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The Infamous Vomit Draft · The Daily Writer

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Writer, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for writing success.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: There are lots of enemies we have to battle as writers, and one of the most ferocious ones is self-editing.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Self-editing is the tendency to edit as you write, to clean up and try to perfect your writing while you're actually creating it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the big problem with self-editing is that you're trying to use your right and your left brain at the exact same time.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The right brain focuses on creative activities and the left brain focuses on logic and reason.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that you get stuck when you're trying to create a draft and edit it at the same time is because those two sides of your brain are constantly fighting with each other.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this can really hold you up when you're trying to finish a blog post, an article, or another piece of shorter content.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it's disastrous when you're trying to self-edit as you're writing the book.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Writing a book is hard enough as it is.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: It requires stamina and focus, typically for a few months, until you get that first draft finished.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And once you get that first draft done, you feel an amazing sense of accomplishment and motivation because you've gotten over a huge hurdle.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the goal here is to get a first draft done as quickly as humanly possible.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the best way to do this is to write what I call a vomit draft.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in spite of the horrible imagery, and I'm apologize for the word vomit, but it does get your attention, right?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: In spite of this really disgusting imagery, it's super effective at giving you speed and momentum.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: A vomit draft is the very first draft of a book, or by the way, this also applies to shorter pieces like blog posts or articles or podcast episodes or whatever else.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: But here we're talking specifically about books.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: After you figure out your message, after you have thought through who your audience is and the problem you're trying to solve for them, and after you've constructed your book outline, then you want to get your first draft done as fast as you can.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's called a vomit draft because it's where you vomit out all your ideas.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: You just want to get the material out there so you have something complete to work with.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you do a vomit draft, don't worry about being messy, don't worry about being imperfect.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally okay and that's totally normal.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: The vomit draft is just the place to get the material out there so you have something to work with, so you have something to edit.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when you write this draft, don't edit as you go.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just get it onto the page and worry about cleaning it up later on.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: As they say, you can't edit something that you haven't written.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So make it your first goal to write, and then you can edit later.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Write this draft as fast as you can, then go back and clean it up.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't edit too much as you go.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Separate those right and left brain activities so you can let creativity flow on the first draft, then you can let that internal editor take over on the next draft.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I look at writing a book just like building a house.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: First you create a plan, then you create the framing.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: After that, you run utilities, you put a roof on and siding on, you put up drywall, and you lay flooring.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you only paint after all those other things are done, typically.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you self-edit as you write, it's kind of like trying to paint a house before you've even put up the drywall.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why so many writers feel like writing is difficult.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to write and edit at the same time.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever you separate those right and left brain activities, whenever you try this vomit draft idea of just getting it out there and then editing, you're going to have a much, much easier time when you're writing book content, blog post articles, or whatever it is that you're working on.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your daily question if you tend to self edit as you write, is that holding you back from faster progress?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.