While I don’t expect anyone to join me (feel free if you want to, please!) I’m going to be doing a writing marathon starting from when I wake up until the end of the day Dec. 28th, stopping only to use the restroom, eat, drink, and do brief stretching and aerobics to keep the blood flowing. Since I live in Japan, the time for this happening may be hard to follow in real-time, but I’ll be updating this post throughout the day to chronicle this descent into madness.

My plan is to write in 20 minute increments with 5 minute breaks. After four cycles, I’ll take a longer 20 minute break and start the cycle over.

I’ll be stopping in here throughout the day (or night for many of you) to update my progress. If you care to cheer me on or throw things at me, feel free to do so.

This will probably be a true test of how much I can truly write in one day with very few interruptions.

I want to end 2013 with a bang, so this is my shot.

If you do want to join me or give this a try before 2013 is up, leave a comment and I’ll come berate you as well!

 10:05 am:  OK, about to eat some breakfast and then I’ll be starting at 10:30 am, my time (no telling what time everywhere else).

Good luck to those who have joined in or who are thinking of doing so!

12:19 pm: Got 1,434 words after about an hour. Not my best speed, but not terrible either. Since I’m working on a short story that I don’t know how it’s going to end, it’s going a bit slower. But I’m slowing pushing towards the end!

 12:57 p.m.: Up to 2,153 just in time for lunch and finished the first draft of my short story. Edits come tomorrow. Next phase: work on the novel! Woo hoo!

3:25 pm: After eating lunch, I turned to work on my novel and got about 1,150 so far. That brings me to 3,303 words so far today (counting from the short story earlier. Going to take a break for about 10 minutes and do a bit of pre-writing so I know where this next part of the novel is going. I have an outline, but I need to make sure it follows it and doesn’t veer off somewhere else like it looks like it’s going.
  
4:30 pm: Up to 4,137, which I believe is closing on in NaNoWriMo “really good day levels.” I need to take a longer break for a bit and do some cardio to get the blood flowing. Feeling a bit stiff. I think (just maybe) I may be able to get 6,000-8,000 words when it’s all said and done today. Maybe? Maybe.

 6:32 pm: I went jogging for about 30 minutes, got back and started writing more. I’m up to 4,844 words now for the day. Still have about 3 and half hours before my wife gets home to crank more words out, but I may have to eat dinner soon. Actually, probably do that now.

One thing I’ve learned. Writing all day isn’t really that hard as long as you take breaks here and there and you limit distractions. I’ve lost some time screwing around on Facebook a couple of times and Youtube, but other than that, I’ve mostly been writing all day.

8:24 pm: I sucked for a little while and fell asleep. Not what I wanted to do. But got up to 5,184 before doing so. I have about an hour and half left to work. I’d like to get 6,000 to end the day. If I do so, that would be the most I’ve ever written in one day, I believe.

 9:19 pm: Got 6,051 words to wrap up the day. I have to say, a pretty productive day overall.

a. I finished a first draft of a short story I’d be struggling to finish.
b. I made progress on my novel that had been stalled out for a couple of weeks.
c. I found that writing all day doesn’t have to be mind-numbing if you take breaks here and there and consistently work.

While I don’t think 6,000 words is the absolute best I could do, I think that’s a vast improvement over my normal average of about 1,000-2,000. I’ve found that what pro writers do can be difficult if done every single day, but it’s not impossible. And I don’t really feel like everything I wrote today was rushed crap. I worked at a pretty comfortable pace all in all.

So, experiment finished! Thanks to those following along and good luck to those participating! I’ll be watching your progress.