This is a tip for the kind of person that starts a project, but fizzles out before it’s finished. Work fast!

You can bypass your inner-critic and unleash your inner-Ed Wood by just getting your product out as quickly as possible in one giant unfinished lump. Don’t think. Don’t edit. Don’t stop to reimagine the whole thing.

Not only will it help you get a project, at least a first pass at the project, done quickly, it will clear out your brain so other ideas can take their place. Then, after a period of time, you can go back and start the editing process. This works with illustration, writing and even dance.

There are lots of events designed to help you accomplish working quickly. Probably the king of work fast, edit later is nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). They give you the month of November to write a  50,000 work novel. They don’t care about quality, just quantity. I know a few people who have only finished novels because they participated.

In June, they are working a new project called Script Frenzy! The idea is that you, or you and a partner, write a 20,000 word screenplay or stage play during the month of June. If you’ve been putting off writing your screenplay, sign up for this event. It’s free, they send you emails to inspire you and you can get a community of people to commiserate with.

I once had a writing teacher that said you needed a four-foot high stack of terrible stories before you produced anything worth reading. If nothing else, this will give you another inch toward that four feet!