Cory Doctorow is one of those scarily productive writers. I haven’t read his fiction yet, but his work as a columnist for Make magazine and elsewhere has regularly impressed me, and his recent young adult novel, Little Brother is getting amazing reviews. In a recent column for Locus magazine, Doctorow shared some of the guidelines he has for himself that help him be productive. The explanations behind the guidelines are in the article, but here are the tips themselves:
- Keep a short, regular work schedule
- Leave yourself a rough edge
- Don’t look up facts while writing but leave a “TK” to mark a spot in need of fact-checking.
- Don’t be ceremonious about where and when you write. Just write.
- Kill your word processor.
- Turn off real-time communications tools: they are the enemy.