How I Intend to Bash Out Literary Works Of Genius From My Keyboard With All The Grace Of A Fist-Slamming Monkey From Hell

Put enough monkeys in front of enough typewriters, and one will reproduce the complete works of William Shakespeare… that’s what they say. It’s called the infinite monkey theorem.

As it is, it isn’t of much use to me as a writer. The image I have in my head is of me bashing the keyboard like a mad ape and still producing work that make my clients heap praise upon me.

Clients will proclaim “Is it the Buddha?” “Is Jesus back?” “Did I just see an angel?” No. It’s the freelance writer they employed to write about portable toilets.

Surely, I can turn this vision into a reality, can’t I?

The Plot Thickens

The fact is that at present I’m a slow writer. I tend to research and edit as I write, and structure an article after I’ve written it. I’m meticulous, which produces high-quality articles, but I cannot help but feel that I could produce the same quality of work, if not better, in far less time. I think it’s just a question of how I approach article writing. At present, there is too much stop-start.

This train of thought led me to invent my own theorem — well, it’s probably not a theorem… but trivial grievances aside, I’ve called it the writing as if you’re giving a talk theorem.

Here are the basics:

1. Prepare Your Article — Research and plan your article. You prepare to write in the same manner that you would prepare to give a public speech.
2. Write The Article — You write the entire article in one go. If you are delivering a public speech, you cannot stop halfway and start all over again. You carry on regardless.
3. Finalizing — Now you can allow yourself to be meticulous. Revise, edit, and rewrite what you’ve written.

While this technique doesn’t guarantee a quality article after Step 2, you shall produce the bulk of the article quickly. The time spent tinkering and editing the article shall be far less. At least, that’s the theory.

It’s easy to spend hours considering what you’re going to write. I find the worst part of writing an article is getting started. I stare at a blank screen, and normally, after a few minutes of gazing, I end up writing the first thing that came into my head anyway.

I guess the general gist of this article is that perhaps I shouldn’t do that.

To be perfectly honest, I probably need to give the whole subject more thought. I’m sure there is a method out there for me, allowing me to produce higher-quality articles in less time, but it’s going to take some thought, experimentation, and practice to find it.