Year: 2015

I’m on pace for 1,090 wph right now. Sounds great, huh? It isn’t that great. That’s for 18 minutes of writing out of 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Because…

I’m not supposed to have WIFI access right now. I’m supposed to have it turned off while I’m doing my morning writing. I didn’t turn it off when I should have and now… well, now I’m updating posts, posting to my author site, and just generally using it to distract myself.

Since I’m trying to get my challenge off the ground today, I need to fully finish this morning’s writing session before I have to stop for some non-writing stuff that I can’t get out of doing today. If I’m behind after that’s done, I won’t catch up. There just won’t be enough time in the day without sacrificing sleep time and I can’t do that without risking tomorrow’s writing.

So, I’m going to have to take corrective action on these developing bad habits. WIFI must stay off during writing time.

And that’s my cue to post this and shut off my WIFI access until I get this morning’s writing finished. I have an hour and 52 minutes to go—unless I can hang onto that 1,090 wph pace. ;) That’d be a really nice start to today.

 

I wrote 1,023 words yesterday (I think). This is another case of not remembering exactly but I’ll check later and correct this if I need to. I do know it was over 1,000 words. :) (I was wrong about it being 1,012 words, but I’ve corrected it now.)

I’m about to get settled in to try starting that challenge again today. I’m wishing myself good (and speedy) writing today! You can wish me luck too if you want! ;)

I wrote 158 words yesterday. I’d say I was embarrassed, after writing that post about how I was going to get to work and finish the time I still had on my timer and get started on my next session, but honestly, I’m really not. :D It is what it is. I couldn’t stand looking at the work and I bailed for the night and watched tv instead.

Today I tried to get a challenge for myself off the ground, but so far it looks like I’ve failed. I wrote for most of my morning session but I’d started late (school’s been out again for bad weather yesterday and today) and then the writing dragged, so I paused with 35 minutes left on the timer. I plan to finish it here shortly but the original plan had been to do the morning session, a mid-morning session of the same length of time, and then my evening session.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the mid-morning session started and it’s looking like I won’t have time tonight to get that session in even if I wanted to.

I might just shelve this one until tomorrow, hit my minimum tonight, read a book, and go to bed happy. :)

I got in another few words last night but I never did settle in for that evening writing session. All in all, I wrote 1,606 words yesterday.

I’m trying again today to finish 2 sessions, but I’ve already put myself at a disadvantage. I started my morning session, wasn’t making good progress (158 words after 50 minutes!), so I paused it and decided to revisit later. Well, later is now and it’s 6:19 pm. :o

Still, the plan is to finish that session and then move right into the evening one. It’s just been that kind of day. We’ll see if it improves any.

I wrote 1,577 words this morning—but I almost didn’t. At 51 minutes left on the timer, I was only about 100 words from my projected minimum (1,084 words at 500 wph) and I thought seriously about quitting as soon as I hit it. I hadn’t made up my mind when I passed that number but I wasn’t paying close attention to the timer and the next time I stopped it, it was at 21 minutes. I decided to work on my last paragraph just a bit more and restarted it. Then at 10 minutes left, I was over 1,300 words and I was so close to giving up, but… I only had 10 minutes left after all so I managed to convince myself to persevere, so I doubled checked a plot issue that crosses over from the last book to this one and by the time the timer went off, I’d written another couple hundred words. Yay!

I enjoyed a successful morning and that’s even including a phone call from my sister. I really like talking to my family and I almost never turn them away. So… I just have to work around it.

I admit, 8:55 am to 12:50 pm for 2 hours and 10 minutes of writing isn’t exactly efficient, but it seems to be about the best I can do. :o I really should have started at 7:30 and this morning I’m not really sure why I didn’t. Oh well. I’m happy and I have a long break ahead of me regardless because 7:30 pm is still many hours away! Toodle-ooh. :D

So, today I’m really going to push for that second session tonight. I did manage to pull up my morning pace so that I finished only 65 words under my minimum. I wrote 1,019 words this morning. If things go okay tonight, I might be able to make that up without too much trouble and end the day where I’m hoping to end it: >2,000 words!

But I am taking a break because my head feels funny and I can’t concentrate. I had to turn the heat up. I also had a really strange dizzy spell, while sitting down!, but I think it’s because I’m still phlegmy from that cold (or another one, who knows at this point), and it’s possible I’m having some ear trouble.

Anyway, that’s just to say I’m having trouble staying in my story and my mind keeps wandering. I’m going to give myself 5 more minutes and then I’m getting back to work to try to plow through the hour and twenty minutes I have left of this morning session. I’m bummed because my pace right now is only 371 wph so if I don’t pick up speed, I’m not going to reach my minimum for this morning’s writing. Wish me luck. :)

I wrote 153 words today and every bit of that was the 23 minutes I needed to catch up from yesterday. After that, I had planned to write at 7:30 pm, but I never got started.

I’m noticing a pattern here. I think I’m going to have to push for the time in the evening because I’m not doing it just because I ought to. Finally, the morning time is really going to have to be the one session I prioritize every single day because if I don’t do it, I don’t seem to do much writing at all.

Now, to figure out how I’m going to push for that evening time… My current habits don’t seem to want to give way for it (and that’s probably the biggest problem with it, but I’d LOVE to be able to make it work as is).

One last note. I found out today that my toddler niece has the flu. Yesterday she sat directly across from me at a small card table and coughed in my direction more than once. I knew she wasn’t feeling well but I didn’t imagine she had the flu, poor thing. Either way though, I have my fingers crossed that I haven’t caught the flu. I really meant to get the flu shot this year and I just never got around to it. According to the CDC, it could take 1 to 4 days to show symptoms, with 2 days being average. You can bet I’ll be watching with an eagle eye for any signs of illness!

Still, I better get on the ball tomorrow and get some decent word counts in because I definitely need to build up a buffer. This is not a month in which I want to fall behind.

I wrote 244 words yesterday. I lost a lot of time to a scene I wrote the day before. In an hour I’d managed only to add 52 more words than I deleted. The scene didn’t need that kind of work, either, so that’s kind of a bummer.

I’m not getting sucked into that again until the final read through (when it’s possible I’ll ignore it then too). :D

I came up short about 20 minutes on my morning time, so I’m going to make that up today before I start this morning’s time.

My average since I got back on the daily writing wagon is still over 1,000 words a day. If I can push myself to start hitting that evening session (still haven’t done it), that’ll double my word count and push me past the 2,000 a day average mark. Good luck me! :D

Hmm. Although I wrote 1,103 words today, I’m noticing that I’m spending a lot of time in the afternoons and evenings watching television instead of doing something more important (like reading! writing! or publishing tasks!).

That said, I’ve made it to day 5 of this streak with an average of over 1,000 words a day. Now to convert that to 2,000 words a day without derailing my progress. I think I’ll let it ride just a little longer before I mess with the good thing I’ve got going here.

What is it I have going here? Well, I’m writing in the mornings and planning to write in the evenings. I say planning because I haven’t actually done any writing in the evenings yet. My routine is simple: I write for 2 hours 10 minutes in the morning first thing, and then write for 2 hours 10 minutes in the evening last thing (start around 7:30 am and 7:30 pm). This leaves the vast majority of my day completely free. :) I am loving it.

I have a reason for the 2 hours 10 minutes but I’m not going to bore you. Suffice to say, it’s on a spreadsheet and it’s a very dynamic number that I’ll revisit monthly, assuming I’m able to stick with this one for a while. :)

I wrote 1,345 words today. I’m really pleased with the plan I’m following. I might need to try a little harder with certain aspects of it if I want to reach 2,000 words a day regularly but I’m going to give it another few days before I force the issue. I might just be building up to it. Weather related school closings have continued and there are some administrative days coming, so I won’t actually be back into my normal routine until Wednesday. :o

Either way, there’s no doubt this is a streak now. :D I just finished day 4.

I wrote 1,302 words today. I’ll have to correct this tomorrow if I’m remembering incorrectly. Too tired to fire up the computer tonight and double check. :)

(Yep. I got it right.)

I wrote 1,734 words today. Two days of writing in a row. It’s official. It’s a streak. ;)

I’m not finished with the day’s writing, but I can say now that this isn’t going to be a 0 word day. I think I’m going to like this new plan. I’ll tell you about it later this week after I see if it has legs. ;)

So after having another 0 word day yesterday, I sat down and created a new plan. I’m optimistic. I’ll tell you later if it works.

Let’s see. I wrote a gigantic post detailing why I’m still not writing each day. Then it occurred to me: Don’t dwell on the past.