A Friendly Push

Sometimes the easiest way to get something done is to do it with friends. If you’re going to participate in NaNoWriMo or another kind of hurry-up-and-write session, working with other writing friends may help you get more accomplished.

1) Your writing friends know how important it is to you to take advantage of the opportunity to write more. They probably want to do the same!

2) They need your encouragement as much as you need theirs – and when you encourage them, you may listen to your own words and feel better yourself.

3) You can have mini-challenges with each other – who can get the most words written in an hour? Write until lunch time without talking. (I’ve tried this – it’s hard!)

4) Create charts and graphs if they are helpful. Here is an example of one I made a couple years ago. The Excel data is connected to a graph on the next worksheet. It helped us SEE what we were accomplishing. Even though everyone had different kinds of goals, they were all trackable and graphable.

You may find writing in a group is easier or harder. I generally find it more difficult unless we’re at least on opposite sides of the room. After all, when can you interrupt and ask a question, and when do you really need to leave them alone? (Or when do you need to be left alone.)

I created a triangular table tent once that helped a lot! It sat with one side on the table to keep it upright. On the other two sides it said, “Please don’t talk to me” and “You can interrupt if you like”. My friend wrote “Leave me alone!” on one side and “Talk to me if you must” on the other. So long as you have the correct side facing out, we found them to be a great little tool for helping us write in talking proximity.

What other tools and gadgets and ideas do you use to get more work done when you’re in the same room as other writers?