magnus919_agent-skills/writers-helper/references/drafting-and-process.md

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).