There are many stages to the writing process, each with their own distinct constraints and goals. The way I see it, the root problem of all major problems authors have with writing is conflating different stages of writing. For example, trying to research just before a deadline, or drafting and revising a piece of writing simultaneously. You can do these things, but it’s stressful and inefficient. Research is not brainstorming is not drafting is not revising is not publishing.

Hostwriting makes it easier to discern which stage you're in, and what the appropriate action is to take at that time. It smooths the transitions between the stages, making it easier to write, and get more work published, faster.

This exercise is targeted at the brainstorming and drafting stages. It separates them clearly, and sets you up to create content that will be easy to revise quickly. When you’re brainstorming, let yourself think any thought, no matter how crazy. Don’t judge your thoughts or shoot them down prematurely.

When you’re drafting thoughts, don’t get ahead of yourself and try to revise as you write. Let typos and punctuation errors slide. Write your thoughts down in the way you think of them, not the way you’ll need to communicate it to your reader. Save rhetoric for way, way later in the process.

I learned this technique from a former boss, Richard McManus, owner of the Fluency Factory, a one-of-a-kind behaviorist tutoring company. It’s very well suited to first drafts or one-off blog posts - things that you need to get done, but aren’t the most important things ever, or can be revised for quality later.

The last time I used this technique, it took me 35 minutes to generate 25 paragraphs. That’s pretty efficient!

Here are the steps to this process:

1. Pick a topic you want to write about, perhaps using a pre-existing list of blog or chapter topics.
2. Spend a short time listing possible bullet points of things you could say about that topic: a claim, a piece of evidence, a metaphor, a question you could answer, etc. Use a brief word or phrase to summarize each point. As an alternative, you can also list questions about the topic, rather than / in addition to bullet points.
3. Spend a short time considering what order the bullet points would be best presented in. Number each bullet point accordingly (or, if you’re using a computer, re-order them).
4. Spend a short time turning each bullet point into a sentence / paragraph.

At this point, you will have a draft! You’ll still need to edit it: adding transitions (if your order was well thought out, you shouldn’t need too many transitions); adding/removing content, fixing typos, and grammatical errors, etc. But you have something to work with.

Now that you understand the process, practice it with something simple that you can talk about easily.

What's next?

Enter Narrative Mode

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