I had a great time doing NaNo this year, and I definitely noticed that my most productive writing times were when we met up and did sprints together. I'm currently outlining my next novel, and wanted to suggest creating a writing group. Here's how...
Meetings: NaNo had some group write-ins on Thursdays at 11AM at the Northern District Library. I'd like to continue doing those on a weekly basis. We sprint in 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off. So, 4 sprints per hour. If you miss a week, no big deal, but by joining the group you ARE committing yourself to at least making most of them.
Critique: On the last Tuesday of the month, instead of sprinting, we will all do our best to do an in-depth critique of an exerpt (say, up to 3,000 words) from someone's novel or short story (or, if we have lots of people involved, we'll break into smaller groups to get more pieces critiqued). I know, showing your rough stuff is icky, but it will make us better writers... both
because we'll be getting feedback, and because we'll be able to develop our ability to analyse something and turn that budding editor on our own work.
Celebrations: Whenever someone finishes a draft, be it first, second, third, or final, we'll grab a celebratory beverage afterwards - and their tea/drinks/whatever is on the rest of us.
Motivation: I bugged a lot of people to keep writing this year. And I'll tell you... I probably wouldn't have finished my novel if I wasn't worrying about how hypocritical it would make me look. By encouraging each other, we'll also push ourselves to do it.
How does that sound? Let me know if you're interested by shooting me an e-mail at herladyship@gmail.com (you can also reply here, but make sure you leave me an e-mail address so I can keep you posted about details).
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Nov 30, 2008 - 11 24
Umm... I'm a dumbass, I meant on the last THURSDAY of the month we would do critiques.