Day 19 and I'm back. Kicking bottom and then requesting information on the names that belong to them.
Today features experimentation with sprints. The idea behind a NaNo sprint is that you publically accept a challenge (whether set by you or by someone else) to complete x words in y minutes. And then report back after y minutes with the result. My sprint was self-set and I chose to do 700 words in an hour. I achieved 858.
It was wonderful, because it focussed my mind on what I was doing. Instead of an big bloated idea of writing 'lots' or even 1,667, I had to write 175 words in fifteen minutes. It was a target I could achieve imminently and so I focussed on just hitting those 175, instead of footzing around on forums or listening to music or staring off into space. I didn't want to give a progress report that said I'd spent the fifteen minutes eating bread and writing 23 words and I definitely didn't want to crawl back to the NaNo forums and say that I'd failed miserably and hadn't even got close because I was continually checking whether OotS or my blog had updated.
I did two sprints of an hour each and delivered over 1550 words. It made a huge difference and ended up with me hitting my stretch target of 3,000 words and thus having my most successful ever day. I'm very nearly a day ahead of target and, while I know a proportion of that will disappear due to in-law commitments on Saturday, it's wonderful to see the runs per over required come down so dramatically. It's only a short day of work tomorrow, so if I can get the same result from sprints and hit another 2,000 words, then it will drop beneath 1,500 words per day. 3,000 tomorrow and it goes beneath 1,400!
This is the period of NaNo where the stats fluctuate wildly with successes and failures. Down to the last eleven overs and my strike batsmen are at the crease. A couple of big overs and everything gets that much easier. A maiden or two and suddenly every ball needs to be clubbed out of the park.
I've just noticed that I'm closing on my longest ever piece of fiction. My first novel/novella, "For The Good Of The Family" reached 47,931 words after going through editing hell (to the extent that I count the current draft as 'unfinished') for the better part of three years."The Hole In The World" has tipped over 43,782 total words (including the 10,621 that I started NaNo with), with most of that being written in nineteen days. I'll probably have overhaulled it by the end of the weekend.
I'm beginning to think my $25 donation to NaNo was cheap, current money situation be damned!
Distraction of the day: A good friend entertaining me until 1.30pm and my book stealing away over two hours of my writing time to leave me at 3.55pm with 0 words. And I still hit the stretch target. Oh yeah!
Music of the day: PinkPinkPinkPinkPink. Say, have you heard that song, Bad Influence by Pink? I've listened to it once or twice and I think it's rather good!
Inspiration of the day: Sprinting. One bite at a time.
Success of the day: I started at 3.55pm. And I hit 3k. Yep, that counts as a win.
Success for tomorrow: 2,000 words would put me in a very good position for the weekend. 3,000 would put me in a very good position for the month.
Quote of the day: “Will people please stop sneaking up on the nervous pyrokinetic who's been attacked twice today already!”
I like that line probably more than I ought to.
Total [new] word count: 33,161
Average word count: 1,745
PJW
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