So, today is May 14th. I promised myself that I would attempt to write 5K words today. It’s the half-marathon of writing I think, and I am excited to try it. I will reach my goal by doing 30min or less wordsprints, and I have calculated that 8 of them should be enough, but we’ll see how the day goes. Inbetween sprints I’ll be taking short breaks and doing other stuff, but I don’t anticipate doing much else except writing today.
So, without further ado, it’s 10.00, the document is open, my notes are in front of me, I have cold water and no excuses, it is time to write.
10.00 Wordsprint #1, 26minutes. 632 words.
11.10 Wordsprint #2, 30minutes. 547 words.
Break for yoga.
12.15 Wordsprint #3, 30 minutes, 658 words.
Break for a walk.
14.00 Wordspint #4, 30 minutes, 828 words.
At the halfway point now, at 2665 words. Break for tea and cookies :)
15.30 Wordsprint #5, 30 minutes, 693 words.
16.15 Wordspint #6 6 minutes, 153 words.
At this point, I reached the end of the chapter, and needed a break in order to write a detailed outline of the next chapter, as I hadn’t done that. Next time I do a 5K in a day-challenge, I need to make sure to have more chapters outlined in detail beforehand.
18.10 Outlining of the next chapter is done, so the wordsprints can continue.
18.40 Wordsprint #7 27 minutes, 740 words.
Break for snack.
19.30 Wordsprint #8 33 minutes, 917 words.
And with that, the total word count is 5168 words. As expected, I did 8 sprints, but since one of them was only 6 minutes and could’ve been done as part of another if I hadn’t needed to go to the bathroom really desperately, it was really 7.
My total writing time was 212 minutes, that is, about 3.5h in active working time. My average writing speed was 24w/min, which is actually quite slow, or 1463 w/h.
I have now proven to myself that I am capable, could’ve probably finished sooner if I had made my breaks shorter. This was a great experience, and I encourage anyone who has a full day off to try it.
