I'm totally willing! And I can't wait to read everyone's stories too!

And Amarysse, when you're logged in and click on the My Nanowrimo tab, it takes you to your author page. The number at the end of the URL is your user id.

Ha! I'd just found it from the widget page.

Mine's 455812.

There you go! You're on the first page.

Oh, and to get your widget to show up, you need to do it like this: http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/LiveParticipant/455812.png only without the spaces in the tags.

You are a saint. Thanks!

I'm definitely willing to have my story thrown up there at the end of the month.

And welcome aboard, Amarysse!

Woot. Just broke 9k words!

Goal is to hit 10k by the end of the night.

I am such a Nano Slacker! I haven't written anything since Sunday!

I'm so far behind. Meh.

I'm tempted to write about some of the dreams I have, and see if any of the random, disjointed scenes make any sense when strung together.

Get to work!

And try sprinting, it really works. I've managed to write a total of 2165 words so far today using the method, in a total writing time of 1 hour.

Just set a timer for 10 minutes, write until it goes off, then stop. Finish the sentence you're on if you want, but otherwise just stop. Take a 10 minute break (or longer, if you can't go again in 10 minutes, due to work or whatever) and then repeat.

What this has done for me is:
1) Keeps me from starting cold-- Usually when the timer goes off, I'm in the middle of a good train of thought, i'm getting into a rhythm. So, when its time to stop, I'm not out of ideas. When I pick back up, before I start the timer I take a moment to reread my last paragraph or whatever, and then i'm off, back on the track I was on before.

2) Keeps me focused-- I'm very bad when it comes to getting distracted and looking at stuff online after finishing a random sentence or paragraph. With this method, I simply don't do that. I know I've just got 10 minutes to write, and then I'll have a break and be able to do whatever it is I want.

3) Keeps you flexible-- I can write for 10 minutes, then go work on the dishes. I can come back, write another 10 minutes, and then go finish the dishes. I can put food in the oven, set the timer, then go write for 10 minutes. I can watch a show, write for 10 minutes, then go on to the next episode or whatever, and if I'm using my DVR, it just means I'm replacing commercial time with writing time, which is a good deal for me. Or, at work, I can fit a sprint in easily during lunch.

3.1) Keeps you from stressing-- This one is simple, it is a lot easier to justify and fit in 5 or 6 10-minute sessions in a day than it is a solid hour block, and if you're less stressed about how much you need to accomplish each time you sit down, you're a lot less likely to lock up.

4) Keeps you seeing progress-- When you stop every 10 minutes, you don't tend to feel like as much was lost if you had a bad run. Say you only write 100 words on a sprint because you got stuck, that's ok. You can use the break to think and try to figure it out, and on your next sprint have your ideas ready to go, without that downtime counting against you mentally or actually. It keeps the word count rising and keeps you motivated.

---

I honestly did not think Sprinting would work for me, but so far it has, and I am really excited about what this might do for my writing in general. Screw all those tips that tell you to dedicate an hour away from everyone to write and write and write without stopping or giving up--this is so much better, and is making me feel so much more accomplished.

I really recommend that everybody here at least give it a try. Do 3 rounds of 10-minute/break, and I promise you'll be hooked.

You know what? I think I will give your sprinting idea a shot tonight when I get home!

Do it. Even if you don't turn any of them into a full story, they should get you thinking creatively.

@Noola : I've also found that if you hit a point in a story that you don't want to write about (bored with this part, etc.), or there's another part that you're really excited about ... write about the other part. It helps. After you do that, start thinking about how you can link the two parts together (if you don't already know) and try to get excited about that too.

I'm slow. I did decide to try and finish a fanfic idea I had a year or two ago, instead of writing that epic fantasy novel (which still had many weird kinks and questionable interestingness).. What happened was that I started browsing other fanfiction for random inspiration, and ended up spending my writing time reading.

It was fun!

Breaking 10k feels SO good.

SOooo, Noola? Did you try sprinting?

Yeah, but only once because I fell asleep! I did add a little to my wordcount though!

I think I shall do better tonight.

If anyone is interested, we should get in the chat and do some sprints together.

I'm fixin to go home! I'll be there in about an hour-hour and a half. If you're still interested then, I think that'd be fun!

Hopefully I'll still be around. I'm just waiting for my fiance to get off class, so I should have about 2 and a half hours til she gets here. Unless she's early, which does definitely happen on occasion, but I'll be there until she shows up, so, yeah.

If I don't respond when you show up, its possibly because I'm in the middle of a sprint on my own. Just say my name and the chat should beep at me.

Yay for 17k!

I'm going to the movies here in a minute, but when I get home, I'm gonna bust out some words and get my count up to a more respectable number!

And way to go S.A.W.! You keep this up you'll be hitting 50k way early!