Veronic-a-Thon

Yesterday was a snow day. Consequentially, it was also my favorite type of day: PAJAMA DAY! The day when I can read, or do classwork, or whatever else I want! Woo!

But since I hadn't spent a lot of time on my current WIP I decided that needed to take priority. However, I'd also gotten halfway through season one of Veronica Mars the day before. What to do?

I hosted my own little Veronica-Thon. I got a number from random.org, which I discovered through NaNoWriMo and declared I would write that many words between episodes. I got 410. I am obsessed with....something, and usually rounded it up to 500. I ended up with eight episodes watched, 5000 words written. Fun and painless!

More than that, it made me realize why watching TV can be helpful for writers. I paid closer attention to clothes, for instance, and what they say about a character. Also dialogue. VM is full of snappy one-liners, and also mostly free of guff dialogue. It's heavy on plot, and holds to having characters only cry when stakes are as high as possible. I read that Rob Thomas originated it as a YA novel, and it shows.

Also, I love the platonic girl/boy relationships in it. If those get ruined in season two (don't tell me!) I will be sad.

What's your main form of writing self-bribery?