Wednesday, August 25, 2010

With a Little Help from My Friends

This summer my friend Windy and I made a pact. We have this goal to finish the rough draft of our works in progress (one each) together, almost as a writing marathon—or more accurately, a sprint.

Truth: I don’t know if I’ll actually get my draft finished by the end of August.

But. I’ve made LOTS of progress, and am happy. I expect to have a livable draft by the official calendar end of summer (Sept 20th). And even though Windy feels doubtful about her progress, I suspect she’ll finish by then as well.

Here’s how it goes: every night, we meet via Twitter and support each other in our #amwriting attempt. As soon as we get started, others inevitably join us and we have a nice party of support. And because I know that someone else is there, waiting for me, I have extra motivation to show up and get to work.

Whether or not I finish the full draft, I’ve made progress. I’m so much farther along than I was when we started this challenge.

It helps tremendously to have someone working along with me, to have someone expecting something from me. Have you found this to be true as well? Who expects progress from you? (If you answer no one, come play with us on Twitter! We’ll get you going.)

5 comments:

Tess said...

another great example of how supportive the writing community is...very cool stuff.

Jamie Manning said...

I need the support!! I'll try to follow you guys tonight!

Windy Aphayrath said...

Oh crap. You've blogged it. Now I will be a complete and utter #slacker for real if I don't finish! Ahh, the pressure! The pressure!

OK, well I'll see you tonight for some #amwriting.

Nichole Giles said...

Yep, Windy. Now we're both accountable. #pressurepressurepressure

See you tonight!

Jamie, hope to see you on Twitter then!

Hi Tess!

Anonymous said...

Can I just say how much I love reading your blog? I didn't know the day I clicked the "follow" button on your blog that I would be privy to so many insightful and cheerful posts. Lots of blogs out there are full of negativity--I find your happy outlook on the publishing business so refreshing!
And I think I'll try to join your little twitter thing you've got going on... "try" being the key word here. I'm horrible with twitter.

Put it on Paper