Sprinting Friday

Just a reminder that the poetry challenge voting runs through Saturday at midnight and anyone can vote. Just read through the poems under the poetry challenge heading, then go to the sidebar and click the button of the one you liked best. It's that simple! And be prepared. Monday is my first ever flash fiction challenge. Don't worry, I'll explain more about how you can participate Monday.

Now on to other things. :)

Today I'd like to introduce you to a few friends of mine. Some of them are new,some of them are old, but all of them are freakin AWESOME! To begin, I need to tell you the story of how this all got started. You see, my good friend (and brilliant editor) Tristi Pinkston held a marathon writing sprint a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday. We started around noon and went to midnight. Some people could only write for a portion of the day, but there were a lucky few of us who wrote all day long, taking breaks every hour for about ten minutes, and a longer break about mid-way.

I wrote 10,000 words that day. Now for those of you who don't realize how many words that is, YA Fantasy comes in around 60,000 to 80,000 words, unless you're J.K. Rowling. That is a HUGE chunk of a book written in a single day. Well, I had so much fun with that, I didn't want to stop, so I created this awesome place where writers can go. It's called Sprint Writers Central and you can find it at sprintwriters.blogspot.com. There is a chat room that is just for visiting with other authors, talking over writing problems, brainstorming, begging for help, or just hanging out. It's called The Chatterbox. There is also a separate chat room that is for our writing sprints called The Splatterbox, as we tend to splatter our words across the page when we are sprint writing.

Now, you may be asking yourself at this point, "What the heck is sprint writing???" Well, let me tell you. Sprint Writing is writing without thought as fast as you can. We set a timer. There is one beneath The Splatterbox, if we choose to use it. When the timer begins, we start writing on whatever we are working on, be it poetry, essays, blogs, novels, or even edits. We work for a set period of time that could be anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, depending on who is there. When the timer stops, we stop and take a break, then come back to it later. Sometimes we do several hours of sprint writing at a time. Other times we put in fifteen minutes before folding our laundry. Whatever time is available, we use it.

The most awesome part of Sprint Writers Central, are the friends I have made, first, and second, that I actually write. I'm no longer alone! It doesn't matter that some of our sprinters live in Canada and others in Missouri or Kansas or Utah. We are able to come together as a community of writers and work together as if we were sitting in the same room.

IT. IS. AWESOME!!!

So, if you're looking for someone to write with, or a community of writers to help inspire you, come and join us anytime. There is a schedule posted on the site of when some of us will be there. Starting today, every Friday I am hosting a write-in, at Sprint Writers Central from 8:00 pm until Midnight. I'll be there writing.

Will you?

Quote of the Day: "Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space."

~Orson Scott Card