Writing sprints and spinning from dangling story threads

Yesterday I tried some 5-minute writing sprints at the computer on my story.  (Yes, I'm still aspiring to be faster on the computer.)  I did well the first time, but at each of the three sprints I did thereafter I got worse and worse. Clearly I’ll have to practice word-sprinting.  After some time, I expect I will try out 10-minute sprints.  But I’ll practice 5-minute sprints for, oh, maybe a month first.

There are a lot of writers that say writing sprints are a really great way to get in some writing in small slots of time, and I agree, but I’m feeling like there are some factors that go into a successful sprint.

If I were to sit down at any time and write for 5 minutes straight, I could do it, but to write 5 minutes on my story, I need to do some prep work first.  If I’m stuck on a scene, writing for 5 minutes is going to be kinda lame because, after all, I’m stuck.  Stuck-ness isn’t going to change just because I’ve started a timer going.

I think that in order to do a writing sprint for 5 minutes, at the very least I need to know about 5 minutes text-worth of what’s going to happen next in my story.  Which means I need to do some thinking first. 

But what if I closed every writing session by jotting down a little summary of what I think is supposed to happen next?  Then, the next time I start I’ll have a thread to pull on immediately, instead of having to brainstorm first.

Behold, an analogy!   If you knit, you don’t want to end the knitting session by cutting your yard and tucking the yarn end in an inaccessible place.  You leave the yarn attached to the project so you can get back into it easily.  Or, if you are changing colors, you connect up the new color and then leave it for the next time. 

You can do the same for yourself when you’re writing. Keep connected to your story by leaving a summary of what’s happening next to work off of when you come back to it.  It’s like a little story thread out dangling so there’s something for you to pull on.

Some writers leave a thread dangling by leaving a sentence unfinished because it is natural to want to finish an unfinished sentence.  Ta-da, you’re off and running again. 

Personally, I’ve tried this and I think there must be an art to it because about half the time I have no idea what I intended to say in the sentence, and I am not sure how to finish it.  But I have a bit more luck with jotted notes about what is supposed to happen next in the story.

How's your sprinting?