1,2,3,4 I declare a word war

I had a fantastic write-in / word war with my friend today. I’ve never spent that much time writing in one stretch in my life. I also beat my all-time word record: I wrote 7,564 words today in about 5 hours. That’s eleven pages. That’s the size my monthly submissions to my writers’ groups often were. That’s more than I wrote when I took a personal day from work two years ago to finish my NaNo at the time, at which point 6,000 words became my highest in one day.

It looks like having a writing buddy can be as crucial to motivation and success as having an exercise buddy can be in getting you to the gym. That’s probably worthy of a whole post in itself, but I just don’t think I have that many words left in me tonight.

When the wordathon was done, I said, “For all those words, I don’t feel like all that much in my story actually HAPPENED.”

My friend said, “You’ll be surprised when you look at it later.”

She was right. I think I feel more like a real writer today than I ever have in my life.