Rachel Aaron interview

Daily word count is one of the metrics many authors track to ensure they are moving toward completion of their projects. One of the struggles is increasing that word count to get more work done, but doing so in a way that doesn’t sacrifice quality for quantity. Today’s guest has discovered a way to do that. Rachel Aaron is the author of an award-winning series and has also authored a non-fiction book, “From 2K to 10K” – a ‘how to’ book covering the task of increasing word count through daily planning. Rachel provides insight into the writing process and is generous enough to share her insight with you in this episode of the SPF podcast.

 

How Rachel learned to increase her daily word count beyond her expectations.

It all came about accidentally while Rachel was experiencing one of those “writer’s block” moments. She had spent days trying to slog her way through a particularly difficult part of her novel when she decided to take a different approach. She got out her notebook and forced herself to very quickly write out a brief sketch of what she wanted the scene to be about. It took about 10 minutes, and once it was on paper she went back to writing and finished the scene in record time. That experience got her thinking about why she struggled to write and how she might improve her efficiency at writing. The result was an increase in daily words written from less than 2000 per day to over 10,000.

How a little bit of planning can save you a lot of time when writing your book.

Rachel believes that one of the main reasons authors struggle to get their writing out of their heads and onto the page is that they don’t clearly know what they’re writing about before they begin writing. They try to let the story unfold or the characters develop on their own – to discover it as they go. But Rachel has found that approach to be too ambiguous and subjective. She’s learned that if she is able to sketch out the outline of a scene prior to sitting down to write it, her ability to write it is dramatically improved, not only in how long it takes her to write it but also in her ability to get the things she wanted written in a compelling way. Be sure you listen to Rachel’s explanation. Her techniques will not only help you write faster, but enable you to increase your revenue as an author because you do.

An outline before you start could make your story more polished from the beginning.

While every author would like to increase their daily word count, they also would love to spend less time in the editing phase of their book project. Rachel discovered that as she began using outlines from which to write her scenes, not only did her word count dramatically increase, she also came out with better first drafts because the outline enabled her to have the ability to stay on track and direct the writing exactly where it needed to go. Your first draft could be of much higher quality too if you use Rachel’s methods. Check out her conversation with James in this episode, and grab her book as well – it’s only 99 cents.

How an increased word count can grow the revenue of your writing business.

When Rachel discovered the writing techniques she discusses in today’s episode her daily word count increase from less than 2000 words per day to over 10,000. So think that through: she’s able to generate more completed first drafts in less time than she ever has. That means she can get more books into her author portfolio in less time – which puts more hooks in the water to draw in potential readers. The difference to her profitability as a writer has grown exponentially as a result.