A Glorious Thing Called a Sprint

And so here we are nearly at the end of day two of NaNoWrimo. At least for me. Some of my friends are already on day three, which is crazy and awesome all thrown into a jar at the same time. Today really didn't go as planned, that is for sure. I had it all planned out that today would be another high word count day, but I really didn't think it would happen in the way that it did!

Every morning there are certain things I do. Exercise, read scriptures, eat breakfast, do some cleaning, etc. Today I ended up sleeping in, and once I had done all my usual things it was something like noon already. It was already noon and I didn't have any words down! Jeepers!

Have no fear though, I sat myself down and started to plunk out those words, starting and running some sprints as I did so. I had a good amount of words in finally. Awesome! So then I took a break because I had to make a menu for the week and go grocery shopping. Might I add that I paused my story at a point where my MC was also grocery shopping. Coincidence? I think not! That is the cool thing about being a writer. You live what you are a writing, or in other words you live what the characters are making happen.

By the time I had gone shopping, made dinner, and everyone had gone their ways I was wiped out. I only had 2,784 words for the day! (Yeah, yeah, I am an over achiever, I'll admit it). That was, until I was perusing the NaNoWriMo Facebook group and reading posts, which led my weary and dried out eyes to fall upon a poor soul calling out for an immediate sprinting partner. Who was I to say no? I, one of the most furious lovers of nano sprinting? And besides, it was only a ten minute sprint! I could do that.

And so we sprinting, and it was glorious, and I was proud to have a few more hundred words to add to my work count. Not a minute after that sprint ended one of my new good writing friends asked if I wanted to embark on a daring journey, "one last sprint" for the night, she called it. Okay, so I gave in, and we started without establishing how long we were going to sprint for. When I asked she suggested thirty minutes. THIRTY MINUTES!!!

Thirty minutes may not seem very long when it is the amount of time you will need to prepare dinner, or to drive to see a super awesome fireworks show, but to me in that moment thirty minutes seemed like the expanse of eternity! But, being the avid sprinter that I am, I agreed, throwing out a few words about how I didn't know if I would last.

Amazingly enough, I did. We finished our sprint and much to my happiness my two spontaneous sprints had put me up nearly 2000 words! And so I am now finishing the day off with 4,767 new words, giving me 8,603 for my grand total!

And so, my dear writing friends, whether you are doing NaNoWriMo or not, allow me to let you in on a not so recognized thing: word sprints are glorious things! In fact, I believe they are literal gifts from heaven. Write on people! Write on.

- Heidi Nicole Bird