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Transcript

Go Backward to Go Forward · 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: I believe one of the reasons why we sometimes get stuck in our writing is that we see how much there's left to do in that piece that we're writing, and we just feel kind of intimidated.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say you're writing a 750-word blog post.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: You typically write this in sections.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You would have probably an introduction, two or three main points, and some kind of conclusion or call to action.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So really this blog post is a collection of pieces which are somewhere between 100 and 200 words each.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: You would normally outline the piece, then you would start writing a first draft at the introduction, and you would progress through until you write the conclusion or the call to action.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you can have trouble getting motivated when you see how much there's left to do.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: One way to break this cycle is to start at the end and work your way backward.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: You write the conclusion first, then the main points from last to first, then you write the introduction last.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you've already outlined the material ahead of time, this probably shouldn't be a big problem.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you write backwards like this, so to speak, you interrupt your normal writing pattern and you feel a new sense of creative energy.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have a clear sense of how much you have left because you're kind of, I mean, you're approaching it backwards, so it's really hard to gauge how much you have left in a sense.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this reduces your tendency to feel distracted because you've kind of thrown your brain for a little bit of a loop.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I usually produce these podcast episodes in batches of one or two weeks at a time.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Many times what I will do is I'll have, you know, five or 10 or 12 podcast episodes lined up, at least these short weekday episodes.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I will write the last one first, then I'll work backwards until I have the first one finished.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So in other words, I'll outline all those, then I will the one that's the latest in the schedule that's furthest away, I'll write that one first, then I'll work backwards to the more recent one that has to be released like in two or three days or something.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a really simple way for me to give myself a different writing pattern and to add a new energy to the process.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like instead of, you know, dreading how much you have left to write, it's exciting because you're starting at the end, then you're working your way to the beginning.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's very weird how it works, but for my brain, it it really works well.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess you could say that when you go backward, it can actually help you go forward and make some progress.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So give this a shot.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super curious to see how this works for you.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: As always, you can let me know by shooting me an email at Kent at dailywriterlife.com, or you can hit me up on social media.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't really say that often enough in these podcast episodes about you can contact me and give me your feedback and so forth.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I really love to hear from people.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So give this a shot and let me know how it works.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your daily question how could writing backward help you to get your new writing piece done faster?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.