And here it is, another beautiful but frigidly cold day in November, when it’s supposed to be fall but in actually feels a hell of a lot like winter around here. I mean, there aren’t that many 30 and 40 degree days in winter where I live and to have a week of them in November like this is horrible. I don’t like it. Too bad I don’t have a choice.
My plan to write 4,000 words today
Funny, that, right? I went from a 3,000 word goal that I haven’t yet been able to meet to a 4,000 word goal that I hope to meet two days in a row so I can have Sunday to get those paperbacks finished.
I’ve been trying to do a few hours of those paperbacks each night for weeks now and it just hasn’t happened. So last night I decided that what I really need is to get started on it and then have the time to keep with it until I’m done. This seems to be my pattern. When I finally manage to get into something, it’s hard to shift my mind into a different space. I have no trouble focusing deeply on something, but I have significant trouble focusing on what I think I should be focused on! And that statement deserves that exclamation point because it is key to understanding my problems with procrastination. I procrastinate so well because once I’m working on the wrong things, I can’t seem to break away from those things to put my focus on the right thing. Just like with this blog post. I wanted to start writing at 7:30, but decided I absolutely needed to start this post first and now it’s 7:51 but I could not stop until it was done (which it isn’t yet but will be as soon as I add my session goals).
2 hours (goal: 1,000 words) – actual: 565 words, 1.25 hours – If I want to make this goal today, I really need to get my speed up. I’m getting into flow, or at least I feel like I am, but I just can’t seem to go.
Interlude: I started my second session and 27 words into it, I needed to revisit one of the scenes from my last book in the series and bam, I read almost half the book. That’s the trouble with writing exactly what you enjoy reading! I need to have these scenes solid in my head for the sake of continuity (and to figure out how the hell this book and that book are going to work together) and I have mentioned I don’t do any advance plotting, haven’t I? Anyway, ideas are coming fast and furious and my brain is busy sifting through them to find the ones that might work, but this is complicated. The overarching plot has grown quite a bit through books one through four and I’ve got this book and the next that have plots concurrent to the one in book four.
I’d say it was a mistake, but I actually love it. One of my favorite things is to see characters I love from the perspective of others while showing that sometimes what one person sees in an event can be totally different than another’s perspective of the same event. I get to the play with that in this series so much that it actually makes me a little giddy when I think about it. Absolutely giddy, I say. :D
But all that said, this has thrown me off my game for today because I was supposed to have finished my second 2 hours/1,000 words and I used up 1.75 hours reading my previous book instead. I can’t count the time and now I’m going to be either trying to squeeze in another two hours somewhere or lower my expectations for today’s word count.
I really don’t want to do that, so I guess I’ll find some way to fit it in.
2 hours (goal: 1,000 words)
2 hours (goal: 1,000 words)
Update (7:26 pm)—
I’m just about to start my last session of the day. I went from feeling pretty good this morning to feeling not so good at all after lunch and so I’m sitting here hoping I’m going to feel up to at least 2 more hours of writing. I’d really rather just go to bed early and sleep for the next 10 hours. But I’d also really like to end the day with at least enough words to keep me from losing any more ground this month. Just over 1,000 words would get me to 1,667 for the day, and I know I should at least try to reach that amount. It’s just 2 hours.
2 hours (goal: 1,000 words)
Yeah, I know. I bailed. :(