# Drafting and Process How to actually get words on the page, day after day, and finish: the two-mode drafting model, fast-drafting mechanics, session ritual, momentum tricks, the self-contract, and daily practice. Use this in Coach mode and whenever a writer is starting, stalling, or trying to finish. ## Two-mode drafting: heart first, head second - **Draft 1 is all heart.** Write fast, unedited, unresearched. Do not re-read prior pages mid-draft, do not perfect words, do not stop to verify facts (mark gaps). The inner critic is explicitly muted — a lousy first draft is the portal to a good one. - **Draft 2 is all head.** Revision is a separate state entered only after "the end" exists. Anything beyond two drafts mostly adds frustration; each extra draft lets a different version of the voice into the book. - **Never interleave.** An assistant that critiques during drafting is the enemy of the draft. Save critique for revision; during drafting, ask questions, hold thoughts, and keep the flow. ## Fast drafting - **Speed is a quality lever.** Writing at ~1,200–2,400 words per hour outruns self-censorship; treat ~1,200/hour as the low-water mark. When output drops below it, the protective inner critic is interfering — re-relax rather than worry. - **Throughput math:** 2 hours × ~1,500 wph ≈ 3,000 words/session; × 6 days ≈ 18,000 words/week; a ~60,000-word book ≈ 30 writing days. - **Speed-recovery drills:** verify the relaxation step; switch to a smooth pen; alternate longhand and keyboard in ~15-minute cycles; pace in 300-word blocks with a 15-minute timer. - **A page a day is a career.** ~300 words/day ≈ a novel a year; two double-spaced pages a day (~500 words) compounds into a finished manuscript in about five months. Frequency and smallness beat heroic volume. ## Session ritual A repeatable pre-session ritual converts habit into committed practice: 1. **Reserve** time — ideally after sleep, when the critical brain is still drowsy; six days a week, two hours a day. 2. **Remove** distractions — phone off, boundaries announced. 3. **Relax** — breathe deliberately (sit upright, feet flat, a minute of relaxation before starting). Session mechanics: - **Recopy the last 20–30 words** of the previous session to re-enter flow. - **Stop mid-scene or mid-sentence**, never at a chapter boundary, so the next session starts inside the flow. - **End with a two-line note** on where the next session goes — it soothes the part of the mind that needs direction. - **Dump intrusive thoughts** into a margin column rather than acting on them. - **Know the six ways of "being writing":** reading, cowriting, transcription, prewriting (a spoke outline — topic in the hub, four or five spokes), writing, rewriting. On an unfocused day a writer can always tolerate at least one, so "I can't write" is rarely literally true. - **Never end a session on a blank page.** Leave rough notes for tomorrow, or start each day by reading and lightly editing yesterday's pages. ## Momentum and finishing - **You cannot know the beginning until you write the end.** Push through the middle no matter how bad it is. Expect to cut 35–100 pages from the beginning in revision once the real story is visible. - **The going-back-to-the-beginning syndrome:** when the middle gets hard, writers restart at the safe beginning — an infinite loop. Diagnosis: it's an excuse; the fix is to push forward. - **The middle is where masks fall.** Writers in love with their characters refuse to hurt them, and the story flattens. The middle is where bad things happen and the protagonist is subjected to progressively tougher challenges. - **Stall diagnosis:** if you can't write, you're procrastinating; if you can't start, that's perfectionism. Both are fixed with a small, timed, low-stakes next action — write a slop-on-the-page draft; perfection is saved for later drafts. - **Don't show the first draft to anyone.** Don't even read it for at least a week to ten days after finishing; distance creates objectivity. - **Drafting in chunks:** chunk big projects into ~1,000-word increments; assign a self-deadline; change scenery, time, or tool when the well runs dry; reward completion. ## The self-contract A written, signed, dated commitment converts intention into follow-through: 1. A passionate general statement of purpose. 2. A deadline — computed with the goal math (deadline → three comparable books → average pages × 250 → daily target). 3. Daily rewards for meeting the session goal **and** daily consequences for missing it. 4. No escape clauses. 5. Signed and dated, photocopied into several copies: one kept in view while writing, several sent to tough-love witnesses, two to unconditional supporters. A witnessed contract works *with* the protective brain — it has heard years of empty promises and needs tangible evidence. ## The 30-day fast draft A complete first draft in three to five weeks is achievable for many writers with: 2 hours × 6 days/week; the Three-Rs ritual before every session; large lineless paper (or equivalent); no reading of what you've written until the book is finished; no research until after; writing fast enough to outrun the critic; and ending each session mid-sentence. The 3–5 week window is also a reading fast from other books so the writer's own voice can be met and accepted. ## Daily practice: minimum plus ideal - Set goals you control, in pairs: a minimum floor that still counts as success (e.g., 300 words) and an ideal target above it (e.g., 1,000). Countable, controllable targets with a floor beat heroic one-off sessions. - Track sessions, not moods: log words, minutes, energy (1–10), and what you'd do differently (see `scripts/habit-log.py`). - Protect the prime hour: batch email, defer errands, pre-gather tools so the best daily hours go to writing alone. Write before email, not after. - A one-minute prompted practice beats a twenty-minute session every two weeks: frequency and smallness train the muscle (see `blocks-and-prompts.md`). ## Writer types: compensation moves - **Action-minded (plot-first) writers** write structure and action well and struggle with character emotion and meaning. Compensate: develop the emotional line deliberately — character profiles, emotional beats per scene. - **Emotion-minded (character-first) writers** write characters and feeling well and struggle with concrete goals, structure, and finishing. Compensate: stake the four markers, set scene goals, schedule the end. - Good stories come from a balanced whole brain; each type fixes its weakness using its strength. ## What the assistant does at this stage - Run flow sprints with a words-per-hour meter; flag drops below ~1,200/hour as a signal to re-relax, not to worry. - Maintain the gaps list for post-draft research; never interrupt flow with fact-checking. - Draft the self-contract and track it without shaming. - Keep the writer oriented with "where the story is" check-ins (which marker is approaching). - Generate position-aware prompts when the writer needs an entry point (see `blocks-and-prompts.md`).