Friday, May 18, 2012

Fast Drafting

I came across this course on the forums at EHarlequin. It sounded like an awesome idea so I signed up for the class.

The very idea of writing as much as 5k in one day filled me with two very different emotions: complete and total fear coupled with excitement. I decided to go with the excitement and read the class notes.

Candace Havens is the course instructor and let me say that straight away I was impressed by her positivity and the clear way she presents the course.

Okay, but does it work? I would have to say yes. Based on the messages that are coming through the loop with some awesome totals being posted. Does it work for me? Yes, definitely. I love the accountability of having a group of people all striving for the same thing. And the overall premise of the course is that the more you immerse yourself in your story, the better it flows. That is something I already strongly believed in before I started the course and think is crucial.

Candy doesn't allow any negative talk on the loop. "I couldn't reach my goal because ..." or "I would have reached my goal if only ..." are not allowed. And that makes all the difference. Negativity breeds negativity. Positivity about your work breeds more confidence and the desire to reach the same word count you managed the day before. You see the words stacking up and it feels great.

The only difficulty I have had is reaching my goal in the two to two and a half hours it says you should set apart each day. Three separate #1k1hr sprints on Twitter will usually get me around 3k words which has been my best total this week. I'm not sure if that's because I spend too much time thinking about what comes next or faffing around to find the very best word to go into a particular sentence. But I do know that this course is pushing me to do the very best that I can in the time that I have available :-)

Does anyone have any courses they can recommend or tips that they would like to share this weekend?

4 comments:

Sri Pammi said...

Sounds like my kind of course, Jo...I always find that kinda dynamic incredibly energizing...

Rachael Johns said...

I've been thinking about doing this course for a while but I'm SO scared of failing! I hope you blog again about your progress when you've finished. And well done!

Sally Clements said...

wow that sounds really awesome, Jo! I could do with getting my word count up a bit. So, its two and a half hours and 5k?
Gosh.

Catherine Coles said...

TBH, Sri, it's got me really excited about writing again and that can only every be a good thing :-)

Rach, I know I will fail spectacularly to write 50k in 14 days BUT I truly believe when you push yourself that little bit further each day good things happen to both your word count and your ms. Will definitely blog about progress :-)

I don't think I can ever write 5k in 2 and a half hours but I don't see why I can't regularly write 3k a day which I would be incredibly happy with. There's another course next month I think. Will prob do it again!!