This past November, I participated in the NovNov challenge, which took over from NaNoWriMo. Although I’ve played around with doing NaNoWriMo a couple of times, I never officially joined, so this was my first time signing up. I would have gotten the 50k words in if I hadn’t had major computer and internet issues—I could only write by hand for a week! 😒 But what finally made it easy to write 1,667 plus words a day was joining the online writing sprints offered by the NovNov sponsor, and discovering that they’re the best thing since sliced bread.
Actually, they’re much, much better. In fact, it’s probably not an exaggeration to say that discovering virtual writing sprints may be one of the best things that’s happened to me in years. I just wish I’d found something like them a long time ago; if I had, I’d probably have more than a dozen novels written by now—and I’m not joking.
Happily, the NovNov sponsor (a UK company that makes a program for writers called ProWritingAid) has continued to run sprints as part of the numerous activities they’re offering in conjunction with a writing contest. One of their videos is a ‘bootcamp course’ on writing. I was impressed with the way the course succinctly covers a lot of important material. While probably eighty to ninety percent of the points it addresses are things I already do—often unconsciously—likely because I’m an experienced writer, it made an excellent and encouraging review. I would particularly recommend it for young writers (or anyone relatively new to the craft, regardless of age).