Writing Sprints - What and How

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today's post is informational. If you already know what writing sprints are and how to do them, then feel free to scroll on down to the bottom for the 411 part. For those of you that aren't familiar with sprints, let's get going!

With NaNoWriMo only a month and a half away, authors are gearing up to write furiously for the thirty days of November by plotting their novels and planning how to write 50k words.

Writing sprints are a solution! What's a writing sprint? Well, let's go into that.

A writing sprint is when you write as many words as you can in a set amount of time. Usually, they're set up like so and are done on some form of social media so everyone can comment their word count:

1. You find a group of authors willing to sprint.
2. Someone volunteers to be timekeeper.
3. You set an amount of time (usually 15-30 minutes).
4. Whoever the timekeeper is tells everyone to GO and starts the timer.
5. Everyone writes like crazy people.
6. Timekeeper posts STOP and requests word counts from participants (and posts their own).
7. There's a five to ten minute resting period, and it happens again.
8. Whoever has the most words gets a huge thumbs up (there are no prizes usually).
9. It repeats for one to two hours (usually--I've seen folks do three or four).

That's it. So easy, right? I've seen people log upwards of 6k words during these sprints, so I know they work. Your word count isn't really the target. This is to get you writing, to get words on the page. Progress is progress.

So, to make it a little easier to sprint, I created a group over on FB. It's kinda quiet, but I'm hoping that will change--I have big plans for that group!

If you'd like to join up, here's the linky: Writing Sprints Group on Facebook

I hope to see you there!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo