Ask HN: How Do You Write? I realised it's faster for me to write quickly and then rewrite a corrected and refined version a second time than it is for me to take my time making corrections as I go. It made me wonder if other people have any tricks that help them write efficiently. |
There's even a phrase for it. Anne Lamott wrote a really good book for aspiring (fiction) writers -- and one of the chapters urged them to accept and aspire to "shitty first drafts."
https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%...
I also like dictating a first (or subsequent draft) into a digital voice recorder to spit ideas (or rephrasings) out; then having my computer transcribe the dictation; then automatically adjusting the text (with premade regex sequences and/or on-the-fly find and replace); then reorganizing the structure; etc. In this regard, my workflow is just a modern version of ancient rhetorical principles (the canons of rhetoric, etc.).
One of the best techniques I've found and implemented (and one of the best regexes to automatically apply to dictations) is to put every sentence on its own line in a plain text file, with blank lines between paragraphs. This makes reorganizing my thoughts / general editing much easier and faster (e.g., using keyboard shortcuts to move lines up and down in Sublime Text).
Also, for easily planning out and automatically applying regex sequences (and more!) check out TextSoap for macOS. It's easily one of my favorite apps of all time. There is also an Alfred integration.
Most people do better with a draft pass plus an editing pass than just a single draft, though. Even if your first drafts tend to be fairly polished, an editing pass rarely hurts.
Works for me.