Tag: Failed experiments

I’m constantly trying to find ways and methods to keep me productive. I fail a lot. I don’t mind, because it usually means I’m about to learn something.

That experiment didn’t last long

Lynn

I like writing posts here while I write. I don’t know if it helps keep me focused in on writing or not, but I like it. So I’ve decided to end this latest experiment of mine early. I’d rather write less fiction than have to restrain the exuberance I feel and ignore the compulsion to talk about it. :D So—I’m back!

I’ve done pretty well with my other big writing experiment though. The non-negotiable 1,557 words a day is working for me. It helps that it’s a number I can look at and imagine myself completing in a little over an hour. Now, I don’t usually complete that many words in an hour, not by far, which makes the whole thing funny in a sad sort of way, because it exemplifies my problem with grandiose thinking. BUT, I’ve finally found a way to make that work for me, it seems, because 1,557 words a day feels so easy when I think about doing it, that I don’t find myself hampered by resistance at all.

It’s kind of an amazing feeling, really.

I’ve already told everyone who’ll listen to me not to ever let me set a huge goal for myself again. :D

One reason I think this is different than previous attempts? I usually say one thing but mean another. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually accepted that maybe this is the upper limit for me and that it’s okay. I don’t have to write more than this because I can make a good living (barring catastrophe) and my books might come slower, but consistency will get me there much faster than my usual patterns.

In fact, 1,557 words a day is actually more than 2x my current all time daily average of 618 words. See what all that inconsistency has gotten me, chasing after ever growing goals I never seem able to reach? I can double the number of novels I put out in a year just by writing a small number of words every day.

I’ve known this for a long time, but I think, now, finally, I’m ready to embrace it.

Now, to figure out how to kill perfectionism once and for all…

Facing resistance and adjusting the plan

Lynn

You know how you make a plan and then immediately feel resistant to actually following through? Yes, well, that’s been happening to me.

So instead of letting myself get too far down that hole, I’ve decided to make a few adjustments to the plan.

I wrote a long post about this and then decided to cut most of it. Suffice to say, I’ve decided I might be better served to have a minimum daily plan that is, to be honest, a little more minimum.

That’d be 1,557 words, every day. Yes. I know some days life will interfere. I still want to write 1,557 words every day, even if I have to switch projects to get them done, or write something quick and ugly just before bed to do it.

I can do this in 3 hours or less most days (based on the fact that my real, I’ve-tracked-it average is about 550 words an hour). It might take longer some days but I’m confident in these numbers—they’re real, they aren’t overly optimistic, and this can be done.

It’s really all about training myself to write every day, because I am not good with habits once I start letting them slip. Seriously, it’s the way I’m wired or something but there ain’t a lot of middle ground with me. The only habits that stick are the ones that I make non-negotiable.

Not gonna lie. This is going to be hard as hell to get embedded in my brain: writing daily is non-negotiable. 1,557 words a day is non-negotiable.

All I have to do is show up and stay the course.

I think the thing I’ll have to remember is that if the writing is going badly, I’m going to have to write shit and just accept that. Some shit is better than no shit, right? :P

Now that I’ve thought this all out, I’m ready to get started with this TODAY. :D I have 412 words written and I need to write another 1,145 words.

I like this more reasonable plan. It’s one I can start working on late in the day and still expect to get done. Here’s hoping that will stop the excuses!

(Have I mentioned that a lot of these posts are totally me just writing out my thoughts and trying to make sense of them? Because, yes, that’s what I’ve just done.)

So how is 2017’s “no goals, no timers, no schedules” plan going?

Lynn

I’ve taken a lot of time off writing lately. I don’t know what’s to blame, but I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say I might have set myself up for this.

So how is 2017’s “no goals, no timers, no schedules” plan going?

Let’s keep this simple: Not well. At all.

What does that mean for the rest of 2017? I’m really not sure. I’ve spent months now at loose ends and I’m not liking it. My plan for no plan was supposed to take the pressure off and let me recapture my love for writing. What’s happened is that I’ve realized that without something behind the scenes pushing me I am very content to write only when I’m desperate to get something down.

Doesn’t happen as often as I had hoped. :o

Then again, I can look back at my history, when I was writing entirely for fun, and see that I didn’t write all that much or that often, and when I did, it was because something “fun” like NaNoWriMo was going on or I had fandom buddies egging me on. (I say egging, but around here, it sounds much more like agging which isn’t even a word, but that’s the south for you.)

Anyway, it’s time to end the break and do something to get started again. I guess that’s one experiment I can call done and done.

Might be time to take up the 6,000 words in a day challenge again. I’m going to think about it.

Why I don’t like goals

Lynn

I’ve been thinking about goals and habits and systems again. I’ve talked about those things many times in the past, and I have continually chased goals and failed to meet the vast majority of them. I’m really getting tired of failing.

A forum post I read today talked about how binary the whole goal mentality is: succeed or fail. Sure, you can play mind games with yourself and try to remember that you haven’t actually failed if you’ve made progress, but… really? When you set a goal, if you don’t reach it, your brain is going to tell you you’ve failed. And too much failure definitely takes a psychological toll.

Just yesterday I had a talk with my son about how I’d made 2016 sound like my worst year for writing since I’d started publishing. But it wasn’t. It was very close to an average year, and better even than 2014.

2012: 146,821
2013: 268,191
2014: 217,641
2015: 250,011
2016: 220,017

The monthly averages show how close those numbers really are:

2012: 24,470
2013: 22,349
2014: 18,137
2015: 20,834
2016: 18,335

But it felt like a terrible year, all the way around, because I had set such large goals at the beginning of the year and I came nowhere near reaching them. 2016 was the year I tried to write 1,180,000 words in 12 months; it was the year I decided 4,558 was a reasonable number of words to expect from myself most days.

Looking back, I have no idea what I was thinking.

Why the new plan does not include writing on multiple stories

Lynn

I had a lot of success producing more words when I let myself work on whatever I wanted. That doesn’t really work with the new plan. Theoretically, if I’m having a bad day I can still move on to another story within the group of series stories that I’m working on, but one thing I realized I need to fix is my lack of interest in a story after too much time has passed. To fix that I really need to be writing my stories faster, and I can’t write my stories faster if I’m splitting my focus between 4 books. Because that’s how many books I would be working on at one time if I let myself work on multiple stories while I follow this new plan. Which means that all four books will be ready at about the same time and that they could all take three full months to write even if manage to consistently hit my daily goal.

Three months is too long.

Right now I’m thinking one month to six weeks is probably best to keep my interest high and to keep me from becoming bored with any particular book.

So that’s really the basic reason why I’m not going to be continuing the multiple stories experiments even though they have proven to improve the number of words I can write in any one day.

The fact is I never ended that experiment, and I continue to have trouble writing after I took the break to publish one of my other books. So obviously, even though it did help temporarily, it didn’t create a long-term solution to my long-term problem of my lack of motivation and drive to write some days.

Also, I wrote the majority of this on my phone while I was talking into the voice recognition software and I’ll just say right now that the way that my mind is scattered and the way that I think as I talk probably means this doesn’t make a lot of sense. I will try to edit it the best I can later. :)

Consider this an experiment an anti-perfectionism. I readily admit I actually did go back and edit as much as I could on my phone. But I think I’m going to leave the rest as it is. See you in a later post. :-)

End transmission. ;)

Recognizing perfectionism

Lynn

I had a realization yesterday morning and it’s led me to some serious soul-searching. My 12-month 1,180,000 word challenge is quite possibly—probably, in fact—a manifestation of perfectionism.

I’ve been upfront with the fact that I suffer from repeated bouts of perfectionism, and I don’t always realize when I’ve let it creep back into my life.

But yesterday, I started to realize that the only reason this plan even exists is because I spend a lot of time imagining the awesome way I’ll feel if I write all those books right now, if I can find the perfect system so I can write a perfect number of words every day, all so I can design a perfect release schedule for the many series I have going.

I do not need to write that many books in 12 months.

Not only that, but this goal is so far from realistic for me that I’m not sure it’s even part of my universe.

To reach this goal, I’ll have to write 5 times my current average daily word count. FIVE TIMES.

Every single day.

But perfectionism keeps me re-figuring my calculations at every turn, trying to find a way to do the impossible, because it fits some ideal I’ve come to worship. As if I’m just not doing enough, as if I’m a loser if I can’t write all the books in all the series, and write them damn quick, too. Because I should be able to do it, because it’s so reasonable if I just consider the numbers.

Bullshit.

This all started because I do want to write a lot of books in the series I have going, and the unfortunate truth is that at my current speeds it’ll take me 3.5 years to write them. But I also want to write other things, and I definitely don’t want to wait 3.5 years to start writing those things.

But realism never has been one of my strengths, and neither has delaying gratification.

That was the crack that let perfectionism sneak in. What if I could write this many words? What if I could follow this schedule? What if I could double, triple, no, quadruple my word counts? What if, what if, what if.

I’ve set myself up for failure, trying to reach for some ideal. And I’m failing under the pressure. I’m losing my enjoyment of writing.

I’m going to fix this, now that I’ve recognized what’s going on

I’ve stopped the schedule experiment.

I’m ending the push for 1,180,000 words in 12 months. I studied the list of books I want to write and decided I need to focus on only a few series instead of trying to do everything.

It’s impossible. I can’t do everything, not in the time frame I want.

I love all the series I write, I really do, so I picked based on reader interest and money. I settled on 3 series, plus the pen name series. I picked the pen name series not because of reader interest and money but because of potential for those things. Also, if I give up that series, the pen name is dead, and I don’t want that. Not yet. I want to finish that experiment.

That’s not to say I’m not still setting the bar high. I want to release a book every month for my main name, and a book every 3 months for my pen name. For me, that comes to 2,192 words a day.

To be clear, at least to myself, it’s not a daily quota. It’s a goal.

2,000 one day and 2,400 the next will work fine. :)

It’s possible I’m fooling myself, still. 2,192 is still almost 3.5 times my current average daily word count. I’ll have to take that chance. I need to step up to another level in my earnings, and I can’t do that being satisfied with the number of words I’m currently writing each day.

I debated this goal, wondering why this feels necessary, wondering if I was just replacing one unrealistic goal with another, less obviously unrealistic goal, but decided in the end that I have good and valid reasons for not eschewing goals altogether. I can’t expect to get off the income plateau I’m on if I just keep releasing books at my current pace. Growth and improvement are important and having a big goal doesn’t have to mean I’m succumbing to perfectionism. This plan is a stretch, no doubt, but it isn’t grandiose in the same way as my plan to write 1,180,000 words a year.

One reason for that is because I’ll only be focusing on 4 series going forward. The consequences for failure are mild compared to the consequences I’m already facing because I haven’t been able to reach this other, huge, goal.

Even if I only increase my pace to 1,000 words a day, I’ll still be putting out 2 books a year in each series. That’s considerably better than the current schedule for one of those series, which hasn’t seen a new release in 18 months. And let’s not forget that it took me 11 months to put out the second book in the pen name series. I’ve spent too much time writing other stuff, in no particular order, just trying to stay on top of all the series. I can’t keep up.

So going forward, I’ll be writing a book for each series, in the same order every time, and I’ll stick to one book until it’s done before I move to the next.

Could be this is a mistake. But if I reach my 2,192 words for a day, I can write on anything I want, including those series I didn’t choose to make part of my plan. It’s a reward for staying on track.

And if I do stay on track long-term, I’m considering throwing in one of those side projects every three or four cycles through the main series. I’ll consider that a reward to strive for, too.

In the end, it was important for me to recognize that I’d let perfectionism into my planning. I don’t think it’s done my career any favors and it had to go if I want to move forward. It feels weird to give up on this challenge, but sometimes you have to give up on the things that aren’t working to make real progress.

It’s all a work in progress

Lynn

Hmm. It’s possible I was overly optimistic about my start time today for writing, since I was trying to make up for a really short night of sleep the night before.

You see, the night before last, I stayed up and binge watched Stranger Things on Netflix. I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t mean to, certainly, but once I got started watching it, I couldn’t quit. I think my lack of self-control is tied in to everything that’s been going on with my writing. On the other hand, I burned myself out and I’m going on a TV watching hiatus outside of my lunch break. (I watch TV during that time with my daughter and she would not be happy with me if I cut out that time together. So, not giving that up.)

Because of how tired I was yesterday, I stayed up late last night. I know that sounds at odds with how that’s supposed to work, but for some reason, when I’m desperately tired because of lack of sleep, I find it much easier to stay up late. I get a surge of energy in the evenings, usually around 8 or 9 o’clock and I start to feel like I can finally make up for a lackluster day. It’s a routine, or might as well be. It’s also one reason I have a hard time getting back into good sleep patterns when I mess up even just one night—and it’s why I try not to do that. I didn’t succeed last night and ended up getting to sleep around 12:30 AM. So of course, this morning I woke up at 6:56 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep, although I did try. I shouldn’t have. It did no good and it led me to getting up much later than I wanted to get up today.

It’s also put me off my stride and I’m struggling to get started this morning.

Not only that, but there’s a leak in a pipe in the basement and a repairman is here to fix it, and that’s also been a distraction.

But… even though I know it’s late, I’m about to try anyway. Since no one is here to notice that I’m not stopping at 11 AM today (the 11 AM to 2 PM break is not a break so much as it’s reserved non-work time), I’m going to write from now until 12 and then stop. After that, I’ll restart at 2 PM and go from there.

The goal today is unchanged: 3,233 words.

One thing you won’t find mention of is the multiple books experiment. I think it really works for me, but… I also think it has its flaws. If I’m still going to end up struggling to write the way I’ve been struggling these past two months, I think it’s best if I focus all my energy on one book at a time.

I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason I’m having such a hard time with the particular book I’m working on now is because I’ve spread it out over such a long time period. According to the files in my backups folder, I made my first backup of that story back on 2/8/2015. That means I’ve been working on this book, in one way or another, for almost 18 months. That’s too long to spend on a book. I lose interest. I lose focus. I can’t write without either of those. I lose the threads of the story, and that’s worst of all, I think, because it leads to the other two problems.

This is something I just realized a few days ago. The multiple stories experiment has failed to keep me writing. If I’m going to struggle, I might as well reserve that struggle for one book so I can have a better chance of keeping up my momentum with whatever particular story I’m working on.

Anyway, it’s all a work in progress. I keep feeling like someday I’ll find the perfect system that’ll keep writing fun and keep me writing, but the truth is I know that’s not going to happen. I just have to keep doing whatever it takes to make as much progress as I can. I do love to write when a story is going well, and I’m happier doing this than I’ve ever been at any of my previous jobs. It’ll work out if I just keep moving. :)

Failed experiment: site blocking software to fight distractions

Lynn

Maybe I should give it more time, but I’m not going to. I’m calling this experiment done. Here are a few of the reasons I think this one failed.

  1. I spent a lot of time trying to tweak the block sets, but nothing I came up with fit my work patterns
  2. It pushed me toward browsing the internet and reading the blocked sites on my phone (and I definitely don’t want to develop that habit!)
  3. The out of sight, out of mind approach tends to work best for me and realized this was doing exactly the opposite of that

Time to try something else, and I’ve already got something in mind. But I’ll leave that post for later. :D

Follow up to the summer routine post

Lynn

I said yesterday that I’m trying to start a summer routine, but nope, it really didn’t work. I ended up writing in scattered sessions throughout the day, and just one day of feeling like I was supposed to write on schedule was enough to make me rethink the idea of an artificially constructed routine.

I did manage 4.5 hours of writing, but did none of the other stuff I’d hoped to also do yesterday. And honestly, 4.5 is not 5. My goal is 5 hours and 3,933 words minimum. So I’m happy I did what I did, but I’m sad that I keep falling short of what I want.

Hours Words Session WPH
1 650 650 650
1 1454 804 804
1 1777 323 323
0.5 2293 516 1032
1 2840 547 547

I’m really tired of disappointing myself time and again, but I don’t think a schedule is going to get me into a routine (and that plan yesterday really was mostly a schedule).

The problem is that if I don’t find a way to get into a nice routine, I’m going to end up never doing anything but writing—even though I won’t actually be writing that much, because I never do!

In other words, when I put too much focus on meeting a writing goal, I hesitate to do anything other than writing, afraid I’ll set off my obsessive tendencies and not meet my writing goals at all because I’m too busy being obsessed with something else. So although yesterday would have been a good day to finalize the cover for the pen name book, I didn’t, because I was afraid I would become obsessed with that and spend all day doing cover tweaks instead of writing. Because, to be honest, I’ve done it enough times to know that’s exactly what’s likely to happen.

I really need to figure out how to split all this up into a work day that makes good use of my time and doesn’t make me feel like I’m wearing a straitjacket.

It’s Friday—What?

Lynn

I’ve failed every attempt this week to meet the challenge I’ve set myself to break 6,000 words. In the last 7 days, I haven’t even broken into the 3,000 range.

See? 1,439; 1,009; 595; 2,330; 1,087; 701; 0 (today)

Today’s 0 won’t be zero because I’ve already started writing.

My last >3,000 word day was last Friday.

I’m not really sure where the blame for this lies. It’s just been a rough week and the writing hasn’t been easy. I think I’m making the obvious mistake of pushing myself to write more on one particular book and because I’m having issues with that story, I’m stalling out a bit, and it’s creating the beginning of that vicious cycle of writing avoidance I’ve talked about many times in the last couple of weeks as I try to keep myself working by only working on what I want.

Unfortunately, I’ve committed to finishing a particular book this month and I mean to meet that commitment.

But I guess I don’t trust myself. I’m worried that if I just write, without keeping an eye on how much of my time is spent on that particular book, I’ll screw up and realize I’m too far behind to catch up before my personal deadline hits. The 20th is the latest I need to finish this book and have a chance of meeting my commitment, and that’s 15 days from now, or about 2,321 words every day, or somewhere around 3,200 words for 11 out of 15 days.

Honestly, these are totally doable numbers. It’s 2 to 3 hours at my current year’s wph rate. My daily goal is 5 hours of writing. That still leaves me plenty of time to switch between stories and try to get my momentum up before I hit this book.

So why has this week been so bad? I think because I just haven’t remembered this stuff that I just wrote. I mean, I don’t have to work on this book every moment I’m at the computer writing. I just need to focus on reaching my 5 hours a day (maybe 6 until this book is done) and try to start at least a few sessions with this book every day. If they don’t get off to a good start, I can switch back, but I don’t think that’s my problem. I think it’s just the resistance to starting at all. :D

Going forward, I just need to catch up with this particular book and one more and then I can let go of all deadlines and really stick to writing only what I want when I want. I expect I’ll be more than able to keep up with reasonable releases within my series then just because I write so much faster when I keep switching between stories.

So, I guess I’ve just worked out a few thoughts I’ve been struggling with. Let’s see if it helps today be a more productive—and interesting—writing day.

Now, time to get back to the fiction. Tomorrow and Sunday both will have me short of writing time if I’m not careful and I can’t really get any more behind than I already am this month. Plus, I don’t need to fall back into the habit of making my writing take all day. There are other things I need—and want—to do sometimes. I’d like to get to a place where I can do those things and still count on being able to hit my daily writing goals!

 

There is no magic pill

Lynn

I’ve spent the whole day planning.

I’ve planned my calorie intake (11850 per week if that’s of interest to you).

I’ve planned my menu (just eat as much of the same thing every day this week as possible to save time).

I’ve planned to quit drinking coffee again and do it with as little agony as possible, because caffeine withdrawal SUCKS and since I had 4 or 5 cups of coffee today (can’t remember exactly) plus three cups of green tea and I’ve been having that much every day for over a week now, I know I’m going to suffer tomorrow no matter how much green tea I drink trying to offset the problem.*

I’ve planned how to catch up on my writing goal of 1,180,000 words in 12 months.

I’m tired of planning, but the truth is, I don’t feel well enough to do much more than plan. Mentally, my thoughts are a jumbled mess. Physically, I have a bellyache and a headache. I blame the coffee.

*Why? Why, oh, why am I stuck on this coffee question again? I had a moment today where I realized I just don’t feel well. I’ve had a lot of headaches this week, many more than is usual for me, and my stomach has stayed upset. All the energy I had when I first started drinking coffee again is already gone. I did great with my focus and concentration for a bit less than a week and now it’s just gone. I feel terrible physically. Worse than I did, for sure. I’m also right back where I started when it comes to my writing. And if I’m not going to get the benefits, why the hell am I drinking the stuff? As desperately as I want to find one, there is no magic pill.

Two minute rule

Lynn

I meant to mention this earlier, but I started a two minute rule on Tuesday (2/2). The rule is that I write for two minutes absolutely every day, no exceptions. There are no exceptions because—seriously—it’s only two minutes. Except in truly tragic circumstances, it’s just unlikely I’ll ever have any legit excuse to skip a two minute writing session. It’s only two minutes!

Since then, I’ve successfully kept to the rule.

My word counts have been small (very, very small). I had the urge on the very first night to just give up and go to bed without writing, but it took only a second at the computer as I went to shut it down to realize how ridiculous it would be to not write for those two minutes.

Here are the results:

Tues: 22
Wed: 30
Thur: 53

I deliberately chose not to do 5 minutes because it just felt like too big a number. There’s a lot of baggage associated with 5 minutes. I’ve often used that number for sprint writing and it has developed “associations.” :D

Update:

22
30
53
23
1
36
22
47
0

I held on for 8 days, until yesterday. I just didn’t want to do it. I had a memorial service to go to and I had plenty of opportunity to get this done before and after that service, but I still didn’t want to do it, and yesterday was one of those days where it just didn’t feel worth doing.

I don’t know what to do about this. All I know is that I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall made of reinforced concrete.

Lost focus and broke my streak!

Lynn

Well, I’m bummed. I’ve been getting a lot done the last couple of days while fighting that cold, and somehow, on Wednesday, I completely forgot to write anything. Today I had the sudden realization that I hadn’t written anything yesterday and that made me take a look at my daily log, at which point I realized yesterday wasn’t even at issue. Wednesday had already broken my streak.

So I have to start over.

I failed to get started on writing today, but I did work most of the day. I finished the paperback cover for the more recent book and submitted those files to Createspace. I took another look at the cover I did yesterday (or maybe the day before—the days are running together in my head) and made a few tweaks. I’m about to take a final look and decide if I like the adjustments or not.

. . . A few hours later . . .

Yeah, the cover definitely needed the adjustments. I like it much better now. It also fits the look of the whole series better. Someday, I’ll get better at this. ;) I really will.

And now, I’m going to export the sizes and formats I need for publishing and move on to restarting my writing streak before I conk out tonight.

The year of the schedule is sputtering to an end

Lynn

At what point do I just admit the schedule isn’t working and give it up? I don’t know if I’m there yet but I’m getting close.

Ah. Maybe it’s already time.

The schedule really isn’t working anymore.

In all honesty, I can’t say if it ever worked past those first few good weeks. Even then, my progress was scattered. It’s probable that the boost in productivity came about because of a random surge in creativity or with the excitement of trying something new. I like newness.

I have books to write and the schedule isn’t getting them written. Today, facing this, I am sad.

I have one minute to write this post

Lynn

I’ve never managed to write a blog post in one minute, but here goes. My timer is set to start just as soon as I hit publish on this thing.

Here are some things I’ve tried over the last week or so while I’ve been quiet here.

(Oh, and the reason I’ve been quiet is because of household maintenance issues! Frozen pipe, ruined water heater, water softener (which is absolutely necessary for my well water), and getting all that dealt with has taken up a bit of time, but the biggest issue with it all was the anxiety this stuff caused me. I have yet to figure out how to write when I’m anxious about something. I usually turn to reading instead. This time I unfortunately turned to reading forums and blogs instead of fiction, which lead me to start a new experiment.)

My experiment of grouping my writing into one big block has failed. I’ve tried and tried to have another successful day after that first one and I just haven’t been able to pull it off.

I’m behind on my 2,000 a day word average I wanted to maintain in 2015. I usually try to avoid trying to play catch up, but I want to reach this goal, so I’m going to do something I don’t usually think is a good idea and try to catch up to my goal this month. I’ll need to write about 3,000 words a day on average through the end of the month. That’s a huge stretch for me but it’s not impossible. I can do it even though I’ve never before written that much for more than a few days at a time.

It comes down to this: It’s time to stop putting limits on myself when the limits shouldn’t exist. I mean, even on bad days I can write about 300 to 400 words an hour. 3,000 words is only 8 to 10 hours at that slow pace. I can physically write for 8 to 10 hours if necessary and saying I can’t would be an outright lie. I can read for that many hours a day if I’m bingeing, and I can watch tv for that many hours, and I can work on code for a website for that many hours, so I know that any limit I have regarding this is entirely made up in my head. I can write 3,000 words a day for a couple of weeks. Frankly, there shouldn’t be anything stopping me from doing it long-term (because I don’t always write at that slow pace), but I really don’t need to do more than catch up my goal and then go back to my daily 2,000 words.

Finally, yesterday, I started a new experiment limiting my time reading stuff. I need to cut back. Not fiction—of course not! But I read too much other stuff and end up overwhelmed with information and that makes it hard for me to concentrate sometimes. Also, all the publishing industry news can be frustrating and put me in an anti-creative mood. So it’s time to do something about it.

This experiment: No reading anything but fiction for the rest of January except on Saturdays.

I read this stuff on my Kindle and computer mostly, and sometimes on my phone. I did read a story this morning instead of the usual forums and blogs but it didn’t really help because the story was short enough that I convinced myself I could just finish it before getting started and I ended up starting later today than I wanted anyway.

What I’m hoping to accomplish is an interruption in the habitual opening of these websites so that I don’t just read this stuff out of habit. So even though maybe this won’t help with the time management issues I have, I still think it’ll benefit me. Reading fiction makes me want to write my own stories; reading that other stuff doesn’t. :D We’ll see how this goes over the rest of the month.

Well, it’s been a bit more than a minute and I really have to go start my writing today. I’m sure I’ll be back later with a report on my successful day. :D That’s the plan anyway!

I’m hoping to write a LOT of words today.