Year: 2017

Let’s try that again

Lynn

I made my goal yesterday, but fast it wasn’t. :)

First goal today: 1,557 words as fast as I can.

I don’t write ugly drafts so if you’re thinking I’m going to run off and start sprinting out thousands of words in short order, this is probably your first visit here. :D

Anyway, will update progress today because it seems to be working for me as a motivational tool at the moment. :)

Progress—

1:17 pm: ended a session at 38 minutes, wrote 291 words.

2:53 pm: ended two sessions that totaled 25 minutes, wrote 184 words.

Spider in my front door stole my attention for nearly two hours. I am phobic and the spider was RIGHT THERE, dropping down in front of me. And it was huge. The web stuck to the bottom of the broom I was trying to use to knock it down, and I screamed loud enough to make my neighbors’ dog bark.

Yes, my throat is sore now, my stomach is still upset, and I’m definitely feeling my skin crawl every time I even look at my front door.

I need to get back to writing but I haven’t calmed down much at all. I’ve been watching Irma video at weather.com and checking out the National Hurricane Center’s Irma page. I’m in the part of Tennessee that could be affected if it takes the track they’re predicting now. The last tropical storm I remember being a big deal for me was Hurricane Opal back in 1995. This one looks like it could be something I’ll want to worry about. For anyone in its path that might read this: good luck and stay safe. It’s a monster.

How fast can I reach 1,557 words today?

Lynn

My first goal for today is 1,557 words (which is my normal daily goal). Let’s see how fast I can reach it.

Fast? Maybe not. But…

Progress—

10:51 am: 13 minutes, 87 words.

11:35 am: 30 minutes, 214 words.

12:25 pm: 29 minutes, 175 words.

2:34 pm: 7 minutes, 78 words.

3:28 pm: 11 minutes, 127 words.

Too many interruptions today, but that should be behind me now. Let’s see if I can stay focused on writing the rest of the day.

Total so far is 1.5 hours exactly and 681 words written.

5:30 pm: 44 minutes, 351 words.

8:22 pm: 44 minutes, 320 words.

9:04 pm: 13 minutes, 180 words.

I’m running out of steam! Total so far is 1,532 words. I’m so close to my daily minimum that I have to finish it. But somehow it’s become 11:22 pm and I haven’t gotten back to my writing yet. And I can’t quit yawning.

12:22 am: 22 minutes, 115 words.

Final tally: 1,647 words and 3.55 hours of writing.

Not going to give up without a fight

Lynn

I’m trying to come up with my goal for today. I think I’m done with the catch-up attempt for hours because I’m further behind now than I was when I started yesterday. On the other hand, this morning, I’ve already written for 13 minutes and put down 87 words of stuff. It’s a start.

I’m actually very concerned that I haven’t gained any speed or momentum after what feels like a significant time investment over the last few weeks. I’ve spent 47.93 hours writing in the last 19 days and my cumulative word count for all that time is 3,982 words.

3,982 ÷ 47.93 = 83 words an hour. I type at about 60 words a minute. Typing isn’t writing, I know, but has my brain really slowed down to the point that I can’t write at even 10 words a minute?

I’m in uncharted territory, because I can’t recall ever spending so much focused time writing and ending up with so little progress. It’s obvious something is going on with my writing that I don’t understand because my word counts have dwindled to half what they used to be just three years ago and I’ve lost a significant portion of the excitement I used to feel when I write.

I kind of feel like I’m making progress on the last of that, but the first—obviously—hasn’t improved or it wouldn’t be 33 days since my last day of 1,000+ words.

The fact is I’m trying. I don’t know what kind of hole it is I’m trying to dig myself out of but I am trying.

I want this career, and I’m not going to give up on myself without a fight.

So off I go again today, trying to make progress, or recapture some momentum, or something, anything that will prove the creative part of my brain hasn’t up and died on me.

As for today’s goal? I think I’ll just start with the basics. 1,557 words. When I reach that, I’ll evaluate how much time beyond three hours I’m going to aim for.

Progress will be in my next post. It’s easier than revisiting an already long-enough post and scrolling down every time I want to add a line. :)

It’s catch-up day redux! Goal: 6.7 hours of writing

Lynn

Since I didn’t succeed yesterday in catching up, I’ve decided to give it one more go. Today I will try to accumulate 6.7 hours of writing. That’ll give me today’s three hours, plus catch me up with Saturday’s and Sunday’s three hours each.

Whew. I’m only doing this because I need some way to decide how much time to spend writing while I try to finish this book ASAP. My three hour daily goal isn’t likely to be enough unless I start writing five to six times faster than I’ve been writing. Catching up gives me a reason to write for longer. In other words, my brain likes to know the reasons for things, so I’m giving it a reason. ;)

I’ll report progress as I go the same way I did yesterday. I actually liked that format a lot. :)

Progress—

2:53 pm: finished a 3 minute and 13 minute session, wrote 157 words.

Unknown: ended a 5 minute session to research some stuff from previous books in my series, wrote 1 word. Must’ve rewrote something, obviously. :)

Spent way too much time reading through my series doc to find stuff about one particular topic. And then the power went out. I kept reading. :D

5:49 pm: ended a power outage (it’s been a stormy day).

Internet wouldn’t work so I ended up getting distracted by troubleshooting the problem with my modem and router. Finally restarted my computer and problem fixed itself. UGH! Anyway, back to writing. :-|

8:03 pm: finished a 5 followed by a 16 minute session, wrote 99 words.

9:52 pm: ended a session of 32 minutes, wrote 275 words.

11:12 pm: ended a 54 minute session, wrote -12 words.

I keep fixing things that would be better left alone. UGH.

11:53 pm: stopped after a session of 18 minutes, wrote 263 words.

Gave up for the night in frustration. Scene was making me want to pull my hair out.

Final tally: 2.35 hours and 782 words. So far off the mark that I don’t even know what to say. Tomorrow I will write early and forget this late night crap. >:{

It’s catch-up day! Goal: 7.484 hours of writing

Lynn

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m trying to write for three hours today, catch up yesterday’s three hours, and finish Saturday’s three hours. That means I’m trying to accumulate 7.484 hours of timed writing today.

Progress—

1:18 pm: finished a session of 61 minutes, wrote 135 words.

3:13 pm: ended a short session of 4 minutes, wrote 36 words.

5:31 pm: ended a 54 minute session, wrote 233 words.

6:54 pm: finished a session of 31 minutes, wrote 107 words.

Speed today is at OUCH levels.

12:13 am: finished another 61 minute session, wrote 157 words.

12:28 am: finished a session of 16 minutes, wrote 71 words.

Okay. I’m calling it.

I wrote for 3.783 hours and 739 words. A lot disappointed but maybe tomorrow will be better.

 

Why am I even writing these posts?

Lynn

Saturday, I didn’t expect to get much writing done at all, because I had blocked off noon until 7 pm for a family event. Somehow I managed to get up Saturday morning and get started quickly, and I did two sessions for a total of 1.516 hours of timed writing making it to 814 words. After 7 I was too tired to even look at my computer. :o

Sunday, I expected to get a lot of writing done, but I totally flaked out and didn’t do any. Nada. It was a weird day, tbh. I spent too much time in a reflective, depressed mood and I didn’t like it. Not sure what happened there.

Today, I’m going to write today’s three hours, then yesterday’s three hours and then Saturday’s 1.484 remaining hours and see where it takes me. A 7.484 hour day is a huge challenge but strangely enough, I feel up to it today.

*I don’t have an answer for the question posed in the post title, so… no point discussing it.

Stop thinking so hard and just let the words come

Lynn

“Stop thinking so hard and just let the words come.” That’s the note I’ve written to myself in my notebook and those are the first words I saw when I looked at it beside me in hopes of coming up with a title for this post. :)

I’ve spent some time writing today, although only a little, but I don’t know how much because I forgot to start the timer. The fact is, I needed to write a lot today but I let an assortment of interruptions throughout the day keep me away. Now it’s 9:05 PM and I really need to push myself to write for three hours before I go to bed. Any interruptions at all will keep me from reaching that goal, simply because I can’t really afford to go to sleep any later than 1 AM, and I’ll have to finish those three hours by 12:30 at the latest.

I’m going to have to try, but I don’t feel very hopeful. Sadly, that’s probably going to work against me.

On the other hand, I do have to try, so here I go before I waste too much time on this post. It’s now 9:07 PM, probably a record for me and a post! :D

Update:

I didn’t make it to three hours but I did end up with 1.95 which is kind of great, considering how I felt when I started. It only amounted to 322 words, but I made it completely through chapter 16 and started on chapter 17.

Everything takes longer than I think it will

Lynn

Everything takes longer than I think it will. On the other hand, at least things are getting done. This morning, I had a somewhat harrowing interruption when I had to knock a spider out of the doorway to my deck. I couldn’t check on the kittens while it hung there. It was huge. I hate spiders so yes, it turned into an ordeal, but when I came back to writing, I had thoroughly woken myself up and I started in on my edits with vim and vigor.

I haven’t finished the chapter 15–16 edits, although I’m closer and I’m into chapter 16 now—about half way. My 10:30 deadline came and went, but I’m just happy to be making progress and feeling good about how it’s going. Writing has been fun today.

When I get to the end of what I’ve written, I already know I’ll be deleting the last page or so plus some notes at the end that will probably also amount to a page or so, meaning I expect to lose at a minimum 500–600 words when I get there. But I don’t care. Anything that makes it easier to keep going with this book is good. :)

If I haven’t mentioned it, I’ve been running my timer up instead of down lately, so that’s why all the uneven session lengths. It also helps me see how often something interrupts me, or I interrupt myself.

Sessions (in progress):

  • 19 minutes: 155 words
  • 8 minutes: 50 words
  • 29 minutes: 67 words
  • 41 minutes: 12 words

My word counts are kind of low but I’m finally to the part where I’m about to delete stuff. I think I’m going to have to delete fewer words than I thought to be honest, which is great. And then finally, finally, I can just let myself go and write, write, write! :D

  • 32 minutes: 2 words
  • 38 minutes: 241 words
  • 9 minutes: -302 words
  • 17 minutes: 77 words
  • 23 minutes: 34 words

Total: 3.6 hours of timed writing and 336 words.

No writing last night after all

Lynn

I took the computer up, but instead of writing I just sat with it on my lap and stared at it until I almost dozed sitting up. At that point, I snapped the lid closed and went to sleep. Just too tired.

Being off my sleep schedule and not getting enough sleep have apparently taken their toll. I need to be writing as early in the day as I can right now while I have enough energy to do it so that’s what I’m about to do.

I’m going to finally get through chapters 15 and 16 this morning (it’s 9:32 am) and I’m going to do it within in the next hour.

By 10:30, I want to be ready to start in on the next chapter.

I’ll be back then to update for some accountability. ;) (Yes, you’re my writing accountability group, whether you want to be or not. You’re reading this, aren’t you? Comment if you want me to return the favor and I’ll cheer you on at your own blog.) :)

Stuck in some kind of OCD loop right now

Lynn

Deleting 24 pages of posts from Kboards again. Maybe I just didn’t have anything compelling enough to keep my thoughts about this book at bay and I turned to this to distract myself…

Gah. Why do I do this to myself?

Anyway, down to 9 pages of posts and 2 of those pages are deleted topics. You can’t actually delete threads you created so I just delete the actual post and change the subject line.

Off I go to finish this so I can get back to writing.

Be back later. :o

DONE. Whew. I was starting to wonder if I’d be doing this all night.

Thinking about this now, I’m pretty sure I was in the midst of some kind of anxiety episode or something. All evening my skin has felt like it was crawling. I keep thinking I’ve got gnats biting me, but I don’t think there are any actual gnats, even though I’m sitting under a light in the dining room at the moment. I had a shower, and it seems to have helped me, but my skin still feels a bit crawly. I do know I was feeling anxious earlier, and I remember that, because I consciously chose not to make a second cup of tea today, thinking that maybe the caffeine had done it (it was green tea/herbal mix).

All I have to say for myself is that I’m taking my computer to bed with me (to get away from this dang light) and I am going to work on my book! Maybe not for the three hours I had planned and hoped for, but for at least long enough to get through chapters 15 and 16. I’m just not going to bed tonight until I’ve done it, and that’s final.

Be back later. (Although probably not to this post. And maybe not until tomorrow, depending how late I stay up writing!)

Yesterday proved that I do need practice

Lynn

Yesterday was a bit of a letdown. I couldn’t concentrate (lack of sleep, I believe) and ended up going to bed early.

I didn’t come close to three hours of writing or 1,557 words. I wrote for 44 minutes and added only 90 words to my book. I stopped for lunch and never came back.

Yesterday I wrote:

Today also begins a fresh start on my 1,557 words a day goal. I’ll also be requiring at least three hours a day of writing from myself. I will require this every day, with few exceptions. I’m doing this because I’m starting to believe self-discipline is something you need to practice regularly, and without it, you’re never going to get the most out of yourself long-term.

All yesterday did was prove that I do need practice.

I’m hoping today will go better. But I might wait to post results until the end of the week so I can concentrate on my book and avoid online distractions. Because once I open my browser, I have a difficult time not wasting time.

Self-discipline is a skill: skills take practice and practice takes time

Lynn

I did not reach any of my goals yesterday. (1557 words, 3 hours writing, finish editing chapters 15 and 16.) I wrote for 2.633 hours and added 122 words to chapter 15.

I didn’t take drastic measures with those chapters as I said I would because things were actually going well with the story. I just couldn’t concentrate, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. I even turned to a cup of coffee, which didn’t help at all. >:{

Today I am going to finish going through chapter 15 and 16 and I’m going to do it before I stop for lunch.

After lunch, I’m going to write.

Today also begins a fresh start on my 1,557 words a day goal. I’ll also be requiring at least three hours a day of writing from myself. I will require this every day, with few exceptions. I’m doing this because I’m starting to believe self-discipline is something you need to practice regularly, and without it, you’re never going to get the most out of yourself long-term.

I accept that I’ll fall short on the word counts sometimes, because I haven’t changed my writing process and I do end up with days where I delete more than I write. This isn’t about perfection. But by requiring three hours a day from myself, I make it much more likely that on my good days, I might make up some of those lost words. And on days where three hours just doesn’t cut it, I can keep pushing for those 1,557 words.

My biggest hope is that over time I’ll fall into a routine that maximizes the number of words I write in the most reasonable amount of time by consistently staying involved in my story worlds. I’ll stop losing momentum to month-long breaks and I’ll lose less time to massive read-throughs and edits like the one I’m stuck in the middle of now, because I’ll be working on my stories every day. Even if I can’t maintain the three hours and 1,557 words a day pace working on just one story, I can work on other stories. I already know I have that capability.

I’m going at this to build stamina for writing. What I write isn’t as important as the writing itself. Plus, I don’t want to hamstring myself by limiting what I can write. Some days there will be stories I won’t feel capable of or ready to write. Those days need a back up plan. That back up plan is to write something else.

Three hours a day is twenty-one hours a week, and that’s not that much time at all to devote to what is undoubtedly my life’s work.

Overdue books, procrastination, and a writer’s income

Lynn

Today has been an excellent day for writing.

Unfortunately, I haven’t written a thing. It’s now 9:48 pm and I don’t really have a choice: I have to find it in me to start writing.

I have an overdue book to finish writing (personal deadline—learned my lesson about setting public ones) and a dire need for money in my bank account. So, yeah, don’t bother trying to hack my accounts. You’ll be disappointed. I haven’t been writing anywhere near enough every day, since about the time my children started graduating from high school and heading to college, and it’s starting to show.

All that said, I need to get some income coming in or come November, I’m going to be looking for one of those seasonal jobs writers sometimes need to make ends meet while writing the next book. I would be really embarrassed to do that, if only because I know the only reason it would be necessary in this instance is because I can’t make myself sit and write for two to three hours a day.

Talk about the pain of facing up to your deficiencies. It’s something I’d rather not know about myself, and yet, know it I do. I have pushed it to the last possible moment and now I’m in desperate need of finishing this book.

And there’s the twist. I just went to check on the stray cat that’s been acting weird all day and the curl of dread in my stomach has been justified. He is a she and she’s delivering kittens. Dammit.

Postponement of yesterday to today

Lynn

So yesterday I did not finish with chapter 15 to 16. Life interrupted and I finally gave in and postponed to today what I wanted to accomplish yesterday.

So everything I said yesterday? Applies to today. :)

Not that I didn’t make any progress yesterday, because I did.

I spent 1.517 hours writing (timed writing) and added 280 words after deletions, additions, redrafting, and edits. I’m lucky I got that. The interruptions were fortuitous, because I was ready to start yelling at my screen about this chapter (let me be honest, I did yell at the screen at least once).

I found the thing that I thought was in the book earlier, that I addressed earlier when I fixed up some earlier chapters, and then rediscovered the thing in chapter 15.

Meaning: I addressed something in an earlier chapter that hadn’t even happened yet. UGH!

So yeah. I needed the break.

Revisions are more than just fixing stuff and I’ve fallen into the revision pit, obviously. I hate them and I don’t honestly believe they do anything to make a book better most of the time, and yet, here I am, right in the middle of doing something that’s awfully close to revision. >:{

Now to fix it today. And get on with writing new stuff. Chapter 16 can just stuff it. I’m fixing 15 and skipping right to the end of 16 where I need to delete the last page and just start fresh. I’m not going to try to save any of that last page. It’ll just lead to heartache.

Is it perfectionism stalling me out?

Lynn

Yes, yes, it is. I’m still working through chapter 15 as of yesterday. It should have been simple to get through chapters 15 and 16 and on to new stuff, but that didn’t happen.

I was fixing a few lines that didn’t feel right for one character now that I’ve eliminated some of the excessive mental wrangling I had him doing because I couldn’t figure out where I was going with him, and I started writing some new stuff for him right there in the middle of the chapter. It was good stuff too so I went with it, but I did agonize over it a little too much because it had to fit in between other stuff, which is always a chore for me.

I’d like to stop going back in my books like this, because as you can see from the multiple days of slow writing but long hours, it isn’t that fun for me!

Today, I’m going to finish these two chapters even if I have to take a hands off approach and jump to the next damn chapter. That’s not the plan but if I find myself getting hung up on stuff just because it could sound better in my head if I wrote it another way, I’m doing it. That’s perfectionism trying to hold me back, and I can’t let it win.

Yesterday’s totals came to 3.65 hours of timed writing and 379 words after new stuff, deletions, and redrafts.

I was very inefficient yesterday, because if I were at a job where time at my desk counted, I would have logged a solid 9+ hours. I was tired when I finished (who wouldn’t be after spending 9 hours at their desk?) but I did start making progress toward going to sleep earlier. Not much, since it was still just about 1 am when I called it a night, but 1 am is better than 2 or 3 am!

Also, I’m just about to do something about the tags on this site. I just had an idea that might—possibly—be a way I can use them that actually makes sense for me. :D

More progress but not there yet

Lynn

Yesterday I wrote for 5.533 hours and netted 343 words after more changes. I made it through only 3 chapters. I expected to do better, frankly, but when I get to editing on the computer I end up going at it with a much heavier hand than I do when I read the book on my tablet and just highlight what I want to fix. However, I’m actually pretty happy with the changes, even though I cut something I tried my best not to have to cut.

I should’ve cut it back when I wrote it, because I spent a lot of time with low word counts trying to make my story lead up to that bit. I see now that I really shouldn’t have tied myself into knots trying to make it work. First mistake. So really my changes are just me changing things to the way they should’ve been in the first place. I can’t say I’m surprised. :D

Today though I start at chapter 15 and I did read through some of the rest of the book again last night on my tablet and highlight the stuff I want to address. I got too tired to read the rest but at least I have somewhere to start!

So, the plan for today: Get through chapters 15 and 16, and restart this story. Then get 1,557 words! :D And if that doesn’t take 3 hours, at least, keep going until I reach 3 hours of timed writing.

Simple.

Now to get to it. :)

Progress and a brilliant idea I should have had sooner

Lynn

I did run out of time yesterday and didn’t make it through all the chapters of my book.

Well, sort of. I stopped the editing at chapter 12, but then I sent the file to my tablet and read through the rest of it and realized most of it’s solid. Just a few bits I want to change, one because of an inconsistency and a few paragraphs that tripped me up when I was reading them. They could use some smoothing out for sure for various reasons.

Unfortunately, I didn’t highlight those spots during that late night read through so I still have to read through those chapters again today and find the things I thought needed changing. I was just too tired last night and it seemed like a good idea at the time to focus on the reading. I don’t agree so much to that today, but too late now. :o

I think those rough patches come from not writing fast enough. Too many rewrites and edits makes it very easy to screw up the flow of a story. When I bog down, that happens to me. I mean, I’m doing it because I can’t figure out what’s wrong usually, so I have to, but I know it’s not usually helping the story. I seem to get the best results when I’m able to just ignore what’s there and write fresh, then delete the old. :D

That’s probably why this kind of edit takes me so long. I’m really doing a lot more redrafting of the book than actually editing what’s there.

As for the brilliant idea I mentioned in the title of this post, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before. I have to revisit my previous books quite a lot to find stuff, and I had the notion to create a master series doc yesterday. It took me about three minutes to put together using Word’s “Insert > Object > Text from File” menu item. Then I used another half hour or so cleaning it up so it wasn’t cluttered with various styles. (The oldest books used different style sets than my newer books and I just quickly applied the new styles and deleted the old from the document. Less chance of corruption later, I hope.)

Anyway, it’s a huge file, but Word handled it fine. So now I can open one file when I need to search the books for something and I can get results for ALL the books. Since small corrections won’t affect that, I won’t ever have to do anything else to this doc except add the newest books when I publish them. :D

When I start the next book on my other series, I’ll do the same for it. So much easier than opening and searching multiple books trying to find that one bit of info I need. ;)

Anyway, here are the numbers: 6.467 hours of timed writing (plus all the times I forgot to turn the timer back on, because that kept happening) and 151 words net from edits, redrafting, and deletions.

It was a highly-focused day of writing, for sure.

Now on to today. I need to get these final changes made, and then I’m going to put some real effort into writing the rest of this book as fast as I can. Onward!

More time, fewer words

Lynn

Yesterday I managed to stay focused for 5.417 hours of timed writing. I did not manage to write 1,557 words. My word count at the end of the night was -556 words. I’ve just started going through chapter 10 and new words start at chapter 16. Today’s plan is to get through the rest of those chapters AND write 1,557 words. I’m determined. I might run out of time, but I don’t project any distractions today so I’m hopeful. :) But I’m a pretty optimistic person so I’m always hopeful, lol.

I’ve had my playlist on shuffle and repeat for the entirety of my writing time and it’s really helping me stay focused. Trust me, that’s something I need help with on a daily basis. And repeating a short playlist seems to work better than anything else. Sometimes I go as short as one song, but even I can admit that’s pretty crazy.

Usually I just listen to songs I’ve purchased, but my previous playlist wasn’t working for me. I needed something a little different and came up with this one and have been very pleased with how well I’ve focused with it. Eventually I’ll get around to buying these to add to my collection. But right now, I’m not messing with a winning formula! :D

Anyway, on to today’s writing.