Word Wars

By all means this thread should probably go in Exercises & Prompts, but I think it would be a lot of fun here at the Roundtable.

If you participated in NaNoWriMo (we've got a subforum here about that if you don't know what it is), you probably know what a Word War is.

If you don't, it's very simple: Someone will wander this thread, announce they're off to write with zero distractions for half an hour or one hour, and request others write with them. Pick a start time and end time, write for that amount of time, then everyone comes back and posts his or her word count achieved during the alloted time. Wars!

There's no real winner of a Word War, except the warm fuzzy feeling you get since you've put words on paper (or pixels on a computer screen). This is about your own pace, it's not about writing as much as you can just so you can "win." Wars are still about quality over quantity. Still, it can work for a few reasons:

1. Makes you accountable to someone, even though it's mostly yourself.
2. You realize how productive you can be when you focus.
3. Helps you push through some of the more difficult points in your writing.
4. Forces you to close out of AW for awhile and get some work done!
5. It's fun having other writers on your side.

Whether you're in or out ... I'm starting at 11:35 EST (approximately five minutes from this timestamp) and I'm warring for 30 minutes until 12:05 EST.

Here we go ... Feel free to jump in if you see this late .... I expect after a few wars not to be the only one! Back in 30 mins!

And I'm back. In 30 minutes I wrote 1,023 words. And I'll tell you, they're pretty dreadful. I wanted to give up about six times. But it was an opening scene (my Achilles heel), and it's over and done and I can fix it up nice and pretty later.

I'm thinking of starting another war at 12:30 EST (approximately 25 minutes from this timestamp). I know there are some of you out there who want to war, too ....

Next war starts NOW at 12:30 AM EST, and goes until 1:00 AM EST. I'm guessing I'll be on my own for this one, too, since it's late and the board seems pretty quiet at the moment.

Echo? Echo!

Usually! You can set up Wars in advance, but most of the time they end up being off-the-cuff. A fifteen-minute window before someone wants to start a war works out pretty well. For the last one I gave a 25-minute window.

ETA: Finishing up this last one a bit early. Not as productive as before, only 600 words this time.

But I'll be back later, and I fully encourage warring in my absence! We'll have to start using guilt--or cookies--to get some more players when the board is busier. More players equals more frequent Wars and more opportunities for everyone to play.