It’s already the second week of Nanowrimo, and we’re deep in the second week’s slump. For our group’s second shared writing time, we’re using a prompt to spur our efforts. Already, the group has accomplished enough to be proud of themselves. More than 50,000 words in little more than a week! They’ve prepared and planned and begun an epic journey of self-discovery.

First we will use our powers of visualization to set the stage for a productive writing period. Here are a few reminders to help free up your mind:

• Turn off your inner critic/editor. We don’t need him/her.
• Commit to taking care of quantity and trust that quality will come.
• Don’t rewrite, pause, or doubt yourself.
• Listen to the voices in your head.
• Go for the most interesting part of what you’re writing. That will be the part most alive.
• The words are already there and available to you, your task is to uncover them and bring them to the page.

When you are ready to write, set a timer. However long you want to sustain your effort to get through a scene or a passage, set that time on the clock. Ignore the editing impulse and simply type your way forward for this entire period. (If you’re the type of writer who wants to know ahead of time where your scene is going, prepare a mental checklist of the tortures through which you will put your characters in your scene now. If not, blissfully avoid thinking of what’s about to happen to your characters and the suffering you are about to inflict on them.)

Here is the prompt (with a combo pack to add in, if you get stuck): A: Write a scene in which a character writes a goodbye note.

B: Include a verbal argument.