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Don’t Make This Mistake If You Want to Write Faster : Learn from DJs

We would like our work to be as perfect as possible on the first attempt. Sometimes the words come out right. More often than not, they aren’t to our expectations.

We react to the ‘imperfect’ words’ and then set about  changing them.

Or if we do manage to ignore them and move on, our minds are troubled by their imperfection.

When you’re engaged in fast writing, you should not entertain the quality of the words that fall on the page. There will be bound to be words that don’t quite say what we mean. But we should not  lose any sleep over them. We have only when mission when we set out to write – to deliver the message as best as we can.

If we feel we can’t, it’s okay. No problem. We want to write as fast as we can because we want to complete the race first.

The good news is writing is unlike a sprint where you can’t undo your performance and have to look forward to another one.

One of the consolations of writing is you can always return to fix it. You can make your writing work no matter how bad you think it came out in your first attempt.

So, don’t waste your time trying to write perfect sentences. It will not happen unless it’s your lucky day. If it happens, chances are it will not happen again. Be prepared for it.

Then when you come back to rewriting, don’t fritter away valuable time testing every word and looking for a better alternative.

Do those sentences sound right to you? If they do, move on to the next.

One thing is certain. The reader is not going to fall in love with every word you put down on the page.

He or she is just going to absorb the message and move on because there’s much more to read.

Of course there ae writers out there who spend years poducing a book, but these days that should be an exception.

In this age of the Internet, content should be produced quickly and briefly.

Even before the Age of the Net, content was produced rather fast. Take for the example of newspapers, where content has to produced quickly daily before the newspaper goes to the printing machine.

The same could be said for news on television or radio. They have to be written fast before the news hour approaches.

There were times when I took my time to write my pieces especially those not subject to deadlines. I would go back and correct and polish whatever sentences I felt weren’t good enough.

No matter how hard I worked at it, I wasn’t happy with the progress I was making. I knew there was a way out there that could improve my output without compromosing quality.

One morning as I was driving,l I heard a morning radio talk show conducted by two deeejays and I wondered how they prepared their material for the daily show that lasts three hours. The show goes live for thrtee hours and they have to speak non-sop except for the song breaks.

I think the trick is they spoke whatever words that came to them,having full confidence in their quality. Were people complaining? I don’t think so.

That was when I decide to adopt the DJ model for my writing. When I’m ready to write, I  imagine I’m a DJ doing a radio show live. There’s no room for me to stop to think about my words. Once I get going I have to keep the words flowing. Otherwise I’ll be disappointing my ‘listeners’.

Recently, I listened to a podcast by an internet marketer on writing and the guy talked non stop for an hour. I thought he did a pretty good job in getting thw words flowing.

What if I imagine I’m  actually doing a podcast when I sit down to write? Not a recorded podcast, but a live podcast.

Once I managed to slip my mind into this mode, I had very little problem in getting my words flowing because I know I can’t stop to think because it’s a live show.

So, the next time you sit down to write, imagine you’re doing a radio show or a podcast for a live audience. Only thing is you’re doing it on the page.

Better still, speak your words as you write to really feel that you’re doing the show.

Believe me, you’ll not only write faster but also make your writing conversational which makes for easier reading.

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