Getting Your Writing Done: Burst and Session Writing
People are stunned when I tell them I write an average of 2 to 5k words a day working a full-time job, keeping a house in order, and raising three kids. “But Mathias, how do you do it?” they ask. “I can’t even find the time to sit at my computer on most days!” they claim.
Well, as I have always said, writing is about finding the time to write.
You need to make the choices that give you the opportunity to do your writing.
You don’t go to college to be an engineer (which I am) or a doctor (which I am not) and say you’re not going to put in the required work to produce results, do you? And being a writer is the same way. Except you don’t need a degree to be a writer.
I personally utilize two different methods to “find” my time to write and alternate between burst writing and session writing techniques.
Burst Writing
Burst writing is when you write in short spurts over a longer period of time. Burst writing is very useful when you have a lot of other things going on or you just simply have limited time.
I always leave my computer on just so when I feel the need to write in bursts I don’t have to go through the arduous process of booting up and waiting around. Burst writing is all about quickly writing and writing right now.
There is no time during burst writing to sit and stare at a screen and wait around. If I feel that I have not put any words down for more than 30 seconds, I get up and go do something else.
Then as soon as I get the next idea, and I as soon as I am able to, I head back to the computer and type it out. Sometimes I’ve already edited what I want to write several times in my mind before that opportunity presents itself.
For and example of Burst Writing, this morning I got up at 5:30 AM, took a shower, went outside and walked my property (which I do every morning), came in, got a glass of water, turned on the computer and wrote 65 words.
Then I got up, threw my daily smoothie in the blender, came back to the computer, pounded out another 77 words, got up and checked the progress of my breakfast, decided it needed more time, went back to the computer, put down another 53 words, and then went and got my smoothie.
After that, I again came back to the computer, wrote 109 words, got up, started packing away some Christmas decorations from around the house, came back to the computer again, wrote another 111 words, did some more packing, put my dishes in the dishwasher, and again came back and wrote another 27 words.
This went on for about 4 hours. And after that four hours, I had 2,254 words written. I also had most of the Christmas stuff packed away, dinner in the crock pot, and a clean bathroom.
That’s how burst writing gets me higher word counts every day.
Session Writing
Session writing is perhaps what people more traditionally think of when they think of how writers write. It happens for me when I know I have a lot of time to devote to my writing. This is more often late in the day, or on the weekends when the weather is bad and chores have all been done.
I’ll sit down, and I’ll just say to myself that I’ll write for the next hour or so. Session writing is different than burst writing because during session writing, I will often just stare at the screen for minutes on end contemplating things. Sometime’s I’ll do research or watch videos on topics. Just the other day, I spent over an hour watching YouTube videos on technique for fighting with spears for a story I’m working on. It’s not actually “writing”, but it is the writing process.
Whereas with Burst Writing, there isn’t time for any of these extra things.
In session writing, I play around more with the structure of my sentences, finding the right word, and being a little more verbose in my descriptions. A lot of my editing time is in Session Writing. Whereas Burst Writing is just about getting ideas on paper.
And at the end of the day, day after day, by utilizing these two different methods as necessary (Burst much more often than Session) I generate my word counts and my stories.
This may not work for you, but it’s what works for me. I say one final time, if you’re going to be a writer, you have to find the time to write. And then you need to figure out how to use that time efficiently.
Now go and find that time!
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