I am at a writing retreat. (Thanks, Dave!)

My first day here, I wrote from about 8 in the morning until 9 at night, with breaks for meals and occasional chit-chat. I produced about 2,500 words. That is perhaps 250 words an hour, or one lonely page.

Don’t get me wrong. I love those words. They’re good words. And I am super glad I have 2,500 words more than I did when I came to this retreat, but I need to produce a lot more than that. In fact, today I’d like to double that.

I’m not sure how to do that, but here is what I am going to try today.

1) Outline. I usually write more or less into the dark, but today I’m going to try to figure out at least some rough idea of where this is going.

2) Sprint. Do at least one timed 15 sprint each hour, with the stopwatch running. Try to hit 250 new words in that time.

3) Check in hourly. Report both on what I’ve been doing, and where the count stands.

4) HAVE FUN. Put in the most fun things I can imagine into the book, so that I will be excited to write.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

And if you have some ideas for me, I’d love to hear them.

Okay, time to make the donuts.

–JDP