Why I Time My Typing

I have been doing a strange thing during my typing time the last few days.

I set a timer, usually for just a minute or two, and then type as fast as I can before the timer goes off.

It is almost as irritating to the other people in my house as is my fast typing (more on that in another post). And no one in my family has figured out why I do it. 

So this post is for them.

A lot of the time, when I am writing, I pause. I let my mind wander, ponder a spelling or character name, or just stop because I can't think of what comes next. Though I have the ability to write a thousand words in about fifteen minutes, it often stretches to thirty minutes when I'm not careful. All those pauses do add up during a typing period. 

That is the point of the timer idea, one that I think I came up with during last year's NaNoWriMo.

To start a session, I go to this website and set the timer. I have been working on just one minute, but now I'm up to two. I also add two or three extra seconds to the timer, so that I don't lose time. Then I go to this website, turn on the timer, and start writing. 

The great thing about this approach is that at the top of the page I can see the tab for the timer. I can see the seconds ticking down. And I register that in my brain as I write. At the bottom of the page, I can watch my word count going up. Watching the timer and word count and the text I'm actually typing, all at the same time, might sound like it would be distracting.

But it isn't. It helps me to type faster, like it's a race, or something. If you are running in a race, and can't see the other people in it, then you might not feel as competitive. But if you see the other people racing against you, and know if they are getting ahead of you, than it is an extra encouragement to go faster. And so it is with typing. 

After the timer goes off, I fix the typos and copy and paste into Scrivener. Then I restart the time and get back writing.

The only flaw to this, other than annoying my family, is that it is an exhausting thing to write a thousand words this way. It can be painful for the wrists and fingers, and you have heard thousands of keystrokes in rapid succession. I actually feel tired after doing many of those "sprints" and I long to just go to Scrivener and write slower. So a thousand words of speed typing, and I normally am done. Either I consider my writing session over, or I switch to Scrivener. 

After I improve more at speed, and can write like this consistently, I'll go back to doing most of my writing directly in Scrivener. This stage of my writing will not last long, I promise. 

Especially since Scrivener is so much more relaxing.