me, don't try to build a writing habit, and don't feel bad if you can't. Instead, build that writing obsession we talked about earlier and ride it until it's end, like a surfer with a wave. 

An Outline is a GPS, not a straight jacket. Sometimes, you'll wander away from it, and that's perfectly fine. In the same way a GPS recalculates when you down a different road then it expects, your outline can adjust too. The outline is what gives you the freedom to explore, so feel free to do some exploring. Just remember to adjust the outline so everything you want can still fit in. 

Something magical happens when you write The End.

Your brain understands that this book is done so it won’t be forever trying to change it. If you don’t actually write out "the end", your brain is going to keep wanting to go back and fix everything.

And if you're about to say 'real books' don't do this, you're right. We'll delete it in a later draft.

Happy Writing!