Writer's Rule #1: "New Material Only"

I've been writing as a hobby pretty much all my life, ever since that day in Grade 6 when something I wrote captured the imagination of my classmates.  The biggest difficulty I currently face is maintaining forward momentum on a project.  I would get excited about an idea, start writing, but lose steam somewhere about a third of the way through the project.  I didn't realize until recently that part of the problem had to do with my work habits.  I would write a chapter then revise it.  Sometimes I would start revising before the chapter was finished.  Sometimes I would start revising the minute I sat down at the keyboard.  Revision is important, but it's clear to me now that I was spending far to much time worrying about getting the tiny details perfect when I should have concerned myself with completing the larger framework of the project.

I'm taking a different approach with Sunder.  From my extensive experience of starting novels and failing to complete them, I have decided that my own personal work habit should begin with this first rule: "New material only."  The premise is very simple: almost all the effort invested in a writing session should be spent on generating new material.  I've stuck to this rule over the last two weeks with favourable results.  Not only is the word count stacking up, but ideas seem to be coming more regularly to the forefront.  Instead of finishing a writing session and wondering what I'm going to work on next, more and more often I complete session with one or two new ideas for the next one. 

Every writer will tell you that it is impossible not to revise a little as you write, so here's the "exception to the rule" section.  Sometimes a great idea will come that has to be sandwiched into work you've already done.  Ideas that come up mid-stream often require rework to make everything fit properly.  I don't consider that to be a true revision (hence a waste of writing time) since I am making an allowance for more new material.  I'm all right with taking some time to complete that revision work, but I try to get through it as quickly as possible in order to get back to the leading edge of the story and renew the forward momentum. 

As one of my best friends once said, " 'Done' is the engine of 'More'."  The focus on "new material only" seems to bear that out and if I can maintain this pace, I should have a good sized stack of pages on my desk in six to eight months with a nearly complete novel.  After that will come "stage two" which will focus on taking a closer look at the raw draft and reworking the large and small details.