Category: Writing

Posts about writing. Writing is my work but since I work better when I pretend work isn’t work, I mostly call it fun—even when it isn’t. ;)

Mindset this morning

Lynn

I’m ready to get to work this morning. I’m getting a lot closer to an early morning rise, but I’m still not there yet. My 9 to 12 block of writing time is still just a little off because of that.

It’s 9:51, though, so not too far from it, and I’m going to start writing as soon as I finish this post.

In my post about breaking patterns, I mentioned that I had picked up some books on writing and started reading them and that I have started listening to author/writer podcasts again.

One thing I’ve done on my schedule that seems to have made a difference is to change my “Writing time” to “Yay! Writing time.” I do realize how silly that sounds, as if just adding “Yay!” to the block is enough to change how I feel about it, but… it kind of is. :-) Silly or not, it seems to be helping my mindset.

I got the tip from Stick with It, a book I have not finished reading (and I admit, I got on sale, because I would not have paid what is currently the full price for it). I got bored after the first few chapters and skipped ahead to the chapter on neurohacks and read a little of it. (This was nearly a week ago.) (I read nonfiction out of order all the time, so this isn’t unusual and it’s not a knock against the book.)

I’m pretty excited that it’s working for now, but I know not to get ahead of myself. I oftentimes react well to novel things and then lose the ability to benefit from them as they become less novel to me. :-)

Anyway, it’s 10:04 and I want to get to work on my book. I’m holding out considerable hope that if I get on a roll today I can finish it. I’ll post updates later about my writing.

Breaking patterns

Lynn

I had to take some drastic measures to get myself working again, and it’s turned out to be a pretty simple thing. What I’ve done, I think, is just break some patterns I’d slipped into.

First, I bought a couple of books, after writing a blog post I never posted.

I would resolve not to make excuses for these behaviors but I’ve already done that. And I don’t often make excuses. I just don’t do the work.

That’s what’s going to have to change. I have to become someone who does the work.

Which brings to mind a book I’ve been meaning to read for a long time but haven’t.

Do the Work by Steven Pressfield, and Turning Pro.

Reading books about writing is always motivational for me. I need to spend more time doing it. Even when I feel like it’s using up writing time, because the alternative is a low interest in writing and using none of that bountiful writing time to write anyway.

Do the Work is interesting. A little hype-y at times, but I’ve picked up a few thoughts from it that I really want to remember. I’m really looking forward to reading Turning Pro, but Do the Work felt much more like it was what I was meant to be reading at that moment. :-)

I’m just over halfway through it now, 56% according to my Kindle, and my goal is to keep reading it and Turning Pro (and The Warrior Ethos) until I’ve finished them all before I move on to reading anything else.

Second, I’m listening to writer podcasts, something I used to do but stopped when I decided I was probably wasting time doing it. I think it was a mistake to stop, because listening to them makes me excited about writing even when it’s material I’ve heard before. Yes, they use up a lot of time, but since I listen while I cook, eat, and do other things, that keeps my interest in writing high even when I’m distracted with other things.

I credit listening to these yesterday and the day before with my sudden increase in discipline and my renewed interest in writing. I stuck to a schedule yesterday, even if it was a loose schedule, and I really put some effort into writing for the first time in nearly two weeks.

:D

So there, that’s what I’m doing to break the patterns that I’ve felt like I was trapped in for the last few weeks, and I’m finally making progress on my current book again.

If you’re having difficulties sitting down to write, not because you don’t have time, but because your interest has waned (especially for reasons you don’t understand), try something like this. It really has helped. :-)

Tomorrow

Lynn

Whoa. I know it’s October, but this is a very unpleasant forecast from weather.gov.

I don’t like the cold and those temperatures will certainly feel cold to me.

On another note, totally unrelated to the forecast, I’ve let it get to 11:14 PM and I still haven’t written anything today. Looks like I’m going to have to take charge of myself and my excuses.

Probably tomorrow.

>:-(

Or not.

Guess I better start now. I’m going to settle in (in bed!) and do at least a twenty minute session before I call it a night. I know now what I need to do to this book and I’ve put off doing it all day. I will do it tomorrow, but tonight, I’m going to start doing it now.

I’ll feel better about myself after I do it, too.

Holy crap, I just don’t know what the problem is

Lynn

I can’t seem to get started writing. I’m at a total loss as to what the problem is.

I’ve tried setting goals, ignoring goals, getting more sleep, writing early (couldn’t get started!), writing late (couldn’t get started!), tracking my time, journaling before I write, journaling as I write (couldn’t get started!), reading, staring at my book, blocking the internet, blocking distracting sites, journaling in a notebook, journaling on the computer, calling myself unpleasant names, being gentle with myself, and I could go on but what’s the point?

The point is I can’t get started even though part of my brain wants to get started. It’s an inexplicable feeling that makes no rational sense, and when I try to click to my document, it feels like a compulsion forcing me away.

It should not be this damn hard to get yourself to do something you know you need to do, and that, overall, you actually enjoy doing.

What it comes down to, it seems, is that I want to have written the rest of this book but I don’t actually want to write the rest of this book.

This is probably why it’s important not to let yourself think of writing as hard. Because when something becomes hard in your head, whether or not it is in fact, it becomes susceptible to resistance.

Is there any way that accepting this can help me get over my resistance to getting started?

And on a tangent, I think the whole idea of creating a writing habit is stupid. You can’t create a writing habit. Habits are involuntary behaviors. How the fuck is sitting down to write thousands of words an involuntary behavior?

Well, I can see the sitting down part as being involuntary if you repeat it often enough.

(I’m probably being too literal again, or reductionist, but I can’t help it. That’s where my thoughts go when I think writing habit.)

It’s just something that has annoyed me, and maybe it’s because of this habit creep that’s going on in the self-help world.

Or maybe I’m just annoyed because I should be writing fiction and I’m writing this instead. GAHHHH.

The fact is, just sitting down at my computer out of habit, even opening my document, isn’t enough to get me to write. I’ve been doing that for ages. I’m still not writing as often or as much as I want. Not in any universe.

And I’ve been at my computer all day today, and it sure the fuck hasn’t led me to write my book’s ending.

Not again—no, really, not again

Lynn

Yesterday I didn’t write. Today I’ve had trouble getting started and it’s already into the late afternoon.

I had hoped to write without a timer today, but I don’t think that’s going to work for me. Oftentimes, if I start the timer, I feel obligated to let it run, and once it’s running I feel obligated to stay on task. So although I want to write without the necessity of a timer, I seem to have a lot of difficulty actually doing that. It makes me feel a little bit like a failure to need that crutch, but the rational part of me says that’s ridiculous, because the timer is a tool that helps me overcome the difficulties I have focusing on anything long enough to get anywhere.

On that note, I must go write, because time is running out and I have a lot to write today.

Here I am again

Lynn

It has been an odd day. I felt pretty good today, after the best night of sleep I’ve had in a while. I went to bed early, stayed warm, and woke up about two hours before I wanted to. I read for a few minutes then went back to sleep and woke up about two hours later. All told, I had a solid eight hours of sleep and it paid off.

I had two cups of a mild green tea mix today (low caffeine) and stayed away from coffee. I don’t feel jittery and my head is clear.

Yet, somehow, it has reached 8:34 pm and I haven’t written any fiction at all today.

My schedule is killing my productivity

Lynn

No joke, my schedule is killing my productivity. The unfortunate truth is that I need a schedule. That doesn’t seem to matter. I can’t stop myself from constantly making changes to any schedule I create, and even when I leave it wide open for writing and just fill in the basics like lunch, supper, and the like, I still can’t stop messing with it.

It turns out that having a schedule is just a massive distraction I don’t know how to handle.

Is this that moment where I look back and realize I really should have seen this coming? Probably.

Seriously, it’s time to end this thing

Lynn

Alright, it’s time to put an end to my misery. I have to finish this book. Today.

Toward that end—:D—I’ve set a loose schedule and some time goals. (Time spent is really the only thing I can totally control when it comes to my writing. I’ve tried to make time quotas work in the past and they haven’t but I don’t think that changes the fundamental truth that if I want to create a daily habit of writing, I’m going to have to focus on time.)

From 11:00 – 3:15, I’m going to try to get in 3 sessions of 1.25 hours each.

I’m already late getting started because of the kittens (they think my deck is a litter box and I’m trying to break them of that habit as quickly as I can) and this post (I shouldn’t be writing it now but here I am), and there isn’t enough break time built in to make the time up easily, but I’m still going to push for it even if that means going past 3:15. If the book isn’t done by then, and I don’t really think it will be…

From 4:15 – 7:00, I’m going to try to get in 2 sessions of 1.25 hours each.

First note: As of right now, I’m planning all my future sessions to be 1.25 hours each, except on days where I might just need to write and be in a hurry and don’t keep up with time at all. I don’t want to feel locked in to the idea that I can’t write or work on my stories just because I don’t have 1.25 hours available. Those days should be rare, because I’m trying to get into a routine and this is the equivalent of my job and the work has to be done. If I can’t squeeze in a few 1.25 hour blocks of time a day for writing, then I have bigger problems. A person has to make a living somehow.

Second note: I did some reading and rereading of a few things and I’ve become convinced that pushing myself past the 4–5 hour range for time spent writing is a mistake. I deal with low motivation regularly after what I consider really good writing days, and there’s a simple explanation: burnout and need for extra rest after pushing too hard.

If I were used to longer periods of focus, it might be different, but I don’t think so. K. Anders Ericsson has some really good papers on deliberate practice and high performance. (Some other related links.) Considering the fact that I’m still under the two million words written mark for fiction (probably), I still feeling like I’m doing high-level practice every time I sit down to write. I’m not sure the good writers ever quit practicing, though, so it’s not something I expect to change. I will always be trying to get better.

One quote:

Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends, and the amount of practice never consistently exceeds five hours per day.

And from one of the linked papers:

Across many domains of expertise, a remarkably consistent pattern emerges: The best individuals start practice at earlier ages and maintain a higher level of daily practice. Moreover, estimates indicate that at any given age the best individuals in quite different domains, such as sports and music, spend similar amounts of time on deliberate practice. In virtually all domains, there is evidence that the most important activity—practice, thinking, or writing—requires considerable effort and is scheduled for a fixed period during the day. For those exceptional individuals who sustain this regular activity for months and years, its duration is limited to 2-4 h a day, which is a fraction of their time awake.

Going from my daily average word count and the fact that I average 400-600 words an hour during timed writing sessions, I average about 2 hours a day of writing time. Then I read and study and think. Publishing activities drive up the time I spend working even more. I’m going to stop feeling so damn guilty for not putting in even more time. If I ever make it up to 4 hours of writing a day, consistently, I am determined that I’ll be damn happy about it.

Anyway, I just wasted a huge chunk of time on this post and I must go write. This book is going to end today, one way or another. And yes, 5 x 1.25 = 6.25 hours. I’m pushing myself, but I’m tired of dallying with this book. I want it done.

Struggling to finish this book

Lynn

I’m struggling with the schedule I made for myself, mostly because it’s really a schedule meant for my daily writing of 1,000–3,000 words. At the moment, I don’t even have a real goal, because all my focus is on finishing my book. The more often I repeat “finish the book” though, the more I seem to avoid writing anything at all.

I’m also struggling because I have significant difficulties keeping up with the passage of time in my head. Explicit start and end times for my daily activities don’t work well for me—and they never have, even when I worked for other people. It’s just not something I’m good at. I got things done and was considered a very productive employee, although I’m really not sure how that happened. Deadlines and the fact that I cared what other people thought of me, I think. I should feel that way about the people reading my books too, I guess, but for some reason I never have. Maybe it’s because I’ve always considered myself to be writing for myself, first and foremost, and for other people as an afterthought.

Anyway, it all comes down to me needing to do something just a little different tomorrow, because what I’ve been trying to do today and in the days before hasn’t been working.

I wrote -96 words yesterday

Lynn

How is it even possible to write negative words? In case you’re new here, let me explain my tracking sheet.

I put in my current doc’s word count, and it tells me how many words I’ve written today. As you can see, today’s total is zero at the moment. (The 3,333 below today’s count is the goal and it is a formula that will tell me how many words I have to go to get to that goal.)

Starting at row 10 is the list of all my works in progress and below that all my completed works, with word counts noted. That’s where I update my word counts to get an updated cumulative word count. The previous total number is manually adjusted each day so that the spreadsheet will calculate an accurate number of words for today. This lets me work on as many stories as I want in one day and still have a central place to track that word count.

I’m sure some people would like to have individual spreadsheets for each book or story, but I really don’t want or need that much granular detail. I tried adding another step into my tracking process for a while, but keeping up with one more sheet was just too much of a time waster for me.

Anyway, my point is that I have negative words because I obviously deleted more than I added, so at the end of the day my word count in the doc for my current book was lower than it was at the beginning of the day. For my sheet to be accurate, I have to record my doc’s actual word count. I like it that way even if it does leave me in the hole some days.

Sadly, -96 words is nowhere near the 1,500 word goal I set myself last night. I fell down hard on that. My only excuse is, well, an excuse. I’ll take a pass on making it.

Goal: 1,500 words before bed

Lynn

So I put off writing today because I had family home and couldn’t seem to get started while people were here. I’ve had two hours since but still haven’t been able to get started so I thought I’d post this in hopes it would jiggle loose my motivation and get me focused. :-)

Right now the goal is to get 1,500 words before bed. I started this post at 9 PM but somehow it’s now 9:45 PM so I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect 1,500 words. On the other hand, I need them, so maybe I’ll just have to do it anyway.

Let’s say 750 wph with a timer set for 2 hours. That could still put me in bed around midnight if I don’t get distracted again. I can do midnight. I’ll be back as soon as I need a break to update with my progress.

Journal writing is still writing

Lynn

The journaling experiment isn’t working out as I’d hoped. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that when I don’t want to write, I don’t even want to journal, so making myself journal about not writing to get me to write is as hard as making myself just start writing.

I should have guessed the outcome of this experiment. Journal writing is writing, first and foremost, and when I’m having trouble getting started writing, I’m generally having trouble getting started with anything. I turn to OCD-like behaviors to draw me in and keep me from thinking about the fact that I’m not doing what I want or need to be doing, and it works. It soothes that part of me that can’t focus or concentrate on writing.

Not that I understand any of that, but it’s true. That’s what happens.

LeechBlock is great; LeechBlock doesn’t work

Lynn

So. I added up my word counts for the time period that began after I added LeechBlock to my browser, and lo and behold, I had my worst week in a month or thereabouts.

I turned LeechBlock off yesterday. Yesterday I wrote just over 1,000 words, and then I did the same today.

I’ve decided that it’s not the internet that’s the problem, it’s me.

Shoulda seen that coming.

Pushing for a finish today; must write faster!

Lynn

I haven’t finished my current book in progress despite having been trying to finish it for a couple of weeks now. Today I’m pushing for a finish, although I know it’s going to be tricky. I don’t have a clue where the story is going to come together, only a vague notion that something is going to have to happen before I can end it because I need my main character to play a more active role in the ending here and so far he just hasn’t stepped up. He’s gonna have to step up. That’s all there is to it.

I need at least one solid chapter to finish up the climax and maybe half another. Then I need some wrap up scenes, so that’ll be another chapter at least.

My chapters range anywhere from 2,000 to 2,800 words, rarely more, but sometimes, so I can’t rule that out. That means 4,800 words minimum to end this thing, even though I wanted my word count for this book to max out at 65,000 words. It hasn’t. The book is now the third longest book in the series. It’s questionable at this point if it’ll remain only the third longest because I’m getting uncomfortably close to the length of the second longest.

So…practice time. I’m going for 800 words per hour, writing in 15 minute bursts. That’s a goal of 200 words for each session of 15 minutes.

That is a push, but practice time it is.

In other news, I’ve reinstituted some personal rules to help me stay away from time sucking activities online. LeechBlock is set to block me from most of the internet from 7 am to noon and 2 pm to midnight.

I’m doing this because I’m just spending too much time on places like K boards.

Which, in another note, I’ve decided might be the wrong table for me to sit at.

Most of the authors there take self-publishing much too seriously for me. I realize publishing is my income source and that I do need to treat the business aspects of it as a business, but the rest of it is for me to do as I please. I don’t treat the publishing part as a traditional business and I don’t want to. I much prefer to be the artisan and do my own thing until I have a product ready to sell. But then when I have the product ready I really prefer to be the person at the flea market or the little corner shop and not really the mass marketing Walmart. I’ll be honest, that’s a terrible analogy, but it’s all I can come up with at 9:12 a.m. in the morning when I just know that I need to stop visiting that site as much as I do and I keep going back and forth and I continue to visit and I continue to read the forum day after day to excess and I continue to find many of the people’s attitudes there quite infuriating at times. And nothing throws me off my game more than being angry does. I think it’s normal to want to be accepted, even looked up to, by your peers, but when your beliefs are so far outside the norm in the group, it’s not going to work out that way unless you start conforming. That price is too high for some of us. It comes to this: Kboards is not good for my mental equilibrium. Know thyself, as they say.

And my final note today: this was written on my phone using the default Google speech-to-text so if it is somewhat unreadable I’m sorry. But the one thing I’m not going to do is override the LeechBlock settings and allow myself to get online and post on my blog before I’ve had a chance to do my writing today.

Now, time to get up and get this day started. It’s my birthday. :)

New rule: midnight cutoff for word counts

Lynn

I make rules for myself all the time. Most of them don’t stick around. I don’t drink coffee, but I had a cup today and a cup yesterday and a cup the day before. Which begs the question: how many cups of coffee can you drink and still claim you don’t drink coffee?

Anyway.

I’ve made myself a new rule, and it’s going to come across as self-serving because it’s 20 minutes past midnight and the rule is to stop writing for the day at midnight. I mean, I can keep writing if I want, but from now on, words written before midnight go on one day and words written after midnight go on the next.

The purpose of this rule is to help me get my sleep routine back into a reasonable shape. I’m tired of staying up until 2 a.m. and then not being able to sleep until 10 a.m. to get a solid 8 hours of sleep. I’m lucky to sleep until 8 and toss and turn until 9-ish.

In other words, I’m tired of being tired.

If I don’t allow myself to count tomorrow’s words today, I won’t have any motivation at all to stay up trying to catch up for lost time (which I was trying to do right before I made this rule, hence my calling its creation self-serving).

But yeah. It’s after midnight and there’s no point feeling guilt over the words I didn’t write today, because today is over and any words I write now won’t get counted.

I will finish the book tomorrow. Or try to anyway.

Goodnight!

Practice pays off

Lynn

I’m already seeing improvements in my pace. I’m crediting practice for this, but it’s really a combination of practice and having a better visual picture of exactly what I’m trying to accomplish with that practice.

Minutes Words Session WPH
15 107 107 428
15 220 113 452
15 428 208 832
60 1217 789 789
60 2412 1,195 1,195

Seeing how few words that really is has helped me in a way that just seeing/hearing the numbers hasn’t. I’ve done the math with my typing speed plenty of times to try to prove to myself that I can write faster, but it’s never really helped things along.

You’ll note, I had to give up the 15 minute sessions for a little while because I was finding the breaks distracting. Now I’m about to go back to the short sessions because I’m finding the hour long sessions too tiring. :)

None of that matters to my practice though. I’m just focusing on keeping myself moving forward as best I can. I’ve had a plot development that scares me a little bit but I’m hoping this book will wrap up soon enough despite that.

Onward!

Practicing for pace improvements

Lynn

Practice is good. I don’t think most people will dispute that. But sometimes I need to be able to visualize what improvement I’m working toward, so I highlighted 200 words of text in my current book in progress and took a screenshot of it.

Here it is.

The blue highlight is 200 words of text in a standard 8.5×11 inch Word document with 1 inch margins in Times New Roman 12 point font.

The screenshot is of a two page spread, giving me the most complete visualization of 200 words I think I’ve ever had.

Here’s the thing: I want to consistently write at a pace of 800+ words per hour. It would allow me to write a reasonable number of words in a reasonable number of hours. I can type 60 words per minute without straining myself.

With that goal in mind, 200 words is what I would expect of 15 minutes of writing and that’s what you see in that screenshot, a visualization of what I’m taking aim at in every 15 minute session I do today.

Seeing it here, in this image, has really made me wonder at the nature of what’s holding me back when I write. I just can’t believe my brain creates story at such a slow pace that I struggle to create this much manuscript in half an hour most days. It’s difficult to understand.

Unless I blame it on perfectionism. Then it makes all kinds of sense.

For the particular selection of text I highlighted for this screenshot, it took me more than half an hour to get right. I know what text is there, nothing was particularly difficult to come up with, and I know it would take me about three to four minutes to type at my average 60 words per minute typing speed.

Tying is not writing, that’s true. But I think much faster than I type so I’m not sure how that flies as an excuse for slow writing.

So today I practice—in fact, I started practicing last night but was too tired to really give it the attention it needed.

I’ll let you know how it goes. :)

An unproductive weekend

Lynn

First, I love my kids, make no mistake about that. But this weekend highlighted just how disruptive it is to my routine when change is in the air. My daughter came home from college this weekend for the first time in three weeks. I had got into a certain routine and her presence pretty much destroyed that routine.

Not that I wish in any way that she had not come home. But I do need to start planning better for this kind of thing because this was the weekend that I really, really needed to finish my latest book.

Spoiler alert. It didn’t happen.

I wrote 81 words Saturday during 0.967 hours of timed writing. Ouch on two fronts.  Since I mostly did edits, it makes sense, but it’s still ugly.

Sunday (today)? 71 words after 22 minutes of writing.

So here I am at 9:06 pm trying to figure out if it’s feasible in any universe for me to write 4,264+ words before I crash tonight.

I’m going to say no.

That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on recovering at least a little. My daughter went back to college today and the house is relatively quiet again, and I’m going to write for the next several hours.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Update: I wrote 429 words. Although I tried to make it to 1,000, at 1:24 am I just had no willpower left at all and I gave up.

Interesting results on something new

Lynn

More words, fewer hours on Friday over Thursday, so that’s good. Yesterday (Friday) wasn’t as good a day as I’d hoped for, but it was my best day in 222 consecutive days. Prior to that, on the 223rd day, I had reached what is my current record word count for a day, 5,816 words, on the day I finished my last book.

Yesterday’s final tally: 2,652 words, 4.55 hours, 583 wph (a little more than the chart shows below because I had one last gasp before I quit and didn’t record it).

Time

Minutes

Words

Session

WPH

10-11

37

427

427

692

11-12

–

12-1

–

1-2

33

449

22

40

2-3

8

445

-4

-30

3-4

–

4-5

31

753

308

596

5-6

48

1484

731

914

6-7

32

1967

483

906

7-8

38

2509

542

856

8-9

–

9-10

–

10-11

–

11-12

–

12-1

41

2557

48

70

Something happened around 8 pm that got me off track in a major way. It went something like this.

I have some micron pens I received as a gift and I really love the blue. I use it for my journaling and session notes and lots of other stuff. I dropped it a few days ago and it took a hard hit on the point, and then day before yesterday I realized it wouldn’t write at an angle very well anymore (while the other pens did). So I was using my purple pen yesterday and right around 8, I dropped the lid down into the couch. It disappeared. I spent half an hour trying to find that pen cap and ended up moving the sofa multiple times, vacuuming everywhere I could reach in and under it, and finally discovered the cap had slid into a nook inside the couch where some joints came together.

Well, that pushed me to move to the dining room table with my writing, and once there I decided I was going to switch back to my blue pen. But it wasn’t writing well so I messed with it a little bit and, yeah, I messed it up. I managed to mash the nib or whatever you call it until it split and now it writes a very flat, sometimes split stroke onto the page. That frustrated me and I started searching for stuff about pens and waterproofing and whether archival safe pens are really necessary for journals, because my favorite pens are the blue and purple Pilot V5 Precise but they are not waterproof in any way. (I tested it a while back. Ugly fading and smearing was the result.) I know archival safe stuff isn’t necessary, but I do want to keep these journals until I die so I want to write with something that holds up a while.

But back to the story. I ran across an interesting website about pencils and suddenly the idea of pencil journaling started to seem appealing to me. I wrote on a napkin, ran it under some water and sure enough, no bleeding or smearing at all. I even rubbed the watery napkin and the pencil marks stayed in place in a way I could read them.

So… I dug out a box of pencils and some other pencils I had and spent half an hour or more sharpening pencils. I have some mechanical pencils I love but they don’t make the pencil scratch sound when I write with them, so I’m keeping the wood pencils on hand too. Honestly, I miss the bright colors in my journal, but since blue was my favorite and it took a week to get those pens delivered (with only one blue in the pack), I’m just going to try pencil for a while.

But that’s what happened to those four hours last night that should have been spent writing. Sigh. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever change.

Well, on to today. I have a book to finish.

Something new

Lynn

It’s interesting, because I thought I’d tried just about everything to get myself writing faster and more regularly, but obviously I haven’t tried everything, because I tried something yesterday that’s working out pretty well (between yesterday and today) and I really don’t remember having tried it before (or at least in this way).

Here’s what I did (and am doing again today): I simply listed out the hours of the day (10–11, 11–12, etc.) and am running the timer during that time, accumulating as much time as I can, without any specific session lengths, with the goal of reaching 500 words for each hour in the day.

Yesterday I ended up with this:

Minutes

Words

Session

WPH

50

246

246

295

30

439

193

386

25

207

-232

-557

20

199

-8

-24

33

240

41

75

38

571

331

523

39

1138

567

872

31

1557

419

811

27

1894

337

749

22

2224

330

900

16

2270

46

173

12

2342

72

360

WPH

410

Hours

5.716667

Which really did not seem bad to me at all. If I hadn’t had such a slow start finishing/editing chapter 23, I would have done a lot better on my word count.

Today I’m doing the same thing as yesterday. I’ve had some interruptions and delays that I’m hoping won’t affect my day too much, in the end, but it remains to be seen how things are going to work out today. Overall, though, I’m really liking this structure around my writing. It’s loose in some ways but strict in others (I can’t change the fact that 11–12 and 12–1 have already passed and I got no writing done), and I like it.

Gotta go now, because I have a personal deadline I need to meet. I’ll post results for this informal little experiment in a follow-up post sometime later. :)