Writing Faster

Thinking about how you write makes a big difference

It took me two years of research, and then another two years of writing to produce my PhD thesis (80,000 words). My first blockchain book (84,000 words) took a year and a half, and there were times when I thought I would never finish it, including three months of writers block. Then I started, and gave up on, a book on DeFi and one on NFTs.

And then I caught myself thinking: why does this take so long?

Some writers take ages. Douglas Adams, for example, was notorious for repeatedly missing deadlines. In contrast, Isaac Asimov could churn out several full novels a year, while writing essays and short stories at the same time.

So I went online and and looked for speed writing advice, thought about it a lot, and then managed to produce a book on tokenomics (18,000 words) in exactly one week. Admittedly it was short, more of a technical novella than a novel, but it was a complete and cohesive piece of work.

I have just completed the first full draft of my next book (60,000 words) tying together smart contracts in Ethereum, inventing stuff, stablecoins, the upcoming quantum threat, the reality of regulation, and recourse. It only took two and a half months. I’m now letting it sit for a week before I conduct the final edit and proofreading.

Looking at the numbers, that’s a five-fold increase in my writing time for a longer work, from 5k words a month to 25k words a month. I look back at the time my first full book took me with a bit of embarrassment.

What’s the trick?

The advice below all hinges on one observation: progress halts when you get stuck, and the aim is to avoid getting stuck at all costs.

1. Work on multiple fronts. I previously started with a proposed chapter list, that altered as the book progresses, but I tended to focus on completing a single chapter at a time. Now, if I get stuck on one chapter for more than five minutes, I immediately switch to another chapter.

2. Think before you draft. Take a week or two, or even a month, to mull over the structure, flow, and narrative of the book without putting pen to paper, and don’t worry about the concept in your head feeling amorphous. This helps me get a feel for the tone and the scope of the book without getting intimidated, and when I start writing it’s more like following a roughly planned journey than hiking into a jungle without a map or end destination in mind.

3. Don’t edit in real time. Resist the temptation to edit every day or every hour. Editing is necessary, and it can feel like progress, but soon becomes a stealth procrastination technique. I turn it into something that is almost a reward: “Yes, you can edit that chapter today, once you have written at least another thousand words.”

4. Use the Pomodoro technique (search for it online). Pick a chapter or section and work on it for 25 minutes, called one pomodoro, while avoiding all distractions. When the timer ends, take a 5-minute break. After completing four pomodoros, you take a longer break, typically 15 to 30 minutes. I tweaked it so my 5-minute break involves completing a tedious household chore, such as emptying the dishwasher or bringing in firewood, which is very good at motivating me to get back to the keyboard.

5. And here’s the part that doesn’t fit the modern self-help worldview. For me, guilt and shame keep me writing more reliably than enthusiasm and pride. The positive emotions are great for getting started, but they don’t have much staying power. Self-reproach, for some reason, does. I can save fulfillment and satisfaction for the finish line.

All of the above works for me, but everyone’s different. If you have your own tricks and techniques, I’d genuinely like to hear them. And if you don’t, here’s my one fundamental piece of advice: take time to examine how you write, and critique it fairly. If something works, amplify it. If something doesn’t, remove it from your repertoire.

My new book, Smart Contract Innovation, is out at the end of the month.