Month: July 2016

Today is day one, because yesterday wasn’t

Lynn

I need to give this new plan of mine a short and spiffy name so I can come up with a short and cute acronym. In reality, I’ll probably call it something ordinary and boring, like “my new plan,” because it fits and doesn’t require any thought.

Yesterday should have been day 2 or 3, or, at the least, day 1 of the new plan.

It wasn’t.

So today is day 1, even if I end up with 0 words, which it kind of looks like I’m headed toward at the moment.

I don’t want today to be a 0 word day, but I’ve been thinking I might want to read the previous books in the series before I start digging into the writing again. Maybe it’ll fire me up with ideas and renew my enthusiasm for this story.

If reading the entire series helps, I’m going to make this a priority for future books (reading the previous books each time before I start on the next). If it doesn’t help, at least I’ll have my head full of the series details again so I don’t make a really big mistake (almost did that, yes I did, with a particular piece of tech I’d invented for the series).

I wonder if I can get through all four books by tomorrow afternoon? Ooh, sounds like a challenge! ;)

Why the new plan does not include writing on multiple stories

Lynn

I had a lot of success producing more words when I let myself work on whatever I wanted. That doesn’t really work with the new plan. Theoretically, if I’m having a bad day I can still move on to another story within the group of series stories that I’m working on, but one thing I realized I need to fix is my lack of interest in a story after too much time has passed. To fix that I really need to be writing my stories faster, and I can’t write my stories faster if I’m splitting my focus between 4 books. Because that’s how many books I would be working on at one time if I let myself work on multiple stories while I follow this new plan. Which means that all four books will be ready at about the same time and that they could all take three full months to write even if manage to consistently hit my daily goal.

Three months is too long.

Right now I’m thinking one month to six weeks is probably best to keep my interest high and to keep me from becoming bored with any particular book.

So that’s really the basic reason why I’m not going to be continuing the multiple stories experiments even though they have proven to improve the number of words I can write in any one day.

The fact is I never ended that experiment, and I continue to have trouble writing after I took the break to publish one of my other books. So obviously, even though it did help temporarily, it didn’t create a long-term solution to my long-term problem of my lack of motivation and drive to write some days.

Also, I wrote the majority of this on my phone while I was talking into the voice recognition software and I’ll just say right now that the way that my mind is scattered and the way that I think as I talk probably means this doesn’t make a lot of sense. I will try to edit it the best I can later. :)

Consider this an experiment an anti-perfectionism. I readily admit I actually did go back and edit as much as I could on my phone. But I think I’m going to leave the rest as it is. See you in a later post. :-)

End transmission. ;)

Recognizing perfectionism

Lynn

I had a realization yesterday morning and it’s led me to some serious soul-searching. My 12-month 1,180,000 word challenge is quite possibly—probably, in fact—a manifestation of perfectionism.

I’ve been upfront with the fact that I suffer from repeated bouts of perfectionism, and I don’t always realize when I’ve let it creep back into my life.

But yesterday, I started to realize that the only reason this plan even exists is because I spend a lot of time imagining the awesome way I’ll feel if I write all those books right now, if I can find the perfect system so I can write a perfect number of words every day, all so I can design a perfect release schedule for the many series I have going.

I do not need to write that many books in 12 months.

Not only that, but this goal is so far from realistic for me that I’m not sure it’s even part of my universe.

To reach this goal, I’ll have to write 5 times my current average daily word count. FIVE TIMES.

Every single day.

But perfectionism keeps me re-figuring my calculations at every turn, trying to find a way to do the impossible, because it fits some ideal I’ve come to worship. As if I’m just not doing enough, as if I’m a loser if I can’t write all the books in all the series, and write them damn quick, too. Because I should be able to do it, because it’s so reasonable if I just consider the numbers.

Bullshit.

This all started because I do want to write a lot of books in the series I have going, and the unfortunate truth is that at my current speeds it’ll take me 3.5 years to write them. But I also want to write other things, and I definitely don’t want to wait 3.5 years to start writing those things.

But realism never has been one of my strengths, and neither has delaying gratification.

That was the crack that let perfectionism sneak in. What if I could write this many words? What if I could follow this schedule? What if I could double, triple, no, quadruple my word counts? What if, what if, what if.

I’ve set myself up for failure, trying to reach for some ideal. And I’m failing under the pressure. I’m losing my enjoyment of writing.

I’m going to fix this, now that I’ve recognized what’s going on

I’ve stopped the schedule experiment.

I’m ending the push for 1,180,000 words in 12 months. I studied the list of books I want to write and decided I need to focus on only a few series instead of trying to do everything.

It’s impossible. I can’t do everything, not in the time frame I want.

I love all the series I write, I really do, so I picked based on reader interest and money. I settled on 3 series, plus the pen name series. I picked the pen name series not because of reader interest and money but because of potential for those things. Also, if I give up that series, the pen name is dead, and I don’t want that. Not yet. I want to finish that experiment.

That’s not to say I’m not still setting the bar high. I want to release a book every month for my main name, and a book every 3 months for my pen name. For me, that comes to 2,192 words a day.

To be clear, at least to myself, it’s not a daily quota. It’s a goal.

2,000 one day and 2,400 the next will work fine. :)

It’s possible I’m fooling myself, still. 2,192 is still almost 3.5 times my current average daily word count. I’ll have to take that chance. I need to step up to another level in my earnings, and I can’t do that being satisfied with the number of words I’m currently writing each day.

I debated this goal, wondering why this feels necessary, wondering if I was just replacing one unrealistic goal with another, less obviously unrealistic goal, but decided in the end that I have good and valid reasons for not eschewing goals altogether. I can’t expect to get off the income plateau I’m on if I just keep releasing books at my current pace. Growth and improvement are important and having a big goal doesn’t have to mean I’m succumbing to perfectionism. This plan is a stretch, no doubt, but it isn’t grandiose in the same way as my plan to write 1,180,000 words a year.

One reason for that is because I’ll only be focusing on 4 series going forward. The consequences for failure are mild compared to the consequences I’m already facing because I haven’t been able to reach this other, huge, goal.

Even if I only increase my pace to 1,000 words a day, I’ll still be putting out 2 books a year in each series. That’s considerably better than the current schedule for one of those series, which hasn’t seen a new release in 18 months. And let’s not forget that it took me 11 months to put out the second book in the pen name series. I’ve spent too much time writing other stuff, in no particular order, just trying to stay on top of all the series. I can’t keep up.

So going forward, I’ll be writing a book for each series, in the same order every time, and I’ll stick to one book until it’s done before I move to the next.

Could be this is a mistake. But if I reach my 2,192 words for a day, I can write on anything I want, including those series I didn’t choose to make part of my plan. It’s a reward for staying on track.

And if I do stay on track long-term, I’m considering throwing in one of those side projects every three or four cycles through the main series. I’ll consider that a reward to strive for, too.

In the end, it was important for me to recognize that I’d let perfectionism into my planning. I don’t think it’s done my career any favors and it had to go if I want to move forward. It feels weird to give up on this challenge, but sometimes you have to give up on the things that aren’t working to make real progress.

Day 2 of the new schedule

Lynn
Scheduled 9:00-10:30 1:00-2:30 7:30-9:00 Words
Day 1 10:15-11:57 4:29-5:22 .75 hrs  771
Day 2 none  none  none  0

All sessions are 1.5 hours of writing time regardless of length unless I say otherwise.

Day 2

As you can see, I’ve written nothing today. I wasn’t sick, despite being sick yesterday. I just didn’t get started. Instead, I spent lots of time with my daughter and the stray puppy my daughter recently adopted. My daughter left this evening for a week, and the puppy isn’t feeling great after having been spayed yesterday, and I guess I’ll just have to try extra hard to make tomorrow a really good writing day.

Puppy is cute though, huh?

Puppy

Turns out she’s about 6 months old. She’s a very sweet puppy. I wish I liked animals more, but I really don’t. Luckily, my daughter does, so the puppy has someone to play with her.

The puppy makes me pet her every time I go to the door, and she licks my toes. It’s yucky, but I put up with it because I can’t stand the thought of being mean to her. :o

The vet says she’s a mix of a mix, possibly with some Labrador and German Shepherd in her. Whatever she is, she listens better than most, and she’s one of the friendliest dogs I’ve known.

When she arrived, she was clean and well-behaved and looked like she’d been eating well. I also had one of the weirdest incidents I’ve ever had here a night or two after she showed up, and it has me convinced that the puppy showing up on my doorstep wasn’t by chance.

Someone dumped that poor little dog in my yard on purpose.

At about 8:30 the night after she arrived, the neighbor across the street called to let me know someone had stopped in my driveway and then left quickly. Thinking it was strange, and that maybe they’d been messing with my mailbox, I took a flashlight and walked down the drive.

There, right in the middle of my driveway, someone had left an aluminum pie plate piled high with dog food and another full of water.

Someone obviously wanted to make sure the puppy thought my home was her new home.

Like I said, weird. Who the hell stops in someone else’s driveway and leaves food and water for a dog?

Also, what an asshole thing to do. I really didn’t need or want a pet, but I couldn’t very well let the puppy starve. I tried to find her a home, but I couldn’t find anyone interested, and by then, my daughter had really taken to her.

So now we have another dog. Blackie’s getting old so he wasn’t that thrilled to find himself sharing attention, but he’s adapting. I’m not sure I am. I don’t want to care about another dog, but it’s hard to stay hard hearted when they look at you like they do.

Tracking time wastes a lot of time

Lynn

I tried tracking my time for a couple of days, intent on finding out how much time I spend doing the various things I do. What I discovered is that I really know how to waste time: I sure wasted a lot of it on time tracking.

Maybe there’s value in detailed time tracking for someone with a brain that works differently than mine. Maybe I didn’t give it enough time.

My gut tells me that if I had given it any more time, I would have just ended up with more time wasted.

Ah well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I tried a spreadsheet, created a time log, installed apps and tried out different configurations in those apps. Then I spent too much time trying to find the best arrangement of projects and tasks to track. Everything I tried felt wrong: too detailed, not detailed enough. It didn’t help that my idea of what kind of detail I might get the most help from changed every time I managed to get one system set up and tracking.

In the end, I gave up on time tracking to increase productivity.

What I didn’t give up was tracking the time I sleep (which seems kind of weird, I know).

Let me be blunt. I already know what I’m wasting my time on and having it broken down into little increments in a chart doesn’t really add much to that—other than make me feel a bit sick.

If I was capable of using this kind of data to stop those behaviors, I’d have already stopped them. Tracking time doesn’t help me be more efficient, and it doesn’t help my productivity. In fact, all it does is waste my time.

I spend more time focused on perfecting systems than I spend on the work the systems are supposed to help me focus on.

As far as tracking time, I’m tracking my sleep time because I want to know how much I’m sleeping every night. If I find out I’m not sleeping enough and I can correct that, then maybe that will help my productivity.

Of course, the tracking app can’t tell me if I’m actually asleep while it’s tracking, but it can tell me I’m trying to sleep and that’s enough for me. I start the timer when I’m ready to close my eyes at night, and I stop it when I’m ready to get up. For me, that means the logged time is a fairly accurate representation of the amount of time I’m trying to sleep.

I started out using Gleeo Time Tracker for this, but I’m currently using aTimeLogger.

I miss Evernote, but I miss it less after installing Pocket

Lynn

I’m pretty happy with my switch from Evernote to OneNote in most respects, except one. I used Evernote as my to-read list and regularly clipped articles I wanted to read later to a “To Read” notebook. If I liked the article I moved it to my Clipped notebook, where I kept random articles and clippings from the web to revisit later if I wanted.

I don’t organize these articles, because it’s not some massive amorphous list of things I’d like to read someday/maybe. These are articles I absolutely want to read as soon as I have time and I get through them quickly. No one article usually sticks around longer than a week, and if I keep passing it over, I usually just delete it.

I still have those notebooks in OneNote, but OneNote doesn’t quite work like Evernote did and I find it more difficult to read articles I’ve saved.

Pocket has become the solution to that problem—an excellent solution, in fact, because it’s compatible with every device I own and I can read on any of them, much the way I was able to read my Evernote notes on any device, even my 5 year old Droid X.

Although OneNote is compatible with almost all my devices, it won’t run on the old Droid (which I still use as a reading device) or my second generation Kindle Fire. Believe it or not, these are my two favorite reading devices and I choose them over my newer options almost every time, unless I need OneNote. Now I can read on my preferred devices, despite their age.

If I want to save an article, I can visit the original article from Pocket and clip it to OneNote. (I tried it and it works just that easy.) This seems like it’d be extra trouble compared to just moving a clipped article from one notebook to another, but this really isn’t a big deal for me, because I don’t save that many articles. Mostly I read and delete.

And if in the future Pocket goes the way of Evernote and starts limiting device usage, I’ll just go back to reading on OneNote.

Some days, I still miss Evernote. I used it for years and was quite happy with it, so it’s only natural. But now I don’t miss it quite so much. :)

Day 1 of the new schedule

Lynn

I’ve created a table for the results for my latest experiment with a schedule. I have a feeling this one’s going to be a winner. I started off late today but things started off well enough.

I think I was able to get started this morning when I haven’t on so many other days lately because…

  1. Late start
  2. Long breaks
  3. Short sessions

Meaning: It didn’t feel like a huge commitment to sit down and get started.

Scheduled 9:00-10:30 1:00-2:30 7:30-9:00 Words
Day 1 10:15-11:57 4:29-5:22 .75 hrs
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14

All sessions are 1.5 hours of writing time regardless of length unless I say otherwise.

Day 1

Things seemed to be going well and then I got sick. Not sure if it was something I ate or a virus, but I finally cut my second session short and called it a night. I’m disappointed, for sure, but I’m very satisfied with this schedule. Now I’m going to sleep because I still have a stomachache and I’d rather sleep it off than keep suffering. Blame any weird typos on my phone’s auto correct, because I said I’d post an update but I got off the computer hours ago.

Today starts a two week experiment with a new schedule

Lynn

Here’s the writing schedule I’m going to follow for the next two weeks.

9:00-10:30
1:00-2:30
7:30-9:00

Why have I changed my schedule yet again?

The other schedule wasn’t working for me. At all. I didn’t write one single time during my scheduled writing time. Right now, in particular, I’m having trouble with getting started, and the large blocks of time weren’t helping that. Even two hours felt like too much of a commitment when there wasn’t a lot of time empty between the sessions.

So I created this new schedule with one thing in mind: making sure I don’t feel like I have a job.

That’s important. I don’t ever want writing to feel like a job.

  • I split the time blocks up so that I have huge breaks between writing sessions.
  • I made the sessions as short as I could while making them long enough that I can still get into flow during them.
  • I gave myself 3 of them so my total writing time each day fits into my long-term goals. 3 × 1.5 = 4.5 hours.
  • I started the first one later in the morning so I can sleep late if I have a bad night of sleep.
  • I’m not going to move the scheduled times if something comes up to preempt the time. I’ll just assume that I’ll miss one or two of these a month and live with that knowledge. (I won’t schedule anything during these times unless there’s no other choice.)
  • I’m not going to skip a session and claim that as a preempted time. I’ll just start writing as soon as I can near the time I was supposed to start and write for 1.5 hours. There’s enough time between sessions that this shouldn’t be a big deal.

I’m feeling hopeful this morning that this is the right thing to do.

Now, I’m off to get that first session done. I’ll post later today with the results for the first day of this experiment.

Here’s an update on a few other ongoing experiments

The no sweets experiment has been working really well (I’m down 4 pounds in two weeks), and I’ve decided to extend it indefinitely. The only exception is that I will allow myself sweets if I go to a birthday party, which is rarely more often than once a month, and usually less often. I’ll also allow myself sweets at my family’s annual Christmas party, but that’s it. These exceptions are clearly defined so they shouldn’t put any decision-making stress on me. That’s something I’ve liked about this experiment: no decisions. If it’s a sweet, the answer to “Can I?” is simple: “No.”

No caffeine: I haven’t had any coffee and I haven’t had any other caffeinated drinks either.

No Kboards or TPV: I haven’t been back to Kboards or TPV since I started that experiment. The fear of missing out is what was keeping me clicking on links. I’ve read a few author blogs I’d begun to ignore and checked out a podcast or two, but I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything, other than the entertainment factor I get from reading the posts themselves. This experiment has been good for me.

Experiments update

Lynn

In my post about how moderation doesn’t work for me, I laid out a plan for an experiment with abstinence and a strict adherence to my schedule.

It’s been a few days. And yeah. Some of it’s working out pretty well. Some of it isn’t.

Here are the details.

The no sweets experiment is going well, if you ignore the fact that I’m having a ridiculous number of cravings. Weight is down about four pounds and I’m eating anything I want except sweets and obvious junk like potato chips (which I don’t eat often anyway). I am definitely not going hungry.

The schedule experiment still hasn’t taken off, and today doesn’t seem poised to change that. Still, I’m going to get some writing done, because I want to and that’s going to be enough to get me to the computer at 2. (I’ve already missed the window for the 8-11 block, as it’s 12:57 PM right now.)

I haven’t relapsed with the coffee, despite several strong cravings.

I haven’t been back to Kboards or TPV.

It’s all a work in progress

Lynn

Hmm. It’s possible I was overly optimistic about my start time today for writing, since I was trying to make up for a really short night of sleep the night before.

You see, the night before last, I stayed up and binge watched Stranger Things on Netflix. I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t mean to, certainly, but once I got started watching it, I couldn’t quit. I think my lack of self-control is tied in to everything that’s been going on with my writing. On the other hand, I burned myself out and I’m going on a TV watching hiatus outside of my lunch break. (I watch TV during that time with my daughter and she would not be happy with me if I cut out that time together. So, not giving that up.)

Because of how tired I was yesterday, I stayed up late last night. I know that sounds at odds with how that’s supposed to work, but for some reason, when I’m desperately tired because of lack of sleep, I find it much easier to stay up late. I get a surge of energy in the evenings, usually around 8 or 9 o’clock and I start to feel like I can finally make up for a lackluster day. It’s a routine, or might as well be. It’s also one reason I have a hard time getting back into good sleep patterns when I mess up even just one night—and it’s why I try not to do that. I didn’t succeed last night and ended up getting to sleep around 12:30 AM. So of course, this morning I woke up at 6:56 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep, although I did try. I shouldn’t have. It did no good and it led me to getting up much later than I wanted to get up today.

It’s also put me off my stride and I’m struggling to get started this morning.

Not only that, but there’s a leak in a pipe in the basement and a repairman is here to fix it, and that’s also been a distraction.

But… even though I know it’s late, I’m about to try anyway. Since no one is here to notice that I’m not stopping at 11 AM today (the 11 AM to 2 PM break is not a break so much as it’s reserved non-work time), I’m going to write from now until 12 and then stop. After that, I’ll restart at 2 PM and go from there.

The goal today is unchanged: 3,233 words.

One thing you won’t find mention of is the multiple books experiment. I think it really works for me, but… I also think it has its flaws. If I’m still going to end up struggling to write the way I’ve been struggling these past two months, I think it’s best if I focus all my energy on one book at a time.

I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason I’m having such a hard time with the particular book I’m working on now is because I’ve spread it out over such a long time period. According to the files in my backups folder, I made my first backup of that story back on 2/8/2015. That means I’ve been working on this book, in one way or another, for almost 18 months. That’s too long to spend on a book. I lose interest. I lose focus. I can’t write without either of those. I lose the threads of the story, and that’s worst of all, I think, because it leads to the other two problems.

This is something I just realized a few days ago. The multiple stories experiment has failed to keep me writing. If I’m going to struggle, I might as well reserve that struggle for one book so I can have a better chance of keeping up my momentum with whatever particular story I’m working on.

Anyway, it’s all a work in progress. I keep feeling like someday I’ll find the perfect system that’ll keep writing fun and keep me writing, but the truth is I know that’s not going to happen. I just have to keep doing whatever it takes to make as much progress as I can. I do love to write when a story is going well, and I’m happier doing this than I’ve ever been at any of my previous jobs. It’ll work out if I just keep moving. :)

Starting tomorrow: new plan, same schedule

Lynn

My current plan seems not to be working, but I don’t want to give up on the schedule just yet, because the reason it’s not working is definitely a personal one. Motivational issues, trouble getting started, all those usual things that plague me.

Anyway, the new plan is to just allow myself to write during the 8-11 and 2-5 time periods. Yes, it’s a bit of a mind game, but something’s got to be done.

Oh, and I did tweak the afternoon start time for the schedule, because I really think I need that longer break in the middle of the day (family, nap, reasons) and I might be more successful with this if I don’t set myself up for failure right off. That’s also the reason I’m sticking with the 8 AM start time for the time being. If I start earlier, that’s great, but it doesn’t seem to be likely, so why plan for it?

So tomorrow, I give this another go, and I do it by allowing myself to write from 8-11 and 2-5.

I deleted the alarms I’d set on my phone for my writing start times and I got rid of the detailed session lengths I had mapped out in my calendar (8-8:50, 9-9:50, etc.).

I’m trying to get away from the mindset of having to force myself to write. Honestly, if this is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life, it’s already time to move on and find another career. I certainly can’t keep this up forever!

All that said, the truth is that I believe my problems with writing almost always come down to a combination of perfectionism, fear of failure, and pressure. If I can mitigate those feelings, I can get to a better place with my writing—and have more fun with it—and maybe I’ll make real progress toward some of my larger writing goals.

That’s the plan anyway!

Self-sabotage has been the rule of the day

Lynn

Could it be that I’m suffering sugar withdrawal? Is that a thing? A real thing, at any rate, and not just something in my head? Because I’m definitely feeling out of sorts today. Maybe it’s just panic because I still can’t seem to make myself do any real work on my books.

I’ve written 372 words today, which I got in 39 minutes, so it’s not like I’m incapable of writing at a somewhat normal speed at the moment. But my brain feels sluggish, my thoughts scattered, and my ability to concentrate and focus is nonexistent. I thought I was going to die before that first 50 minutes was up! In the end, I couldn’t hold out. I had to get away from the computer, so I cut the session short at 39 minutes. And that was that. I haven’t been able to get back to it and here it is 5:14 pm.

I know something’s wrong because here’s what I’ve done today: I added all my email accounts to Thunderbird as POP3 accounts. I deleted the IMAP accounts. Then I added all my accounts as IMAP accounts, and followed that up by copying all my email into folders and deleting the POP3 accounts. Then I changed my mind, started to delete the IMAP accounts and replace them with POP3 accounts but stopped partially through that because I realized I had no idea what I wanted.

What I really wanted, I think, is to not think about the fact that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing.

 

Follow up to the follow up

Lynn

I did NOT write any fiction today. I didn’t do anything else writing or publishing related either. What I did do was… something. I swear it seemed important at the time, but I can’t even remember it at the moment.

Oh, yeah. I closed an account related to a pen name I’m not going to use and then deleted the google account that I’d set up for email for it, then got caught up with clearing up some email forwarding issues and the like. I spent much more time on that whole thing than was worth it. Seriously.

I also cleared out my saved passwords, tried to create a time tracking spreadsheet but gave up when I realized it wasn’t going to do anything but disappoint me when I don’t keep it updated, and… there was something else. I mean, I know I spent the entire day at the computer, and I didn’t spend any of it reading the forums and blogs I’ve committed to staying away from indefinitely. The time went somewhere.

I did download and set up a habit tracking app on my phone: Loop – Habit Tracker. The first habit I set up was “write every day” so I can get on top of my lack of writing. :o I added “no sweets” and “read fiction” on there too, because I’d like to track those. Other than that, I can’t remember what else I did with my day.

Ah, well. I already know I didn’t use my time wisely today.

Tomorrow I’ll do better. I’ll certainly try.

Follow up for several ongoing experiments

Lynn

I’ve stuck to the new food rules and avoided sweets entirely, with the exception of a teaspoon of honey each day (in some yogurt and orange spice tea). Weight is going down, if I can trust the scale after only two days.

The schedule is working well. Sort of. I worked all day yesterday during my work time and during some make up time for the day before. HOWEVER, almost none of that time was writing. What time I did spend writing was spent editing a few bits of the story that weren’t going right and all I did was lose words.

Today I need to prioritize writing over other work.

I did come to a decision on one of my series book cover redesigns. I’ve been unable to make a commitment to a style for the typography—every time I do, I second guess myself. This has taught me one thing: writing isn’t the only place where I let perfectionism hold me back. So yesterday, after an entire day of trying changes that just didn’t work, I decided to stick with what I have and move forward with it.

Because of that decision, I now have two covers complete, one almost complete, and a draft version of two more. I’m going to load the covers as soon as possible, to stop myself from more of this waffling.

Until the covers and files are done and loaded everywhere, I’m making this my focus for the “after writing” time I’m hoping to have soon.

Anyway, I started writing this post with a 15 minute timer running and I’m down to less than two minutes. Time to get writing some fiction. :)

Fuzzy feeling but no headache—yet

Lynn

I’ve kept to my plan to take ibuprofen today in advance of the headache I’m worried about, and so far, it’s paid off. I had a really fuzzy feeling just before, during, and after lunch, but I tried to nap at 12:30, but I never drifted off, got back to work, stared at the screen for a while, then gave up to try again on the nap. This time I think I drifted off for a few moments, and I do feel better than I did.

Progress today? I’ve written 107 words. I have no motivation to write at all. I just don’t want to do it. Boo. :(

End of day update (a day later)

I finished with 424 words about half each between two stories.

Other than 1 teaspoon or so of honey with some yogurt, I successfully stayed away from added sugar. I’ll be honest, there were several times yesterday that I just knew I’d write better if I just had a single cup of hot chocolate. It was quite hard to talk myself out of it.

It was eggs, fruit, homemade chili, chicken and vegetables yesterday, all cooked the way I liked.

Of course, I dreamed of sweets last night. Sweets and death, oddly enough. I was at the home of a beloved aunt and apparently someone had just murdered her children and we were all eating. I was wondering if anyone would notice that I wanted a piece of every kind of pie present. Then the dream morphed and I was eating chocolate covered cherries. There were other weird bits to the dreams but those are the bits that stood out most. The pies played a prominent role.

Obviously this sweets abstinence thing is weighing heavy on my mind. I’m pretty convinced at this point that the sweets are an addiction I need to leave behind. I’ll be blunt: I’ve never been successful with anything that depended on moderation. Abstinence is probably the only way I’ll ever be successful at this.

I have the same issue with reading forums and blogs. The moment I allow myself any leeway there at all, I’m using them for a distraction when I should be working. It always seems to be all or nothing with me. :o

So… I’ve just decided I’m going to kick that habit too. No more Writers’ Cafe at Kboards and no more The Passive Voice. The reason these two are so much a problem for me is because they have new posts at irregular intervals all day long and very active communities who post replies and comments. It’s easy to find myself checking to see if anything’s changed throughout the day. There’s a reward for constant checking. I do worry a bit about falling behind on industry news, but to tell the truth, podcasts and author blogs will probably keep me plenty up to date with nary a visit to Kboards or TPV.