Since the start of the new year, I’ve heard many people in the kid lit world say their goal is to complete more book projects. If you have a similar goal, you may want to try some of the techniques suggested by Chris Fox in his book 5000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter. Many of his suggestions could apply to illustrators as well.

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Fox’s book is a quick read with a lot of humor and no fluff. The author gets straight to the point sharing his methods for producing more work. His suggestions are realistic and take into account our natural tendencies. While some of his suggestions are not new, he ties them together in a cohesive manner. He provides succinct exercises that are simple enough to complete immediately.

So how do we (writers) get more accomplished? How do we write enough words to complete that novel this year? How do we find more time to add to our body of work?

It’s less about finding more time and more about being efficient with the time we have.

Fox addresses this in his very first chapter. He claims that micro-sprints are one of the most vital tools you can have in your creative toolbox for significantly adding to your body of work. Surely, anyone can find five to ten minutes each day to write.

In order for a micro-sprint to be productive, you have to already know something about that scene you want to work on. Fox addresses this in his plea for pantsters (including himself) to do at least a little bit of plotting. He provides a very basic exercise to help.

The author also presents some motivating math for writers. I’ll paraphrase. If you can type 50 words per minute, then after a ten minute sprint, you’ve theoretically produced 500 words. Two such sprints in one day gives you a thousand new words for your manuscript. One thousand new words each day for thirty days gives you 30,000 additional words by the end of the month. (If you can’t type that fast, you might like his section about using voice dictation.) Imagine the amount of work you could accomplish with a full sprint!

But how do you stick with these creative sprints for 30 days (and longer)? The author’s answer is to track your work. He points out how most of us are motivated when we see progress. You can’t see progress if you don’t track it. He provides a spreadsheet you can download. Or you can make your own with the targets he suggests.

Fox ends his book with a chapter on mindset. Among other things, he suggests you visualize what you want your life to look like at the end of this year. What do you want to have achieved? What realistic steps can you take toward that end? It got me digging deep and making lists.

What about you? Where do you see yourself in a year?

I wrote more about visualizing your year ahead in my post Setting Your Intentions for the Year Ahead. Click the image below to read it.