After not quite 3 hours of feverishly writing not quite 3000 words, last night’s sprint writing exercise was nonetheless a great success!
It was with a fair bit of trepidation that I steeled myself for my self-imposed writing sprint last night. The seemingly impossible target was to write 3000 words in 2 hours. I didn’t expect I’d be able to write the full 3000 words, and I wasn’t sure if I’d have the stamina to go for 2 hours, but it was worth a shot, and it makes sense to aim high when you’re trying to push yourself.
Joining me for the ride were a handful of fellow twitterers: @rachelhatesjazz, @H0110wPeTaL, @uxintro and @Kallzor (a few others took part, but the aforementioned were the ones doing it last night). I think it’s fair to say that all of us performed admirably, with a special shout out to @H0110wPeTaL who kept going after the rest of us had bottled out and surpassed the 3000 word target!
I kept a decent pace for most of it: 447 words after 20 minutes; 965 after 45 minutes; 1727 after about 70 minutes. I finally called it a night after about 90 minutes, having written 2156 words – a feat I’m absolutely thrilled with. I possibly could have gone on for another 15 minutes or so, but the story I was writing finished itself. In any case, I now know that I can, if I push myself, write a few thousand words in one evening.
Was it any good though? Well, I’m not going to kid myself and pretend that it’s in any way publishable, but there’s clearly the bones of a readable story in there. I’ve attached the unedited draft at the bottom of this post, for anyone who wants to read it. My plan now is to tidy up the writing and publish it as a finished piece in the near future.
For now, enjoy my ‘sprint draft’ version of… The Star Beast Lives!