Now, I’m not about to claim I came up with this idea and will give credit where it’s due, but I have to say it really worked for me tonight. The RWAC RWA chapter have been getting together recently at a local coffee shop to do what they call write ins. They sit and write for 30 mins or so, and then they take a break. They talk, relax, recharge, then sit and have another writing session. It is very successful for the people who go.
I also thought it would be a perfect thing for me to try. Now, since I’m no longer geographically near them all (sob), I thought I’d do this virtually. But it’s not as much fun on your own…so I grabbed Amy. We had a ball…well I did at least. 
In an hour and a half, I manged to write 1830 words. We ran it through IM, and it worked really well. I would set the time frame to write, we’d get ready and then WRITE! No checking email, surfing, etc. When our half hour was up, we reported our word counts and chatted for 15 mins.
Wow was this awesome!! I’m definately going to be doing this again, as I find I work really well in short periods like this. Plus, by giving myself permission to get up and take a break, and better than that, have it scheduled, I found it helped focused me. I got more done in those 30 mins than I would have if I’d planned to write for a whole evening.
The awesome news is I’ve passed my writing goal for the week already!! So I’m officially tacking on another 5k words to push myself to continue.
What strategies do you use to keep you motivated??
I try to stop in the middle of a scene so that I know what I’m coming back to the next time I open the document. This works for me because I find that when I leave things so that I have to start a new scene, I end up going back and reading some pages, which totally puts me in revision mode. And that’s not the place to be when you’re trying to get stuff onto the page in the first place.
And right now, since I’m working on a YA, I give my heroine permission to freak on me when I first sit down to write. It usually gets me motivated to have her stop freaking out on me so that she can get back into the story.
That girl has a real attitude problem though…
Stopping in the middle of a scene is a great idea! When I’m starting a new session for the day I’ll read a couple of the last pages I wrote and continue from there. I find the little bit of editing I might do on the way to the new words actually helps get into a writing mood.
Sometimes, I’ll go to my favorite coffee shop for a change of scenery and take my alphasmart. Those are always good writing days.
Basically, I write whether I feel like it or not. I’ve trained myself that way and I’m too stubborn to give up. Some days are painfully slow while others I fly through my writing targets. So yeah, the Nike slogan is me. Just do it.
Great going with your targets, Christine.
Good for you! It’s amazing how much you can write in this sessions, isn’t it?
And we miss you too!
I love our write ins, even when Nikki is cracking the whip! We had to cancel this week’s session because of scheduling conflicts but we’ll have another couple set up for Feb. They’re great for really putting the nose to the grindstone but still making it fun.
I had a blast and when Christine grabbed me my muse seriously hit a wall. I was having a block, I knew where I wanted to go but couldn’t get there. So we did this and OMG it was amazing. I’m 5k from my weekly goal because I want to get to 20k by Sunday.
I managed 1,857 words during our write in.
I’m sitting at just over 15k! I so want to do this virtual write in again!!! With more people!!! It would be so COOL!!!
Ooooo this is such a great idea! I want to paly sometime. I’ve been working soooooo slowly lately and I think a timed thing would really be helpful. I’ve found I can usually get 1k an hour when I’m at top speed, but lately it’s been more like 400
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Anna J. Evans
I’ve heard of doing something like this on the chatroom of the Romance Divas. You can find there people all the time writing for a few minutes, stopping to chat, then back to writing. I heard of some nice “marathons” there. Hahaha! I tried it once but my Muses don’t work well under pressure.
OMG, you should invite me along next time! I’d love to have a reason to make the family quit bugging me!
I do this with friends a lot and we LOVE it. It really helps, we hold each other accountable, we get writing done and we have fun doing it!!!
Susan, and anyone else who might want to join us, while I don’t have anything planned, if you’re interested send me an email and I’ll give you my IM name. That way I can buzz you if you want.
christine @ christinedabo . com (no spaces)
This is a very cool idea, though everyone is probably asleep when I’m on the computer.
Stopping in the middle of a scene is an interesting idea but I don’t think it would work for me. I tend to think in terms of scenes and like to get the whole scene down before I quite, though I can see the value in doing it.
Great productivity ladies!!