Have you tried a writing sprint in which you continuously write w/o stopping typing--and w/o being distracted and w/o going back and fixing anything including typos--for a duration of somewhere between 5 - 30 min?

If not, then read it, practice it. You won't be sorry. I already started on 5-minute sprints.

It's not a quick fix. It's not terribly new either--in fact, he draws on a lot of other areas-- exercise interval training, programming agile development, continuous improvement (originating from Deming's ideas (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/566574.Out_of_the_Crisis))--and applies it to writing and he tells his ideas in an entertaining way. He does say that you have to have some semblance of an overall novel plan and a pretty good idea of what to write in a scene before starting.

Also, you have to measure how many words you finish in a sprint so that you're encouraged when you see your rate increasing and you have some metric to measure. It's an iterative process that promotes continuous improvement because you're completing an entire product from beginning to end and you can see all the issues.

Then after finishing the MS, you have two editing phases: (1) a content edit--basically, a developmental edit where you fix plot and character, even add in full scenes; (2) proofreading. After which you can send it to alpha readers.

I think that this makes sense because then you've broken the process into discrete components. This, he argues, is more efficient and effective than doing any editing as you go.

The one thing that I don't think he describes enough is how to integrate the outlining, scene breakdown, and writing craft (paragraph-, phrase-, word-level) quality into this continuous improvement process. I think that at the end of the sprint or a series of sprints, you need to have a retrospective to asses the writing craft quality and some way of measuring it--like how many corrections you make and what kind. Also, you have to know what better craft is--most likely learned from books on craft, but also from other people and trial and error. ( )

If you are interested in writing, I think you'll like this book. 5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter* written by Chris Fox talks about being able to write faster which yields to more productivity as a writer. As a bonus, Fox also includes tools to help you keep track of your writing speed. Read more ( )

A quick, easy, straight forward book. His exercises on word sprints have changed my life. I also downloaded the app which accompanies this book.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to increase their word count.
So simple, so easy, and the book points that out.
This is just what I needed at this stage of my writing journey. ( )

Feckless Writing: "5000 Words Per Hour - Write Faster, Write Smarter" by Chris Fox

I spend “a lot” of staring-off-into-space time doing stargazing...and find it leads not only to better scenes in my reviews, but to literature work that really hangs together. I used to write 1-3,000 words a week in my reviews...but then I felt I spent my life editing. Now, I become very suspicious of myself once I go over 1,000 words at a sitting, but that's just me. I support my writing habit by doing these posts...a process that has made me more careful than most people with 1st drafts...I've become pretty clear about what I definitely “don't” want in my posts. And yes, that slows me down. It just doesn't slow me down as much as having to decide at some later date to junk 50 or 100 words here or there. But, starting out, I too encourage people to write & write & write. Well, “marinated scenes” are indeed an important key no matter what.

This post on the 5-WPH-book that you’re reading right now made me try writing while walking. I’m still not ready to invest in Dragon yet, so I just used Google Voice to dictate an email to myself on my phone, then copied and pasted into Scrivener when I got home. I walked and talked for 10 minutes, then went in the house and set the timer to edit for another 15. I didn’t stop when my timer went off, but finished the section I was working on. It’s still a rough draft for sure, but I got 1075 words out of about 40 minutes of book reviewing writing – way faster than anything I’ve done up to this point, and I definitely hit that sense of flow. Yeah, word counts over 4K are only possible with dictation, and that’s entirely out of the question for me as I’m never alone when I write. 3.5K are well within reach for a good typist. I could do that, but only if I took dictation. My top speed for drafting a bunch of posts right now is 1.6K. I’d be ecstatic if I reached an average of 2K.

When I type, I automatically correct, even though I know it's not a good idea since it disrupts my thoughts. When, however, I write longhand in my online journal I don't stop to correct anything. Any mistakes there, are mostly due to the incongruities between my native language and the learned ones (English and German).

Because of this book, I got to talking with a guy about self-help books. I got the feeling that with a "Self-Help" Book, guys feel emasculated because the idea is that they want to appear to everyone, including themselves, as all together and in control. To have a "Self-Help" book takes away the stoic nature of the male and puts a kink in the dominant nature of the guy. Since girls tend to self-reflect, something that has evolved over time to match their ability to attract (they naturally will preen and try to make themselves better), it doesn't affect them to use a "self-help" book. With a guy who internalizes problems, it is harder to do. Guys, by nature, something that has evolved over generations, are more likely to ignore issues because they must appear strong and in control to play a more dominant role in society. I think it is stupid on the guy’s part though. I asked a she-friend of mine what she thought about it. If a girl wants to suggest a self-help book to her boyfriend, the best way to do it is to offer it subtlety as a gift to better each other and to cooperatively go through it. Not to shove it in the guy’s face, because he will "lose face" and reject the offer…

I always thought a self-help represented a weakness in one's foundation, physical or emotional. To me, understanding and change should come from within or in response to your experiences, not from others; if you require supplementation from someone else then you are admitting weakness. What's to say of someone that can read a simple book or have a simple conversation and have their perceptions changed to any worthwhile degree? A wise/experienced man will take someone else advice, and think it over before coming to the conclusion that it is feckless or useless. A person with a good foundation has such a strong foundation that they can admit weakness and overcome it, and not allow it to eventually overcome him/her.

In other words: Why commit a crime, to experience the pain and suffering so that you can gain "strength" in experience, when you can take someone's advice or writing that says the same thing? ( )