Fiction writer. Expert procrastinator. This is my life.
Oct. 9: 3,106
Oct. 10: 0
Oct. 11: 149
Daily average since 9/19: 903
===Notes===
So, I finally finished that book! Then I had to take a day off to read it. Then I did some light edits. Now I’m about to resume writing on another book I want to release this year.
I’m trying to make up for the dry spell that went on for so long, and I have no idea if I’ll be able to do it or not, but I have a goal to end this year with my best annual word count since I started this thing.
780 words.
Should have been more. A lot more, but even those words were ridiculously hard won yesterday.
Daily average since 9/19: 877 words.
Oct. 6: 2,360
Oct. 7: 1,736
Daily average since 9/19: 882
6 day average: 2,303
===Notes===
Well, I’ve been working much harder than it feels like I’ve should’ve had to work to reach these word counts, but I have noticed a pattern in that usually writing the end of a book is slower for me than the beginning and the middle.
The beginning tends to be where I do my fastest writing, and the end seems to be where I pay for all the liberties I’ve taken early on in the story and have to make it all work. :D
Since I started following a writing schedule again, I’ve found that some adjustments have had to be made. A few things just weren’t working out how I’d like.
I added an extra half hour for the midday break. I also stopped an hour earlier for lunch and moved that hour to after lunch.
Scheduled times
7 to 12 became 7 to 11, while 1 to 4 became 12:30 to 4:30.
I’ve only tried this for one day, and not successfully, let me add, but possibly because it’s fall break for the schools here and I keep messing up my 7 am start time. Still, the lunch hour wasn’t working. I’ve had to adjust it every day, so building that into the schedule makes more sense than not.
Session times
First it was 50 minute sessions, then 15 minutes, then 25 minutes. They each worked at different times this week, but I’m moving permanently back to 50 minute sessions for planning writing output because of how well they work within the framework I’ve constructed. It’s very easy to account for how many sessions I should have completed in any number of hour long blocks if I assume 50 minutes writing time to 10 minutes break time.
One change I’ve made is that I’m not longer stressing over whether or not I can complete the entire 50 minutes without a break. (Too much tea, I know. I can’t help it. I feel compelled to have something to drink while I write.) I just plan to write for 50 minutes, pause the timer when necessary, and aim to complete the 50 minute session within the one hour block. Now this? This is something that’s actually had a much bigger impact on how I feel about these long sessions than I would have thought. The new perspective is working great. No more resentment for long sessions, or hesitation to start one, because it’s perfectly okay to pause the session. In fact, I expect it. There’s also a bit of pressure to get back to it quickly that’s helpful (because the timer is paused). It’s working out much better than the break between sessions. That’s where I’m still having a lot of trouble with distractions. :)
Session goals
One thing I realized right away was that I wasn’t just pushing for higher word counts per hour with the sessions. I was also demotivating myself a bit. Not much, just enough that I really started to notice it yesterday. The problem is that I use my number of sessions times my word count goal to estimate what goal I should have for a day’s writing. The numbers made me feel too optimistic about the chances I’d have of reaching really (really) high word counts, despite what I know of my historical performance.
So I scaled back. I might want to write 250 per 15 minute session, or 325 per 25 minutes, or 600 or 800 per 50 minute session, but that’s just not that likely, and it’s no way to plan. I can still hold all those numbers in my head as goals, but they’re really no good for planning.
I’ve settled on a 550 word goal for each 50 minute session for planning purposes. That’s 660 words per hour. My average the last time I checked was about 641 wph, and my all time average was about 541 wph, so it’s a bit of a push, but not an overwhelming one.
I know how many words I need to finish several of the books I’ve got going, I just needed estimates of sessions and words to get me to a daily plan to make it happen by the deadlines I’ve set myself (publicly this time). The book lengths are estimates, of course, but I don’t mind adjusting how much writing I need to do each day if I see that a book is going longer than I planned. It happens more often than not, to be honest, and that’s another reason overly optimistic word count expectations are a problem for me.
My former session goals led me to create deadlines that were just too tight. I gave myself some much needed breathing room. :)
Oct. 4: 2,968
Oct. 5: 2,225
Daily average since 9/19: 752 words.
===Notes===
I’m still working on getting better about sticking to my scheduled writing times. I find myself distracted during the blocks of time, and instead of having time for four 50 minute sessions in a four hour period, I’m coming up with two or three, if I’m lucky. :o
This morning I haven’t been that lucky.
For example, this morning: 9 to 1 – I planned for four 50 minute sessions in that period. I managed two. So I reached half the word count I wanted. But no, not even that, because I averaged 100 words less (or thereabouts) per session than I planned.
This is a huge problem, because what ends up being a few hours of writing takes all day. And because I’m not really on break or relaxing during the time I’m not writing, I exhaust my writing energy. (I manage to make almost all this unproductive time feel like work, don’t ask me how.)
So, priority goal: find some way to stop getting sidetracked during the blocks of time I’ve set aside in my schedule!
1,470 words.
Not as many words as I hoped. (See below.)
Daily average since 9/19: 522 words.
At least it’s still rising, right?
===Notes===
One thing I’ve decided today is that I have to get serious about starting on time in the mornings.
Starting late seems to have a major effect on how well I’m able to stick to the schedule the rest of the day. It also sets me up for a slow start and a low word count.
That’s not what I want.
Today was an excellent example of what starting late does to my day.
What I was aiming for
625 by 8 am
1250 by 9 am
1875 by 10 am
2500 by 11 am
3125 by 1 pm
3750 by 2 pm
4375 by 3 pm
5000 by 4 pm
What actually happened
| Session Time in Hours | Session Words | WPH |
| 0.8333 | 496 | 595 |
| 0.8333 | 391 | 469 |
| 0.8333 | 409 | 491 |
| 0.45 | 174 | 387 |
There’s really only one way to solve this, and that’s to get to bed on time, then get to writing before I let any distractions get in the way.
Of course, my word counts weren’t up to speed either, but that’s likely something I’ll have to address after I get settled into a better routine.
3,056 words.
My best day in around FIVE months. :)
Daily average since 9/19: 459 words.
That jumped that average up a bit.
0 words.
And I’m back to zero.
Daily average since 9/19: 273 words.
1,766 words.
Whew. That’s an improvement over yesterday’s number.
Daily average since 9/19: 294 words.
Yesterday was a total failure in terms of words written. The more elaborate the plans, the more likely I’ll spend all my time on the plans and not on the doing of the plans.
Today’s plan was simple. I set aside some time for writing only (using my calendar and schedule) and I wrote during that time. Finally, a day of (mostly) success!
The last several months constitute the worst string of months for my word counts that I’ve had since I started this gig in 2012. I felt a strong need to end today feeling like I’m finally getting back on track.
9:30 to 2:30
The goal was 200 words x 3 sessions of 15 minutes each hour x 5 hours = 3,000 words.
I wrote 1,766 words. I came up short 7 sessions. Not sure how I got so far off track, but I did have a lot of coffee and tea this morning and had to take very frequent breaks.
2:30 to 4:30
I wanted to get started proofing this book, so I planned to proof 4 chapters. I proofed half a chapter, short of my goal by 3.5 chapters. I was just not feeling it when I was reading this book this afternoon.
5:00 to 8:00
Became 5:30 to 8:30. Then 6:45 to 9:45. Then 7:30 to 10:30. Unfortunately, I had a really hard time getting started with this one. My bad night’s sleep last night caught up to me.
The goal was 200 words x 3 sessions of 15 minutes each hour x 3 hours = 1,800 words.
I didn’t do any writing at all during this time (except for this post) and finally just decided to spend the time with family instead.
28 words.
Kind of a joke, I know. Sometimes, unfortunately, my life does feel a bit like a joke gone wrong. ;)
Daily average since 9/19: 172 words.
And it’s going down again. Fantastic. >.<
Yeah. It’s not really fantastic.
1,101 words.
So. 1,101 words is a far cry from the 6,000 I wanted to reach yesterday. Was 6,000 a realistic goal after such a long dry spell? No. But I don’t really care that much about realistic goals. I’m always just interested in finding a way to overcome the natural tendency I have toward a lack of action. I like writing. I like doing things. But I have a really hard time with the getting started part of just about everything. Unrealistic goals sometimes helps, as long as I don’t let my failures get me down. Sometimes they do, and when that happens, I usually step back, drop the goals, and start over.
Daily average since 9/19: 185 words.
It’ll take a while for my daily average to recover even writing lots of words every day. :D I’ll suffer through it. I’m not resetting the start date for this.
And today I discovered that no matter what I do, I can no longer delete tables in the visual editor of WordPress. This matters because tables that look quite small and should be able to be deleted with a simple highlight and delete are often a pain in the butt to delete in the text editor because the code for tables can be quite long on the page.
I certainly hope this one doesn’t hang around a long time. I absolutely hate having to switch to the text editor every time I need to delete a table. I paste tables into WordPress a lot and I’m grateful that at least I got that functionality back after it disappeared in one the previous WordPress updates. But still…
It’s not the end of the world, by far, but it’s definitely not my favorite thing. :(
So, what to call this kind of post? I’ve decided on “writing in progress post” because it seems to fit.
Yes, I really do hope my stories come across as more creative than my blog titles. ;)
I’ve done plenty of these kinds of posts before, but I want them to be easier to pick out when I’m skimming the list so they’re getting their own special name, just like the word count posts I’ve started posting.
Now, on to today’s writing.
3 × 15 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of 250 words a session
HOWEVER, if I haven’t reached 750 by the end of the hour, I’m going to consider that hour not finished. An hour must reach 750 words before I can move on to the next hour. I’m hoping this will only actually take 8 hours of writing, but… wishes and horses, you know? ;)
Updating at the end of each hour… or so. :D
| End of hour goal | |||||||
| 1 | 750 | 38 | 218 | 433 | 530 | 719 | 774 |
| 2 | 1500 | 835 | 915 | 1101 | |||
| 3 | 2250 | ||||||
| 4 | 3000 | ||||||
| 5 | 3750 | ||||||
| 6 | 4500 | ||||||
| 7 | 5250 | ||||||
| 8 | 6000 |
It’s very, very obvious that I’m not up to speed. I’m not actually at new words yet because I started with the chapter I left off at when my progress stalled. It’s okay. I’ll be past it soon and on to all new stuff. I just have to figure out what the heck is supposed to happen next (which is possibly part of the reason I’ve been avoiding this book)!
Halfway through hour 2, I had to change how this table was set up. It wasn’t working at all easily with my word count spreadsheet.
Something that’s really bothering me today (and it could just be a today issue) is that the 15 minutes isn’t giving me enough time to get into the zone. I’m taking advantage of too many breaks, and they’re taking too much time away from the writing. I should have finished significantly more sessions by now than I have. Possibly time to reevaluate.
Alrighty. I did some reevaluating. For the moment, the 15 minute sessions just aren’t working. I don’t know why, exactly, but I have thoughts on it. So, for the moment, and maybe for more than the moment, I’m going to switch the 3 15 minute sessions an hour to a 45 minute session. That’s the only adjustment I’m making right now. Since the whole point is the scheduled writing time, my session lengths are the least important part of the plan and I’m not the least bit put off that I’ve already needed to make changes to that. It’s all about the trade off between how long I need to get into the zone and how long I can stay focused and keep my writing pace high enough to get me better word counts. :)
It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t seem to stay on schedule today enough to get in all the hours I wanted. All I can assume (because I wasn’t tracking it precisely) is that the breaks were just significantly longer than they needed to be and that it added up to a huge chunk of wasted time. Not feeling well for the last couple of days has also made me drag a bit, so I understand some of that. Anyway, on to tomorrow. I have high hopes I’m picking up some momentum. Now all I need to do is get a better night’s sleep.
0 words. (But I made an awesome schedule.)
Daily average since 9/19: 93 words.
So… I’ve been thinking again. We all know I favor thinking over action as often as I can. ;)
I was writing my word count post yesterday when I realized that I really have become the kind of writer I don’t want to be: unreliable, undisciplined, and full of excuses for why my books are languishing unwritten.
Even knowing how badly I needed to produce words yesterday, I put it off and ended up wanting to pull my hair out over my own resistance to doing something I like to do (write). I ended up here, writing that post.
What I realized is that I’m going to have to change, whether I want to or not. I’m not going to be that kind of writer. Or person. Or whatever. :)
I have the ability to self-discipline. I just really don’t like doing it and I talk myself into the mindset that life shouldn’t be about schedules and discipline, especially if I’m doing something I like. But that’s just not true. Maybe it should be about discipline and schedules because it’s something I like.
Anyway, I’m here only to say that I’ve made a new schedule. It’s one I’m going to start following today, and it’s not a guideline this time, it’s a rule.
I’m going to adjust it as needed to make sure I meet my writing goals. What set this off yesterday wasn’t actually me realizing I was putting off what needed done, again, but a conversation I had with my sister about needing to lose more weight and what I was going to do about it. I told her I was going to go back to counting calories in a spreadsheet I have, because that’s what really works for me because I’m very numbers oriented.
That made me realize that for my writing, this probably explains why my spreadsheet is so motivating to me, and also made me realize I need to utilize that more. I had at one time included deadlines on the spreadsheet but decided they sucked the fun out of writing. But I’m not so sure about that. There’s definitely fun to be had figuring out how many words I need to write to meet that deadline.
I think the problem was thinking of those deadlines as set in stone while I kept underestimating the word counts for book length on most of my books. As long as I keep in mind that adjustments are perfectly okay and not a flaw in the system, I can see this working for me.
On the other hand, I really only want to do that for the books I’m behind on, so I can get them out ASAP, and then settle into my goal for more 2000+ word days. :)
This is not an experiment so much as it’s a challenge. I’ve told myself I can’t drop this plan or decide I don’t need to follow a schedule after all because it’s too restrictive—what silly nonsense. I made the schedule based on my own needs. No one is telling me what to do here; I’ve just figured out that these are the best times for me to do what I already want to do, for the benefit of both my future and current self. Being schedule-less just isn’t working out well for me and my sinking numbers for this year are yelling at me to make changes or risk losing the future I most want (continuing to write fiction for a living).
I’m going to do my best to follow the schedule. Some days, like today, I’ll have to make adjustments right off, but it’s a plan and I plan to keep on it.
7 to 12: writing, 3 sessions of 15 minutes, with a goal of 250 words per session (on publishing days I won’t be writing)
1 to 4: currently needed to catch up to where I need to be on several projects, writing some days, same as above, more likely doing publishing stuff, such as proofing chapters of whatever I’m working on
Because this is a 7 day a week schedule, the 1 to 4 won’t continue indefinitely. That’s 56 hours a week, and I don’t want to work that many hours every week unless a story is driving me to it. It’s just that right now I’m really behind on some stuff, so I need to work until 4 if I want to get this stuff done. By the middle of October, if I can stick to this, I’ll be in a much better place and will be able to adjust my schedule accordingly, for shorter hours. 5 hours x 7 days a week is a much more comfortable 35 hours a week, doing something I really like doing. And if I show that I can meet my goals and work fewer hours, I’ll take advantage of that.
However things end up, the plan is to have regular hours for my writing and publishing, so I can settle into a strong routine and actually start being productive in one way or another most days. I’m done ending every day feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything worthwhile.
Now, I’m late starting my work today, because of writing this post, so I’m going to call this post done.
0 words.
I don’t want to be the kind of writer I seem to have become. :(
Daily average since 9/19: 103 words.
0 words.
164 words.
(12) words.
0 words.
778 words.
And that sums that up. This hasn’t been the restart I’ve been hoping for, but last night I seem to have finally started to get somewhere. That 778 words falls in the low word count day* range, but it’s still a massive improvement over zero. :)
Daily average since 9/19: 116 words.
I have a ways to go to reach my new goal of fewer low word count days, but I’m not restarting this one and I’m not giving up on it.
*Scale:
1,000 = low word count day
2,000 = average word count day
3,000 = moderate word count day
4,000 = high word count day
5,000 = record breaking word count day (always, because 5k is such a push for me)
Now, despite today’s late start (jury duty and a lot of other interruptions today), I’m aiming for a moderate word count today.
0 words.
Yesterday, I was supposed to write a lot more than 0 words. :o
I’m also supposed to be aiming for fewer low word count days, not a bunch of zero word count days!
Daily average since 9/19: 0 words.
0 words.
This is the first of what I’m planning to make a regular post type on the site for tracking my latest experiment (new goal).
Daily average since 9/19: 0 words.