I have four days of writing in a row. Three days of more than 300 words a day. I’m thinking it’s a streak.
Now, to decide whether it’s a four day streak of writing or a three day streak of 300+ words. I’ll let you know tomorrow! ;)
Year: 2025
Getting closer to done
The scenes I thought would go quickly have taken a little more time to finish up. My subconscious thinks there’s more story there to tell, and I’m letting it.
But I am almost done with it, and it feels so good. I’ve spent longer than I wanted on this one, and I’m hoping to transfer my momentum to my next story.
The Year of WIPs
I’ve set a goal this year to finish as many works in progress as I can (those that I had started before the end of 2024). I have several series, and in each one, I have a tendency to start the next book right after finishing the last. Then I run out of momentum on it or start feeling like I need to write a different book instead, so I switch and leave it hanging until I can get back to it in the rotation (or whenever I decide I’ve had enough and am going to finish it anyway).
This year, I want to get some of those books out of the way. I’ll be honest with you, though, and tell you I’ve already added two new WIPs to the pile since 2025 started. It might be that I’ll always have a stack of WIPs waiting for me even if I get the old ones out of the way. I do usually finish what I start. There’s the occasional story start that doesn’t work out, but this is the exception, not the rule.
Today, I’m back at it. I’d like this to be the first WIP I cross off the list and I’d like to do that today. Wish me luck. :)
Today is a day for finishing
I have a story I’m working on finishing today. I’m most of the way there, but there’s still a little to finish up. I want to say it’s one of the rare stories where I end up writing scenes out of order that have to be rearranged as the story consolidates itself in my head. That’d be a lie. Lately, this has been the rule instead of the exception.
I’ll say most of this seemed to start (or get considerably more common) in the last few years. I’ve written extensively about the probable reasons for that so I won’t bother again, but I’m hopeful it’ll get better. For a while, I didn’t even want to write at all, and that did get better, so there’s always hope!
Anyway, working on this story today and I’m pretty excited that it’s coming together finally, after some scene shifting, cuts, and redrafting.*
But sometimes the story that’s there isn’t the story you really want to tell, and your subconscious calls you on it. :D Now it is, and I’m so happy I trusted my subconscious. I’m really happy with what I have so far.
*I usually call this editing, but in truth, it’s really just being creative and finding the story that my subconscious is trying to get out onto the page in the way it wants it there.
January’s experiment
I’m halfway through the month, but yesterday, I realized there was an experiment I needed to do, so I’m starting it now, even if it’s a bit late into the month.
I’ve been writing for most of my life. I’ve been self-publishing for over 14 years now. I thought I’d be further along by now, but I can pretty definitively say that the reason I’m not is because I’ve struggled so long with trying to get faster in a way that hasn’t worked for me. I may never get faster, and I’m tired of that struggle, to be honest. I think pushing so hard for it at various times has led to burn out and blocks and other struggles that have really affected my desire to write when I most needed to do it to keep up my momentum. I don’t think I’ll ever be faster than I am now—or at least I don’t think me consciously pushing for it is going to make it happen. Who knows what the future will bring?
Anyway, my point is that I’ve decided to eliminate some of the things that get in my way, things that make me having feelings that affect my joy in writing, and that aren’t helpful. These things might be tied to perfectionism. (Isn’t everything?)
I often use timers to keep me focused while I write. They work. They work really well. And then I see the WPH that my spreadsheet usually calculates for me (because once I’m using timers I can’t seem to avoid tracking them), and it jump-starts that internal critic. That’s all you did? You should try for more words next time! Didn’t you focus? Why aren’t you faster? Why can so-and-so write so many words in a sprint/session/hour but you can’t? What’s wrong with you?
Yeah.
That kind of criticism isn’t good for anyone. It certainly isn’t good for me.
So this experiment for January came to mind.
I’m going to use my timers and (gasp) not track a single one of them. Total word counts for the day is all I’ll pay attention to. It’s all I ever should pay attention to, anyway. I won’t stop tracking that, because it keeps me moving forward and it is important to me. I’ve been tracking my daily word count since August 2012. I like having that record of my progress.
But as for the rest? I don’t need it.
At the end of January in about two weeks, I’ll see how I feel about the experiment and if I want to make it permanent. Or if I’ve managed to pick up a habit of not caring about those sessions metrics. :D That’d be nice.
Just got it: tags
Holy crap. I’ve struggled with how to tag entries here on this blog for years. But less than a minute ago, I finally figured it out.
From now on, tags on this site will be the index entries. Categories are the table of contents, really, in a usability sense, but now I have my answer for tags.
This seems like such a simple thing, and I have to wonder why it too me so long to figure this out. :) You know what they say about the forest and the trees. I guess this truly was a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. :D