Day 4 of NaNoWriMo: I haven’t had contact with the outside world in over 72 hours…

Psych. But seriously, I have spent a hell of a lot of time on my laptop recently. (Also, when was the last time you heard someone use “psych”? It’s sooo 1999.)

NaNo has been a success thus far. I got off to a great start on Day 1 with about 3,100 words. Day 2 was slow, but I still managed to pull out just over 400, and Day 3 added another 3,500. That’s a total of 7,053 over the first three days, for an average of 2,351 per day — a nice cushion above the 30-day minimum of 1,667. Today, I’m going for another 3-4,000.

Jessie and I went to a MD write-in/kick-off event on Sunday. We got there late (thanks to someone’s lazy ass!) and didn’t really get to mingle much, but it was cool to be in a room with about 35 people in the same boat as us — and there was plenty of food. Yesterday, I had a half day from work, and today a full day off, hence the higher word counts. I’m really trying to get out to a fast start, because I know I’ll have at least a couple off days, likely starting next week.

One technique that is helping me today, thanks to our friends at the NaNo write-in, is using word sprints. I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes and a goal of a few hundred words, and just try to grind through. Then, I’ll take a couple minutes, tell my dog he’s a goo’boooyyy, have a sip of deliciously rounded and earthy French Breakfast tea, and set the timer for another sprint. It’s much more manageable than saying I HAVE TO WRITE 3,000 WORDS BY 6PM, or whatever. I recommend giving it a shot if you’re trudging through a high-word count project (especially NaNo).

Anyway, I hope my fellow NaNo’ers are also finding success. Any tips or strategies you’re using? Share them below, and let’s buddy up on NaNo: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/dia820

Happy writing!