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The Daring Author
The Daring Author
Part 2: Writing Sprints Experience
Ready to transform your writing routine? Discover how dedicating a day to structured writing sprints can ignite your creativity and boost your productivity. Our session begins with a grounding meditation to align our intentions, followed by 40-minute sessions that are balanced with rejuvenating breaks. From tracking word counts to battling distractions and hunger, join Jenna as she shares her experience with writing sprints.
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hello and welcome back to another chapter of the daring author podcast. So today is part two in the series it's not series, but I'd say duet of writing sprints. So the first episode. If you haven't heard heard it yet, make sure you go back and have a listen. So we were talking about riding sprints and the preparation I took for doing a day of riding sprints and now that the day has been finished, I wanted to.
Speaker 1:It's been a few days since the riding sprints and I wanted to do a little recap of how it went and, yeah, give a little bit of advice and, yeah, follow on from the preparation video. So the riding sprints day was first up amazing, I absolutely loved it and just dedicating a day to riding felt really good. It's been a long time since I've dedicated a whole day to that and it wasn't even like a full whole day, but even just that amount of hours just dedicated to doing that and, you know, knowing setting the intention and knowing what I wanted to achieve and really focusing on the writing just felt really, really magical. So how we started off I opened up the Zoom room and how we sort of got into the writing sprints, I did a little meditation that I do when I do my writing sprints solo. I, you know, I did a meditation where it was really bringing the riders into their intention for today, for the day of the writing, so their intention for their writing, what did they want to feel? And really setting that intention and I think that was really important to really set, set the mood and set the feelings and set just the intention of what they wanted to achieve on that day. And then going a step further into how they want their readers to feel when they're reading their words, like what's that connection point that they want to feel? Like what do you want your readers to feel when they're reading this particular work that you're writing at the moment? You know, depending on what type of scenes you're writing, do you want them to feel when they're reading this particular work that you're writing at the moment? You know, depending on what type of scenes you're writing, do you want them to feel really connected to the words? Do you want them to feel every emotion? Do you want them to feel the anger, the hurt, the betrayal or the love, or whatever it might be, with what you're writing? So, really setting that intention, and we went into a really great deep meditation mode and then coming out of it. Intention. And we went into a really great deep meditation mode and then coming out of it, yeah, we were just ready, ready to go ready on all parts and ready to just start riding. Now how we set it out we were doing, we wanted to test it out and be like, okay, let's um start with doing 40 minute sprints and then having a 10 minute break. So we set our intention and then we're like okay, let's start our 40-minute sprint. So we turned off our video, turned off our microphones and then really went into writing.
Speaker 1:So I was using the O-Write Sprint Room because that's where I love to write. I always go in a solo room, but I did invite people that came onto the call to join me in the sprints room. If they feel comfortable or they can write in their own part, that's completely fine. So we did the first 40 minutes and what I did was I opened up my notes section and I was after each session. I was writing in when we started the first session. So the first session was like 9.20 till 10 am and that was 40 minutes and I wrote down how many words that I did. So I did 1,004 words in that first session and then we had a 10-minute break. So we had a 10-minute, you know, get up and walk or get a cup of tea, whatever it might be. A few people that were joining me were, you know, maybe at cafes or at libraries, so they, you know, might have changed location throughout the day as well.
Speaker 1:So the second session I actually did like an hour because I was so full in it. What I found was sometimes it took me a little bit to get back into it and then I get distracted, and it was hard, like I will say. Sometimes I was like, oh, like it got distracted by a notification which I should have turned them off. But you know, we learn. But I did get distracted and then I found sometimes, when the clock, like when it was about to finish the time, I was like full in this thing and I wanted to keep going. So sometimes some of them were, you know, um, 10 minutes more, 20 minutes more, and that was okay. So I set the second session was an hour for me and then I put down how many words and then I added the words up. So it was adding up, adding up, adding up, and that felt really good for me and my like um motivation. I would say so. I was looking at the o sprints room and it would calculate, obviously, how many words I've written and I just kept writing in that one document so I could see the words going up and how many I've written overall for the whole sessions.
Speaker 1:Then we went into our third session, which was 11.30 till 10 past 12. And then after that session I found my words weren't as good in that session because I was hungry, I was a little bit distracted and I was just like thinking about lunch and food, which we do. So then after that third session we had a break. We had a 30 minute break for lunch. So we got out of Zoom and we had our lunch, had a little break and we got settled back in at quarter to one and I did find I was a bit like full. But that was probably that session we did was 50 minutes and see first up I set it at 40 minutes but sometimes some of them went a little bit longer before we'd sort of checked in after each time. So normally once I was sort of ready or the people on the call would like unmute, like oh, how did we go and sort of did the check-in and then that would force you to sort of stop with that check-in time.
Speaker 1:So the fourth session was really good getting back into it. And then I found like in the afternoon I'm not like the most productive. Anyway, I normally finish work by like lunchtime, early afternoon usually, because I know my energy is a lot different in the afternoons. I get a bit tired. I'm, you know, being up really early in the morning, so in the afternoons I'm not as productive. But I found then going into the fifth session, we were going to go till three o'clock but we were both like, oh, we're just a bit tired, so let this be our last one.
Speaker 1:So the last session was we started at like five to two and went through till 2.30. People on the call left a bit early because I was sort of done. But I really wanted to hit. I was nearly at the 5,000 words and I set that intention and goal of 4,000 words. I was happy with 4,000. Anything over that was amazing. And I was almost. I was like 200, 300 words off 5,000. So I really didn't want to stop. So everyone sort of left and I kept going to make sure that I did hit that over 5,000. So I ended up at like 5,029, which I was like, yes, that felt so good.
Speaker 1:And then after that, like after closing the computer down, having a break, I will say also, I worked mainly in my office and then that last session or last I think it was the last session or last yeah, the last session I went to the cafe next door and, um, yeah, change locations. I will change a lot more probably in the next one, like just to mix it up in different locations and see how that goes for me as well. And yeah, everyone's a little bit different with how and where they like to work, depending on where you're located and that type of thing. But it is cool to be able to move it around if that feels good and motivating for you Now. So we finished up.
Speaker 1:So in total it was 225 minutes of actual writing time, which works out at 3 hours and 45 minutes, that I did 5,029 words. So that was really cool to break it down, because we did start at like 9am till 2.30, which seems like a long period of time, but you're not actually writing that whole time, right, because you've got your sprint time, you've got your breaks. We had a longer break for lunch and when you add all that up, the only the writing time was only three hours and 45 minutes, which felt really good to actually work that out because I thought, oh, going from nine to two thirty, like I thought I would have written more that part, like part of me said that. But even though I was super happy and grateful that I did get over those five thousand words but it was cool to see that you know, in three hours and 45 minutes that's how many words I've reached. Now this will ebb and flow. You know, the more writing sprints that I do, the more that I host. This number can ebb and flow depending on you know how you're feeling, where you're at with your book. There is a lot of factors your energy for that day, there's a lot of factors that come into that. So it will ebb and flow with what you hit. So I really loved that.
Speaker 1:I did set a goal for a lower number and I did hit that by the end of the third session. So we have five writing sessions for the day and by the end of the third one I'd reached my goal already. So that was good to have that lower one and knowing I would be happy for that, and then in future ones I might not be as productive and only hit that, which is fine, because that was my minimum goal. So that's a little reflection of our riding sprints and I hope that you join us on the next one that we run. I have got another date in. I think it's the start of November, on the Friday. I will share the link via our email newsletter. So if you're not joined, make sure you go to thedaringpresscom and sign up for the newsletter so you can receive the Zoom details when we host our next one and then even more.
Speaker 1:I am hoping to be able to run these each fortnight, just for motivation for me as well, because I am on a deadline for a book at the moment and I do need to get that done by. I think it was like the first or second week in December. So I have like a number of words I need to reach each week. I actually calculated this yesterday to see how I'm tracking and I'm a little bit behind, but that's okay and I've allowed, you know, some buffers in that time as well. So, yeah, depending on where you're at, if you're in that first draft writing sprint space. Definitely join us.
Speaker 1:I found it very motivating. It was nice to be on Zoom and connecting with other writers and seeing where they're at and just as a collective and actually allowing it was a lot of accountability for me to know that other people are on Zoom, like I've got to show up. Like if I said a writing day and I wasn't accountable with anyone else, I'd probably change it. To be honest, I'd be like, oh, I'll go do this thing or that thing, but knowing that I was on a Zoom call, knowing that other people were doing this with me, felt very motivating. I had a lot of accountability. So, yeah, if you are interested in joining us, please do. I will put the link in our email newsletter and I'll share it on our socials as well.
Speaker 1:To join our next one, and I am hoping to set dates for each fortnight so you can come in if you're writing or whatever phase you're at. Even if you're at editing phase or plotting phase, whatever phase you're sort of at, you can come to the writing sprints and set your goals for the day, whether it's editing X amount of pages. Like that can definitely work as well, and you have the accountability of people around you as well that are working towards their book and their manuscripts. So I hope you'll join us at a future one and I hope you really enjoyed this episode on what the writing sprint experience was like for me personally and, yeah, I can't wait to see you there. All right, I'll see you in the next chapter.