Category: Challenges

Still working on finishing the book. Today I’m going to push hard to get to the end.

I’ll be over my word count goal in less than 2,000 more words, but I’m hoping I don’t go too long! ;) I need to be done today because tomorrow is the deadline and I’d like to finish early. :D

UPDATE: I’m over my word count goal for this book at this point, although not by much (216 words). I took a quick break to have supper and watch a favorite show, and now I’m getting back to work. I have a bit to delete as I go, so I doubt I’ll increase the count by too much at the moment, although later tonight, as I really get into the climax, I expect to grow the story by another few thousand words.  But I’m so happy the ending is finally coming together. I had a strange twist happen, but it fits so perfectly, it’s like I set it up intentionally, and I love it when that happens!

I did not finish my book yesterday, so I’m trying again today. :) I have 3 days until my self-imposed deadline that is not as self-imposed as it sounds. If the book isn’t done on Thursday, my publishing schedule will be completely messed up and I will in all likelihood not publish by the date I promised the book, something to be avoided at all costs.

I’m excited because I think this book is winding up for a finale and that gives me hope that I’ll be done on time.

I’m planning to get started early today, so off for breakfast and I’ll be back to start writing very shortly. :D

I’m hoping to finish a book today! :D I supposedly need about 5,240 words to finish. Supposedly, because that’s how many words it will take to reach my goal word count for this novel. I actually have no idea if that’s going to be the end of the book, but I’m hoping to find out today!

I’ve set aside 7 one-hour blocks of time today to work on finding out and to reach 5,240 words.

I need a decent climax for the book and it hasn’t come to me yet. In fact, I’ll be completely honest here, I don’t have a clue if this book is even going to hold together. I’m trying to wrap up a plot that I don’t have figured out and I’m also trying to find something in what I’ve written that I can bring together into a satisfying ending for this story.

It feels kind of like a collection of events with no true—and ah ha! I might have just had a realization. The plot is secondary to the relationships in this one and I think I need to have one of my characters have some kind of realization about this relationship, then I can wing it with the plot and end that and the book might be done.

I’m really hoping I don’t do another book like this one for a while. The plot just never has come together for it. I’m not even sure what promise the beginning makes—seems like it has to do with the relationship much more so than anything else now that I’ve had that thought, so we’ll see!

Oh, and there is one other element that absolutely must be addressed and now that I think about that—that could definitely be part of the promise and should be part of the climax as well … which will create an issue for the relationship and will hopefully all fit together nicely.

Time to get to work!

UPDATE: I’m putting off the start of this until tomorrow. I did get 227 words today though, so yay for that! Tomorrow there won’t be any allowance for exceptions, so I’ll either succeed or fail.

3 days – 2,000 words or more, every day.

Now, caveat. On day 2, I have a funeral to go to, and my kids will return home in the evening after a week away. On day 3, I have to go to a birthday party for my 80 year old grandmother and then to a baby shower.

Getting 2,000 words done around these events could become stressful. I still don’t want to wait to start. I need to start producing words regularly, daily, and 2,000 is doable, even writing slowly. I will need about 4 hours a day to get this done, and honestly, I can’t expect everything in my life to just stop so I can write all day every day. Even if I might prefer it that way. :D

I fight against structure so hard you would think I should have whiplash by now. Some days I feel it, no kidding. :D If I can’t make a decent routine work for me, then I have to find something that will work. :) A word goal is what I decided would be my best bet. I haven’t changed my mind. Long-term, I don’t expect to write every day, but the reality is I do need to write most days.

Also, I need to start using my work space more. My days are just one big blog lately, and I still think I need some kind of structure even if the routines and schedules haven’t worked well for me.

Since early April, I’ve allowed myself to freely write on multiple stories each day instead of constraining myself to only the one I want completed first.

So far I’ve put almost all my effort into six projects: my early 2014 novella, two novels I need done ASAP, a new novel meant for a new pen name, and two short stories (one of which is done and needs only to be published).

Getting that story publishing should be a high priority but every time I sit down to format it, I get distracted. Yeah. I’m really not acting in my own best interests here. ;)

For the moment, I’m looking for a way to pump up my word counts this month, on those specific projects I need to finish, by focusing on the one million words challenge. Now that I feel like I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough, I think I can meet the word count goals I’ll need to meet to end the year with those one million words of fiction. :D

The math as of today: 905,523 words left to write / 232 days left in the year = 3,903 words per day.

The good news is that although that will be tough, it’s doable.

I need to revisit the idea of a daily time quota, and that may not be my favorite idea, but it’s time to do whatever I need to do to get me where I want to go. I honestly believe I can still meet the one million words challenge but I’m going to have to keep improving and pushing.

I’ve always said I want to be prolific. I want to write a lot—and I mean a LOT—of books.

If that’s truly what I want, then I probably need to get busy making that happen.

8:24 pm: 3,687. Goal: 6,000 words. Still tap-tapping along. :)

2:03 pm: 2,058. Goal: 6,000 words. At my current speed, I’ll reach today’s goal sometime tomorrow. :D

Challenging myself. 11:10 am: 1,032. Goal: 6,000 words.

Fourteen is many more attempts than I thought would be necessary to reach my current one day word count goal, considering how successful I’ve found working on multiples stories each day to be for helping me reach higher word counts.

But fourteen isn’t really that bad, considering how long that record has stood.

5,475 has been my record for the most words I’ve written in one day since June 17, 2013.

And … ayk!! I had to look that up, and although my spreadsheet tells me the max() number in my daily word count sheet, it didn’t tell me that that particular entry had a note beside it! After reading that note, I don’t actually think that’s my high word count. :o I’ve been operating on the belief for nearly a month now that I managed to write 5,475 words in one day but my note indicates I might have “rescued” some words I deleted about two weeks prior to that date. Wow.

I took a closer look so I could find my true high word count and it would be the next highest number, 5,208 on August 16, 2013. I remember that day, and I know that was a genuine win.

Well, learn something new most days. Today is apparently one of those days.

I’d still rather beat 5,475. But this does, in fact, make a lot of sense, since I don’t have that same remembered feeling about the 5,475. I was surprised when my record was that high, and it appears now it was for good reason!

Still, back to the stories. I’m going to get started shortly and try to break at least one of those records today. Plus, it’s the first day of my new week and I’m trying to break another 7-day record, and I’m trying to break my monthly record.

Time to shut down my WIFI before I get lost in it!

And it’s 11:19 am and I haven’t written a word. I can still do this. So. Okay. Time to get started. Right now.

12:13 pm : 266
3:00 pm : 1,269
4:22 pm : 1,510

Slow going today! I just don’t see how I’m going to come close to breaking my record when all I want to do right now is nap. Or watch tv. Or do anything but sit here and write. It’s fun when I’m doing it but I just don’t want to focus.

Later…

It’s late, I’m tired, and I haven’t done any writing since 4:22 pm. I wanted to get to 2,000 today. I’m close enough that I should try—only I’m not going to. I’m so tired I just want to go on to sleep. I got up entirely too early today and I just don’t have any energy left.

Tomorrow I’ll try to get to 2,000 earlier in the day.

I promised to watch a movie tomorrow and I’m going to, but I’m also going to write more than I wrote today. The movie is less than 2 hours long, and lunch will be about 2 hours long, so I’ll be unable to work from 10 am to 2 pm. But 7-ish to 10 should give me between 1,000–1,200 words, then 2 to 4 should put me at 2,000–2,400, then 6 to 8 should put me near 3,000–4,200. I’m trying for 4,200.

From now on, though, I think I’m going to make Monday–Friday my primary writing days where I do more than my average. Saturday and Sunday will be reserved for just keeping my mean up and getting a head start on the week’s writing.

UPDATE: Yeah. This record-breaking thing isn’t working so well. I’m either going to have to try again in May or pull off a miracle.

Lucky 13, maybe? Yep, yep. I read a passage from Thinking, Fast and Slow last night about “regression to the mean” and I realized right away that I need to raise my daily word count mean so I can regress to a higher number! ;)

I didn’t read enough of the book to know if there’s anything else in there that I could use, but the fact is, my current mean is 725 words and that’s not even close to where I want to be. I want to be prolific and for me that means I should write at least 2,000 words a day on average. (Of fiction. Who cares what else I write?)

How committed do I feel to reaching this goal? Committed!

On that note, I’m tracking my progress today, because I’m making a concerted effort to break my daily word count record, and it’s my last chance this week to do it since my writing weeks end on Friday and begin again on Saturday. :D

9:21 am : 334**
10:45 am : 775***
6:20 pm : 1,174

*Yeah, you didn’t know there was an attempt #1–12, did you? I never put those posts online. Ah, well.

**Why so slow? Because I’m actually making progress on my stalled out novella! Yay!

***What happened?! I … don’t really know. I felt a compulsion to update a couple of websites I have, which ran terribly slow, and a quickie post or two turned into two and a half hours. Then life stuff had to happen, which happens every day, so no surprise there, and then when I finally got to writing again, it was 5:07 pm and apparently my speed was about 399 words an hour. Yikes!

I’ve promised to watch a movie at 7 pm so that’s going to be it for me, so back to work! The chance of breaking my record today has gone, so now I’m just trying to salvage what I can in my effort to reach and maintain a 2k a day average.

And, nope, didn’t happen. I didn’t get anything additional done on my books. I spent my last 40 minutes adding some of these posts I’ve been doing in Evernote to the real blog.

I need 3,272 words today. This is the day. The day. I’m going to break through that minimum, even if I have to work on 6 different stories to get there. In fact, I want today to be a 5,000 word day. Or 6,000. I don’t remember ever doing a 6,000 word day so that’d be great to break though that barrier.

So, late start. Kind of deliberate, although that wasn’t the plan when I got up. But I’m setting myself up to write as much as I can today and I don’t think I could’ve started at 7. I feel much peppier now though and I’m ready to go.

I’m starting the morning 352 words in the hole because of my short story. I haven’t actually deleted the words yet though because seeing them on the page will keep me from making the same mistakes (I hope!) and my music’s going. :D (Update: I didn’t have to delete those words after all! Yay!)

First goal? Finish the short story!

11:45 am: DONE! At over 3,000 words longer than planned, my short story is finished. :D Whew!

I’m at 576 words for the day.

Second goal? Finish the novella!

8:57 pm: I’m not done. The additions/fixes to the novella are coming along nicely, and I’m still writing, but I don’t know for how much longer. I had a lot more downtime than I planned when I set out my goals for the day.

I’m at 1,003 words. Way, way short of my goal today. Contemplating a major deletion so I can keep this new development tight in the story. I think it would work better, but I’m going to have to read through what I’ve got, so … good excuse to end here for some reading. :)

Today’s going to be a great day—after my nap. :D

I need 3,261 words today.

7–9: 0*
12–4: 0**
8–9: 0***

I want to put the finishing touches on my short story and work in a great fix for my novella that I think will solve all my problems with that book, and then, maybe even get some of my 2014 novel #1 written today! Lots to do later.

And … later got later and later while I regretted not getting enough sleep last night, again. I’m tired and I just want to go to sleep and start over tomorrow.

But I’m not going to do that because I already know I’m not going to be a better person tomorrow, and I want to at least keep my 7 day streak alive and that means getting some words written today … and I got a few written and now I’m done. ;) Streak’s alive, but honestly, it’s kind of a joke. 40 words. And a note to myself to delete my last 352, so I’m going to start out in a major hole tomorrow morning. Yay! Something to look forward to.****

*Skipped so I could get some dental work done this morn, and now, it’s time for a nap so I can start fresh and energetic at 12.

**Well, that’s embarrassing.

***Ouch.

****Sarcasm abounds. Sorry. :)

I need 3,254 words today. Still going up and I’ve got to get this under control ASAP.

7–9: 445
12–4: 775
8–910:30: 1,151

I didn’t get all my time in, because I stopped around 8:29 to research something and, uh, yeah. Time gets away. :D

Between 12–4 I really couldn’t concentrate and I had a lot of trouble staying focused. It felt very much like muscle fatigue! So, gotta work on those concentration skills—might be time to pull the timer out again just to keep me focused. :D I think I’ll do that for my 8–9 tonight.

I need 3,245 words today.

I’m going to be quick, because I skipped my 7–9 block this morning. I felt guilty for about 5 minutes and then I didn’t. I wanted to read a book today, so I did. I have a lovely job!

Anyway, no time to linger. I’m about 17 minutes late and I want to use as much of my 12–4 block today to finish my short story! I’m sure I can get it done today, and I had a bit of a breakthrough last night on how to fix my novella—and it’ll require nothing but a sentence or two earlier in the book to set things moving in the right direction and then the rest of the scenes I need to get to the end. ;)

2:11 pm: I’m at 406.

Uh, yeah. I need a nap.

So, I don’t think I got enough sleep last night. 6 hours just doesn’t do it for me, and I didn’t nap. I’m taking a break and I’m going to come back a bit early instead of at 8 pm and try to get in another 2–3 hours before I call it quits today.

Or read another book. :D

Nah, just kidding! I need to finish my short story and I’m so close…

I need 3,237 words today.

Plus some. Because I need to stop the upward creep of my goal and knock it down a bit too.

Extra goal today? Try to maintain at least 500 wph today.

Schedule is off because yeah, I’m just eating breakfast now, so no 7–9 session. However, I don’t really want a break already so I think I’ll just try writing from 9:30–11:30, then break, then try to get back on the schedule at 12.

And I discovered something promising this morning. I woke at daybreak, which is about half an hour or so earlier than sunrise. If I can just get up at daybreak, I’ll be a little behind (but not for long because spring’s on the way and daybreak is coming earlier and earlier every day), but maybe this won’t be as hard for the next few weeks as I was imagining. I just need to get in bed earlier so I don’t want to fall back asleep like I did this morning. :D

11:56 pm: I’m at 181.

I know! But the story is going well, I promise, and I’ve been working. :D This probably comes back to the issue I have where when I finish a story I have to actually be done with it. So as I get closer to the end, I start going back and fixing anything that needs fixing as the end ties things together. A lot of Oh, wouldn’t it be great if I had set this up better… or Shouldn’t I delete that reference because it contradicts this… stuff that I then go back and set up properly or delete. :D I really don’t mind. I do wish I was faster but I really enjoy this so I’m just grateful I’m having fun. I’m so close to finishing this one. It’s so exciting! Now, time to get back to work, it’s 12 pm already!

10:13 pm: I’m at 1,005.

I almost quit at 907 but I thought I’d like to at least finish over 1000 so I could start a streak or something so I pushed on through. I’m glad I did. But now I’ve got to go to sleep so I can wake up bright and early and get back to it. I didn’t have the opportunity today to use any of my free time for writing but I did get my evening hour in, getting a little more than 400 words written during that time! I missed an update somewhere in here but I was just under 600 words when I started my evening hour at about 9 (a little late).

I need 3,233 words today.

Still creeping up! I’ve got to start meeting or exceeding this goal—and soon.

9:59 am: I’m at 208.

Could definitely be better, but it’s going to wait until after a nap. I need one, then an early lunch, before I settle in. I need a lot of words today. :D

Sunrise was 7 am this morning, after being at about 6 am yesterday. As you can imagine, even though I went to bed early last night, I barely dragged out of bed at 7:40 am Daylight Saving Time. Ugh.

If it were yesterday, I’d have gotten started 26 minutes late. But since it’s today, I got started 1 hour and 26 minutes late. Sigh.

Good news is that I’m not really planning to stick to the schedule today anyway mostly because I want to get as much writing done as I can. I’m really enjoying this short story and I’m having so much fun that I woke up thinking about my story every time I cracked my eyes open. Those days had disappeared over the last few months and I’m so glad to see them back!

1:25 pm: I’m at 765.

I’m also coming up on the last 1,300 words of my short story and I definitely think I’ll make it to the end today. :D I really like it!

5:08 pm: I’m at 1,181.

If I’m going to make it to 3,233 today, I’m going to have to write a lot faster for the rest of the night than I’ve done so far. I really should’ve skipped the B&J margarita thingy with lunch. Now I just want to go to sleep. Also, this is the dark side of going off-schedule. Too little pressure to get somewhere before the next break. On that note, I’m taking a break until 6 pm and then going to write diligently from 6–9.

9:07 pm: I’m at 1,633.

I’m not all that thrilled about that, although I admit I got started about an hour late partially because of some unexpected interruptions. The other part of partially was entirely my own fault. And I actually stopped at 8:34 for a quick break and to update this post and discovered all my websites were down. Got a message off to support  and got distracted (entirely my own fault again) and then it was 9 pm. Gah.

I’m not fond of quitting when the writing’s still going, so I can’t decide if I should or shouldn’t call it a night…

I think I’ll give it until 9:30 but then it’s definitely over. I need to get to sleep on time tonight because I’d like to be on my schedule tomorrow. Although let’s be honest here, with the Daylight Saving time change still fresh, who knows what will happen in the morning. Until this morning, I’d been waking up without an alarm. I don’t see that happening tomorrow.

10:25 pm: I’m at 1,872.

Yeah. So I didn’t quit when I was supposed to. And I really can’t believe it took me that long to get another 200ish words! What’s crazy is I know I was zoning on this because that hour went by in a blink and I loved every minute of it, but man, if this is my zone speed, I better not plan on being a prolific author unless I want to spend 16 hours a day at the computer.

But I’m calling it now. I’ve got to get to bed. I can tell you now, though, that the schedule is off for the morning 7–9 session. Ain’t no way I’m getting up before 7 am. :D

I need 3,225 words today.

Which, wow, considering that I didn’t maIke my goal last night, isn’t too bad. But 2 separate events today mean I’m going to lose at least 6 hours of potential writing time so I’ve got to be diligent with my time today. Off I go to write!

9:23 am: I’m at 653.

All of those words are on my short story, which is up to 5,749 words. Next goal? 1,500 by 11. Then I gotta do other stuff for a while. :D So I better get cracking.

11:21 am: I’m at 785.

I really wanted to be further along before I had to stop. Ah well. Better than 0!

4:17 pm: Ha. 6 hours of missed writing time was too optimistic. 1 event out of the way and I’ve already lost my entire 12–4 block plus some. I have just about an hour and a half I can use as writing time before the next interruption. I’m off to make good use of my time!

9:29 pm: I’m at 834.

I spent too much time messing around with what I’d already written and barely managed any new words before I had to go. Now that I’m back … I’m giving up! Tired and falling asleep at the keyboard. Just not enough time after getting home from the second event of the day and I was tired before I went.

I need 3,222 words today.

My daily writing quota is still creeping up because I keep failing to make my minimum each day. I’m hoping to get a handle on this soon. But I’ve had to admit my novella was definitely the problem with my lack of motivation to write. The switch to working on the short story yesterday showed me that, and I woke up fired up and ready to write again today. I’m definitely going to have to finish that novella soon but I needed this break!

I’m enjoying writing that short story and since my self-imposed deadline for it was 3/31, I don’t feel that bad going ahead on it while the writing’s going well.

Ah, and I’ve just realized I can’t call this Finish the Book—Day 7 because although I’ve been writing, I haven’t been writing on my novella.

1:24 pm: I’m at 1,126.

Next goal? 3,000 by 4 pm. Let’s see if I can make it. 1 … 2 … 3 … Go!

3:50 pm: I’m at 1,986.

So yeah, not quite 3,000. But I have to pause the writing until about 6 pm at which point I’ll pick it up again because I have time for extra writing time tonight!

Yikes! It’s way past 6 pm because I got caught up in catching up on a forum I participate on. I’ve still got a good hour and a half before I have to hit the sack to get up at 6:15 in the morning so let’s see what I can accomplish. :D

10:41 pm: I’m at 2,414.

Better than yesterday—not anywhere close to where I want to be. It’s a win! :D

Here I go dragging this challenge into March. Doesn’t matter, because I still need to finish this book asap!

7–9 & 12–4: 1,315
8–9: 0

Time deficit: 190 minutes

Pace: 343 wph

Not sure if I’m going to make up my time or not but I’m definitely planning to write every session, so there’s one more hour to go at this point. I’m really going to push for 1,000 words in that hour.*

I only need about 1,500 words to hit the word count goal I set for this book. The terrible suspicion that I’m going to go long on this book is getting stronger, because I don’t feel an end coming in what I’ve written. Honestly at this point, I’m not even sure I have a cohesive plot with this one, just a series of events that aren’t really leading anywhere specific, but I might try to get in some extra time to see if I can come up with something.

I might even do a cliffhanger on this one. I haven’t done that before, but I seriously do not want to go long on this particular book since it’s a pet project that I don’t expect to make me much money. It’s part of a continuing series so I wouldn’t be doing a disservice to the story, I don’t think, but I’d originally planned for the stories to each have some closure. Ugh. I wish I knew what to do!

Anyway, I’m glad things are moving again, but this has really made me wonder if my lack of any measurable writing mid-August through late December slowed down my writing speed. I feel like I’m trying to get back into a creative groove, but I don’t think it was smart of me to let myself take that long of a break. I work much better when I can keep myself working daily.

By the way, I’m loving—absolutely loving—this new writing schedule. It just might be the last schedule experiment I have to do for a long while! :D

*Well, that didn’t happen. I gave out early and I’m going to sleep. I’ll try harder tomorrow!