Sprints Totally Rule: NaNoWriMo Days 5-7

Look at my crazy graph! Dude…

NaNoWriMo, November 2020, DAY 5 – 1726 words

Dear Diary,

I was thinking we’d probably do sprints tonight, but I completely forgot that BlackLion was starting a new online RPG that he’d been invited to by some Star Trek gamers.

Sure, I could have done sprints on my own (or with whoever else was on Discord), but I didn’t. I wrote after dinner, and wasn’t sure where to go next with a scene, so I just made sure I got enough words to make the general daily target (which is 1667 words, in case you were wondering – thank you, math).

I felt sort of “meh” about it, but at least it was done, right?

DAY 6 – 741 words

Dear Diary,

I’d planned to write during the weekly Parallel PlayDate this afternoon, but I got caught up doing some odds and ends of biz stuff, and before I knew it the time had flown by.

I wrote after that, again on my own, and just wasn’t feeling it. So I stopped.

No guilt or anything – I know I can catch up later.

Had a good conversation with BlackLion in the evening about how to build suspense from scene to scene without always having to have dramatic stuff happen. There are only so many kidnappings and stabbings you can have in one book! Not to give you spoilers or anything…

We talked about how to build internal suspense, like when the reader knows something the character doesn’t, or the character makes a choice that the reader is initially puzzled by – things of that nature. It gave me some good ideas to put into play tomorrow.

DAY 7 – 2293 words

Dear Diary,

After a lovely mellow Caturday, BlackLion and I sprinted together in the evening. It was awesome!

The number of words I wrote tonight just proves to me that when it comes to fiction writing, for me, sprints totally rule. They force me to just write, without thinking too much about it.

I simply envision the scene in my mind’s eye and describe what I see as it unfolds.

I still haven’t done any further planning for my story. I guess I’m a full-on pantser this time around! So far, so good…

 


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