I’ve mentioned my newest WIP a few times now, but I haven’t given many details about the methods behind my writing. Writing verse novels is an intensive process. You have to analyze each and every word and weigh its value within the piece. The low wordcount for verse novels can be both liberating and limiting. But I read a writing craft book this week called Writing Right by James R. Matheson, and this book radically transformed my thoughts on diction (a fancy term for word choice). So I thought I’d share my new writing process. Introducing…
The One Word Per Hour Method
- Write your one word. Choose the word wisely.
- Do not write anything else for one hour.
- You may (and should) give thought to your next word during this hour.
- At the top of the next hour, spend at least ten minutes analyzing the last word you wrote.
- Does it properly convey the meaning you were hoping for?
- Is there another word that could convey this meaning in a more powerful manner?
- Does this word lead naturally and effortlessly to the next word you have in mind?
- Choose to either keep the current word or change it to a new word.
- Now write one more word.
- Repeat in an hour.
It’s that simple.
I have fully committed to this writing method for 24 hours a day for at least the next month. This is going to mean some difficult nights coming up, but I think it will be well worth it. I am convinced the quality of my writing will improve tenfold!
I will re-evaluate at the end of the month to decide on my next steps. Once you have mastered the one word per hour method, it is possible to expand to two words per hour, moving eventually all the way up to five words per hour (it is not recommended that you move beyond five words until at least a year into the process). At the point that you move to two words per hour, you may also add in a few contiguous hours of sleep. I can’t wait!
So far, I’ve only been using this method for one day, but it’s already been transformative. I’ve written two of the best sentences of my life! I’ll report back at the end of the month to let you all know how everything goes.
So, what do you think of this new writing method? Would you consider trying it, or does it just seem too radical? I want to know!
Oh, and by the way…
… APRIL FOOLS!
No, I haven’t gone insane. I have no plans to implement this painfully slow and torturous (and made up) writing process. I’ll stick to plain old regular writing, thank you very much.
If you enjoyed this post, check out my April Fool’s posts from past years:
- The demise of the Book Blog Discussion Challenge and the fact that it was being replaced by the Book Counting Challenge.
- The Sunday Post where I announced my three-book publishing deal and included a whole bunch of other weird and funny details.
- An announcement about the newest sensation: BookBloggicon
- My decision to focus the blog on political books in the future.
- My personal favorite – A diatribe on why books are dangerous for children (lots of people actually tried to enter the giveaway – apparently they didn’t read the fine print).
- And a witty (if I do say so myself) review of the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.
Were you concerned for my sanity there for a minute? Have you posted a fun April Fool’s post? Or read one that was just fantabulous? If so, I definitely want to see it – leave me a link! Or just let me know your favorite April Fool’s prank.
Too FUNNY!!! 😂
Haha, I came here to see if you posted an April Fools post. This was a good one. I think I’ve been reading your blog for too many years to be fooled. (Unless you start posting them NOT on April Fools.) 🙂
I didn’t do an April Fools post the last couple of years, and I definitely missed it. But, yeah, it’s hard to trick anyone anymore. 🙂
I forgot you do this, but man, I appreciate your commitment.
Hey, you’ve gotta be committed to something, right? 🙂
Ha ha love it!
Thanks for stopping by! I always love April Fools. 🙂
How funny would it be though if you actually tried this and had some sort of epiphany during your hour of thinking, or you had an exhaustion-induced hallucination that turned out to be your best idea yet, and it turned out to be great advice 😁
Yeah, who knows how genius is born? Maybe this method would be amazing! I would never have the patience to find out. LOL!
You totally got me. I’ll have to remember you do this for next year.
I’ve missed doing these the past few years!!
Haha!! I was like… Ohhhh, please tell me she’s joking! 😂
Lol. You had me there for a moment because I’m reading this on April 5th, not the 1st. 🙂
Oh my gosh, you had me going for a minute! I should totally have remembered that you do the April Fool’s Day thing. Lol. I was like, man, you’ll never get finished that way! Then I was thinking, well, for a novel in verse, that might work. lol
I spent a good minute trying to figure out how to phrase “please prioritize sleep over this insanity” in a supportive manner, before I scrolled down. 😀
But can you imagine one word an hour?! Ooof.
YAY I knew you’d do something great! I knew it was an April Fool’s post because I was purposely looking for it, but if I hadn’t been, I would have a million percent believed you had lost your mind 😂 Your “proposal” for it was so good, you should see how many people you could convince to join you! Can you even imagine though? I’d have thrown away the whole computer and found a new career path at Hour 3 😂
I knew this was a joke from the start!
I wasn’t concerned for your sanity, but I WAS concerned that you weren’t going to get much sleep if you did this 24 hours/day for several days. I’ve just come off a 3-day stint of concentrated blog maintenance that kept me up very late, and by the end of yesterday I was completely exhausted and good for nothing. So I’m glad that won’t be your fate!
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