Tag: Success

Yes! I might fail a lot, but sometimes I succeed.

Daily post – Jan. 9, 2020

Lynn

I set out today with the same plan I had yesterday.

600 x 6 = 3,600

Here’s how it went.

Each line starts with the goal word count for the end of that hour. I’m scheduling hours because it’s easiest. I’m not always getting an hour of timed writing done in that hour, but I don’t care. Really, I don’t care. The ultimate goal is 600 words x 6, not 6 hours of writing.

As a reminder, how I get these 600 words every day is up to me. Any session style I want. 5 minute sprints, 20 minute sprints, 60 minute blocks. Whatever works.

In fact, today, I’ve used all those mentioned above, and a 10 minute sprint and a 40 minute block, too.

Whatever works. ;D

I meant it.

600 – 214
1200 – 1158
1800 – 1677
2400 – 2155
3000 – 2718
3600 – 3633

I really, really liked this method. The flexibility makes it fit whatever mood I’m in, and that is a huge boon for me.

I’m working on that last session now. I’m going to hit that 3,600 tonight. I’ll be back to update when I do.

Update—

That last hour took 70 minutes, but I did it. :-) Whew.

All told, I spent 268 timed minutes writing (4.47 hours) which felt like it took all day. But I managed to watch a few episodes of television, cook a nice meal at lunch, and putter a lot online.

That’s the biggie, in fact—the puttering. I probably spent more than half the time I spent on the computer not writing. So yeah, of course it felt like it took all day. That’s probably 9 hours of my day at the computer. I definitely need to think about trimming that down if I want to reach this goal regularly.

Now to do this again tomorrow…

Tomorrow I resume the challenge to reach 6000 words in a day

Lynn

Today I haven’t written any fiction. I have a daily writing streak I could keep alive by writing something now, but I don’t think I’m going to. I might, when I finish writing this post, go write a little something, but I might not. I’m tired and I’m not really seeing the need.

Tomorrow I resume the challenge to write 6000 words in a day. I was SO close a few days ago but I just couldn’t get those last 200 words. I’ve been staying up too late and when you’re falling asleep at the computer, it’s time to put the computer up. ;)

I’m just about there now.

There’s a caveat to the resumption of the challenge for tomorrow though. I have to start working my way back into good sleep habits. I’m paying for the lack of them in so many ways. Increased appetite, cravings for sweets, tired eyes, that kind of thing.

Anyway, the point is that I’m still very interested in reaching 6000 words in a day but I also want to not have to work so hard at it. :D

First thing: I need to make sure I’m in a place in my head where I can write freely. I just can’t do this without a better pace. 10 hours and 33 minutes is how long it took me to write the 5,816 words that broke my previous record of 5,758 words in a day. That’s just too much time.

I don’t want to have another 10 hour day anytime in the near future. Seriously, it was rough and I felt very much like all I did was get up Sunday, start writing, and write all day long until I gave up at about 10:30 that night. I know I had times when I was away from the computer, because I only clocked 10 hours and 33 minutes, but I sure can’t remember any of them. It was write, write, write, all day.

Anyway, enough of this ramble. The TL;DR for this is I’m still chasing 6000 words a day, but I’m setting some limits. :)

Goodnight!

Giving up on the dream—but only for today (challenge update)

Lynn

I’ll have to try again tomorrow to break through the 6,000 word ceiling I seem to have. Although admittedly, it felt more like a 1,000 word ceiling today!

I logged about 7 solid hours of writing (sans interruptions, breaks, etc) and still have only managed to reach 1,495 words for the day. I’ll continue writing up until I’m ready to go to sleep, but there’s no way I’m meeting the 6,000 words challenge by then. I want to get up early again tomorrow, and that means getting to bed soon enough. I might write another 30 minutes, all told, before I call it a night.

I have to say, the writing wasn’t difficult despite the challenge I had with speed. I’ve been trying to find my way. Sometimes that’s slow going. I’ve been having difficulties with this scene and the ones that follow (some are written, as I mentioned in another post, and I’m just hoping they’ll join up when the time comes) and because of that I’ve put off working my way through it when I should have just tried to keep going even if it meant slow days.

That’s a problem with chasing speed. On days when things just can’t go fast, it becomes easier to do nothing than to face what feels like failure.

I feel like today was a mix of success and failure. Failure to reach 6,000, obviously, but success in getting back in the groove of all day writing and actually enjoying it.

It was a fun day.

And I’ll see you again tomorrow as I try this thing one more time.

Experiments update

Lynn

In my post about how moderation doesn’t work for me, I laid out a plan for an experiment with abstinence and a strict adherence to my schedule.

It’s been a few days. And yeah. Some of it’s working out pretty well. Some of it isn’t.

Here are the details.

The no sweets experiment is going well, if you ignore the fact that I’m having a ridiculous number of cravings. Weight is down about four pounds and I’m eating anything I want except sweets and obvious junk like potato chips (which I don’t eat often anyway). I am definitely not going hungry.

The schedule experiment still hasn’t taken off, and today doesn’t seem poised to change that. Still, I’m going to get some writing done, because I want to and that’s going to be enough to get me to the computer at 2. (I’ve already missed the window for the 8-11 block, as it’s 12:57 PM right now.)

I haven’t relapsed with the coffee, despite several strong cravings.

I haven’t been back to Kboards or TPV.

Failure in May wasn’t as bad as it feels

Lynn

I didn’t write but 1/3 of what I wanted to write in May, but in the end, when I looked harder at the numbers, I discovered it wasn’t as bad a failure as it feels. May’s word count comes in at 35,296.

Only 7 months out of 46 have been higher. May was my 47th month of publishing, and that makes June my 4 year anniversary as a self-publisher. :D How absolutely amazing!

Between April and May, I’ve had my best two month word count, ever, by 1,470 words.

February–March 2013 = 91,075 words
April–May 2016 = 92,545 words

My next best two month period was November–December 2015 when I wrote 73,377 words.

Gotta say, I’m happier than I was after looking at these numbers. I’m still showing improvement, and I’m excited by my progress. :D Here’s hoping June is a great month for word counts. :)

Reached five hour goal today

Lynn

I find it funny that the moment I stop a challenge, I immediately find it easier to focus on what needs to be done.

I reached my five hour writing goal today, although I admit, I’m nowhere near my word count goal.

Hours Words Session WPH
1 318 318 318
1 618 300 300
1 1161 543 543
1 1382 221 221
1 1847 465 465

Total: 5 hours, 1,847 words, for an average of 369 wph.

On the other hand, even though I haven’t reached my word count goal, I am now officially past the material I needed to fix and I had just started to write some new stuff at the end of my last session.

I’m thinking of writing some more tonight, but we’ll have to see how I feel after a break, because I absolutely want to get to bed early tonight. I feel like I’m at my most creative and productive when I get more sleep and I want to give myself plenty of opportunity for that after several nights of less than optimal bedtimes.

This writer does not subsist on coffee and tea; she needs her sleep! :)

ETA: I did write a bit more, although not as much as I’d hoped to.

0.46667 2220 373 799.286

So new total: 2,220 words, 5.47 hours

But look at that! A major improvement in my pace now that I’m writing new material again! ;D Whew! I’m excited about tomorrow. Finally, some momentum again!

Now, must get some sleep so I feel good tomorrow and can write nice and fast.

And as an aside, my A/C is still broken and it’s starting to get hot around here. :o I’m getting worried that the part I need won’t arrive before it gets really hot. And I hate leaving my windows open: I just found a bug floating in my glass of water. Yuck. I’m too delicate for this crap. ;)

Multiple stories at once: fifth week

Lynn

Thursday—Wednesday, May 5–May 11

701 1 story
1,656 1 story
747 2 stories
256 1 story
1,613 1 story
3,728 2 stories
2,581 1 story

Total = 11,282 words

I didn’t feel like I was writing multiple stories this week, probably because I’ve been panicking a bit about a book I’m trying to finish (which is something I hope will be over soon, but there are 2 books that I just really need to get caught up on).

I worked on 2 distinct stories this week. The only day I really broke out on, I spent most of my writing time on that second story. That was what helped me realize something was wrong with the other one, because I could still write faster and easier when I was working on something else. (And this is a great example of why the multiple stories method is really working for me to increase my word counts.)

Overall, it was another week that was much lower in word count than I’d hoped since I’m aiming for 27,533 for a full writing week, but I still did much better than my average.

I’ve now had 5 weeks in a row where I’ve written more than 10,000 words each week.

My current total words written since I started this experiment is 72,989 words. Not the 98,333 words a month I want to reach eventually, but a damn sight closer than I’ve ever been in the past. :D I’m pleased.

This experiment continues to be a raging success.

Multiple stories at once: fourth week

Lynn

Thursday—Wednesday, April 28–May 4

2,260 2 stories
3,228 2 stories
1,439 1 story
1,009 2 stories
595 2 stories
2,330 3 stories
1,087 2 stories

Total: 11,948

Definitely under where I’d like to be, but it still works out to a daily average of 1,707 words which is considerably better than my 2016 daily average of 779, or my 2015 daily average of 685.

So, still a ways to get where I want to be: 3,933 words on writing days, or approx 3,233 daily average, for 98,333 words a month, but much closer than I’ve been in the past (as a whole, not my recent past—I did much better last week and the first week).

Since I started this experiment, my daily average has increased dramatically, more than doubling to 2,033 words a day. :D I call that success.

I worked on 5 distinct stories this week.

Multiple stories at once: third week

Lynn

Thursday—Wednesday, April 21–27

245 (4 stories) (was not a writing day, just inputting error corrections after a read through)
2,245 (1 story)
2,863 (1 story)
149 (3 stories)
2,831 (2 stories)
4,858 (1 story)
3,736 (2 stories)

Total: 16,927 words.

It was a good week—really good, in all honesty, but I didn’t really come close to my goal of 27,533 for a full week of writing.

Still, I cannot deny that something has changed. I’m giving all credit to the things I mentioned in two posts I’ve written since I started this latest experiment (key to success, multiple stories first week).

I worked on 5 distinct stories this week.

No plan today: I’m already there

Lynn

I decided last night that I needed to focus on writing about results instead of intentions, thinking that would mean I’d have a better chance of getting started on time this morning and staying on schedule.

That didn’t exactly work, although I did manage to get my 3 hours before lunch and get my last hour started during the two o’clock hour. :) I still had a good writing day, all told. But not blogging until I had results to report didn’t make any difference in my start time this morning. I started late today because I started reading some forum posts while I had breakfast and I didn’t stop when I should have.

Here are my session logs for today.

Minutes Words Session WPH
37 556 556 902
39 1,065 509 783
60 2,122 1,057 1,057
44 2,970 848 1,156
60 3,694 724 724
240 Total minutes
3,694 Total words
924 Total WPH

Already in motion

Lynn

Finally, I seem to be on my way to nailing the schedule/routine today!

I made a note to myself this morning in Evernote:

Remember not to try to play catch up with the writing. Just work on getting my 4 hours during my routine and reaching 3233. If I want to write more or if I’m doing well, I can either quit at 3233 or keep going. My choice. But NOT catch up. Catch up will interfere with me setting my habits and getting into a routine.

I also set a goal to write in 1 hour blocks this morning.

The schedule was:
8:00–9:00
9:15–10:15
10:30–11:30

You can see that in the image below. :)

I wasted my first half hour figuring out some book titles for one of my series but then caught myself and got started, with the intent to catch up as quickly as I could. That was at 8:34.

Here are the morning numbers:

Minutes Words Session WPH
32 412 412 773
60 1,550 1,138 1,138
60 2,492 942 942
28 2,998 506 1,084

Now, it’s 1:07 pm and I’m having lunch and going to start an episode of Midsomer Murders I won’t get to finish. :D I’ll be back at 2 pm to finish my 4th hour.

One thing I’ve noticed that’s helped today is that I started adding “(+)” or “(-)” to my calendar after the event. It feels great to be able to see those pluses. :D
Calendar marks

Update:

I’ve just finished my 4th hour. I could go on, but I think I’m going to leave it here. I’d really like to get into this routine and if I push too hard, I could put myself off the routine entirely.

When I got back from lunch, but my battery was only at 39% charged. I ended up waiting until 2:30 to start writing to give it more time to charge.

I still finished a bit late, even for a 2:30 start, but I had several breaks. Too much tea this afternoon! Anyway, the pace slowed, but not too much, and I’m pretty happy with today’s progress.

Here are the final session logs.

Minutes Words Session WPH
32 412 412 773
60 1,550 1,138 1,138
60 2,492 942 942
28 2,998 506 1,084
60 3,723 725 725
240 Total minutes
3,723 Total words
931 Total WPH
4 Hours to write
0 Hours left
#DIV/0! WPH needed

I’ll be honest. The coffee and tea have helped tremendously. Mental fatigue isn’t setting in nearly as quickly as it has been. I don’t think I’m going to try to get off it again for a while. Maybe I’ll just give up on that entirely and stick to working on moderating my intake.

Now, to finish that episode of Midsomer Murders before I do some cover practice or start working on my federal taxes. I definitely need a break before tackling that last one. :D

Trying today to write more than 5,221 words

Lynn

I’m going to try again today to break my new one-day word count record. :) I didn’t do well with that challenge on Sunday, ending the day early with only 535 words.

Today I expect better. But first I have to get off the WIFI and get started, so I’ll be back later with details. :D

Success!

Minutes Words Session WPH
60 761 761 761
55 1,246 485 529
39 1,711 465 715
30 2,068 357 714
12 2,279 211 1,055
10 2,405 126 756
50 2,810 405 486
42 3,589 779 1,113
40 4,142 553 830
30 4,502 360 720
30 4,910 408 816
30 5,298 388 776

I’m actually not done with tonight’s writing just yet, so this probably isn’t my final word count, but as of this last session, I surpassed my previous one-day word count record and I was too excited not to post about it. :D

Update: I made it to 5,758 words. New record! Next up, 6,000 words in one day. It’ll happen.

Breaking my one-day word count record—attempt #3

Lynn

Success!

I’m writing this in Evernote today so I can have the accountability without the WIFI. ;) I need accountability.

FYI: This turned out to be one long log! TMI warning!

8:02 am—

Starting with a 50 minute timed session of writing. Playlist is playing. Book doc is open. And yes, I’m still working in Word 2016 although I had to zoom in to 110% so the font issues don’t annoy me so much. I’m not that unhappy with the zoomed text. I still like Word 2007 better! :D

8:59 am update—

I wrote 497 words in 50 minutes. That’s a pace of 596 WPH. So still a little slow but better than yesterday for sure! Going for a quick break and then I’ll get back to it.

Okay, here’s an example of breaks and what happens. I got up at exactly 9 am, peed, went to the kitchen, made coffee, peed, refilled the soap dispenser in the bathroom, moved my computer from the desk to the living room, peed, poured the coffee into a cup, and got comfortable on the couch. It was then exactly 9:15.

It’s now 9:18. This comes to 18 minutes break for 50 minutes writing. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes.

I have a hard deadline this afternoon of 4 pm because of an obligation I have, so today needs to go well if I want to break that word count record. :)

10:13 am update—

I’m now up to 1,051. That’s another 554 words in another 50 minute session, bringing my pace up to 631 WPH. My spreadsheet tells me I’ve completed 1.6667 hours of writing and need another 6.592 hours to reach my goal at that pace. :o

I can do it. The story is going well now, and I’m thrilled to be able to say that.

Now, off to take a quick break before I start again. I might go with a 60 minute session next. Let’s see how long this break runs.

Alright. I’m back and it’s 10:26, so that’s .  .  . 13 minutes. Wow. I did nothing but pee and heat my coffee in the microwave for 25 seconds, text my kid a message about when he needed to be home, and text my sister about my word count. Short texts too. I didn’t even wait for a response before I put my phone back into airplane mode.

If I can stay writing for the entire session and not need to stop for peeing, longer sessions would seem to be the best way for me to cut the breaks back. My goal is 25%, so for every 18 minute break I have I should be writing 18/.25=72x.75=54 minutes. Of course, the 13 minute break goes just fine with a 45-50 minute writing session.

But longer sessions might only be a good idea if I can do them without needing to stop in the middle of them. That’s where I’ll run into problems.

It’s now 10:39 am. Time to get back to writing. I’m not going to count the extra 13 minutes against myself since I’m trying to figure out something here. :)

11:34 am update—

Can’t wait to stop at 60 minutes! I’m dying here. :D Pee break necessary!

Okay, whew. Peed, knocked down a spider web on my front porch, which I stepped out on to get a breath of fresh air and a moment of sunshine, then made a fresh cup of mint tea, peed again, and I’m back. It’s 11:45. So, an 11 minute break for a 54 minute writing session. That’s acceptable.

I got another 692 words to put me at 1,743 and my pace is now 679 WPH, which is an acceptable average. :D

Now, back to writing. ;) I’m going to try 60 minutes again. If this one doesn’t work out, I’m going back to 50 minutes and will just have to focus on keeping breaks as short as possible.

12:52 pm update—

I made it 60 minutes, but I can say confidently that I wouldn’t have made it more than 5 minutes more. I wrote 686 words this time, putting me at 2,429 words. My pace is now 681 WPH.

I need a lunch break now, and I’m going to really hope my break doesn’t slow me down once I come back to writing. I usually break for lunch at 12, but I forgot about that when I started this last session and when my phone alarm went off to remind me, I decided I could wait. I wasn’t that hungry at the time, although I definitely am now! :)

Be back soon. When I return I think I’ll go back to 50 min. Just less chance all around of needing to stop early for a break.

2:04 pm update—

Okay, I have no idea how lunch went long. The clock doesn’t lie though and it’s obviously been just over an hour since I stopped.  Tomorrow I think I’ll set a timer for 45 minutes and see if I can shorten that.

I feel good that I’m restarting at almost the halfway point to breaking my word count record. I have 2,779 words to go to break it, but I’d like to break my record by at least 100 words.

So far, my spreadsheet shows I’ve written for 3.56 hours today and that I need to write for another 4.08 to finish. I can do that. Although not by 4 pm, unless I suddenly double my WPH. Possible but not probable. I do believe I’ll have another 2 hours tonight to write also, although without WIFI I can’t exactly check my calendar. :D

Anyway, time to get to it. I only have enough time for 2 more 50 minute sessions if I start right now!

3:10 pm update—

Not tired yet. The story is going GREAT. :) I hate that I have to stop in less than an hour! I have this horrible fear I won’t recapture the magic when I get back.

Anyway, I wrote 664 words in 50 minutes, putting me at 3,093 for the day. My pace is currently 703 WPH. My spreadsheet says I’ll need to write for another 3 hours to reach my goal of breaking my word count record. :)

I think I have time for one more 50 minute session.

4:08 pm update—

I’ve run out of time! I’ve had to stop at 40 minutes at 3,699 words. My WPH shot up with this last session, so I’m very happy with my progress! My pace is 730 WPH now, and the spreadsheet says I need to write for 2.06 more hours.

We’ll see if I get time to do that tonight and beat this record of mine!

8:02 pm update—

Got home at 7, but the one thing I forgot when I said I could probably get 2 more hours of writing time tonight was dinner time. Because of that I’m getting started later than I wanted to. I try to quit at 9 every night, but it’s a Friday so I might just stay up and get this record broken. I think I can do it.

I’ll see how this first session goes and decide then. If my WPH is tracking near what I got earlier today, then I’m willing to stick it out and go to bed later. If it’s too low, I’ll push for my 4,521 words and quit there, because I plan to write a lot of words again tomorrow and I won’t be up for that if I stay up really late tonight. That kind of thing tends to have a snowball effect on my productivity.

Since my intent is to train myself to write 4,521 on every work day I can, I need to be able to do it while sticking to my normal evening routine. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life staying up too late trying to hit that word count. :)

Also, my fingernails grew today. Or maybe I’m more dehydrated now after 3 hours in the car and the pads of my fingers have shrunk away from my nails. Who knows. This morning, they weren’t a problem, but right now, they’re driving me crazy. Time for clipping. Then I’ll get started on that first 50 minute session.

Alrighty! Got that taken care of. Time to get started.

9:19 pm update—

I’m getting tired. It didn’t slow me down much though, although I do feel like I’m making more typos than I was and having to correct myself. I wrote for 50 minutes, 667 words, and my pace now averages 740 WPH. So although I wasn’t as fast as I was in the session before this one (at 909 WPH), I was still faster than in any of the rest, coming in at 800 WPH exactly.

I do think I’ll continue. Tonight might just be the night. :D

My spreadsheet says it’ll take me another 1.137 hours to finish. That’s 69 minutes. So . . . I’m going to set my timer for 60 minutes and try really, really hard to write at least 942 WPH! That would put me 100 words above my record and I wouldn’t have to go into another session. ;)

Anyway, need a quick break first because my legs are going numb and I’m very thristy.

Back from break and it’s now 9:40 pm. Somehow my break has taken me 21 minutes! I can’t explain it, because I didn’t do anything during my break except pee, guzzle a cup of water, make a fresh cup of herbal mint tea, and shake out my legs while I waited the 2 minutes it takes to boil the water.

Honestly, I think I’m just tired and I’ve slowed down. I mean, I’m seriously tired. I’ve started yawning a lot, because 6 am comes early and that’s what time I get up every day. I’ve had a couple of days this week where I just didn’t get enough sleep and although I got more the last two nights, I’m not caught up by any means. I’ll get to sleep in tomorrow morning, so maybe I’ll catch up finally. ;)

Honest to goodness, I just want to go to bed! Fighting that feeling and getting back to my book . . . right . . . now.

10:56 pm update—

How’s this for irony: I finished my 60 minute session and I’m sitting at 5,108 words. Exactly 100 words fewer than my record.

I’m not going to bother with a break because if I take one right now, I might not come back. I’m so tired I think I could fall asleep right here. I’m setting a 15 minute timer and hoping I can knock out 200 words so I can call this thing! :D

11:21 pm update—

It’s done! I have written 5,221 words today. I didn’t end up with an extra 100 words but it’s close enough! I’ve now set a new one-day word count record for myself, and boy am I tired.

Too bad all these words weren’t fiction. This is one long log!

I’m not even going to read through this to see if I went too far over the TMI line. Just too tired! :)

I’ll be back tomorrow to try for my daily goal of 4,521 words.

Now goodnight!

Here are today’s numbers, all laid out for you. Or me, in case I want to see them again (I don’t archive daily detail like this anywhere; I only track a daily total).

Minutes Words Session WPH
50 497 497 596
50 1,051 554 665
54 1,743 692 769
60 2,429 686 686
50 3,093 664 797
40 3,699 606 909
50 4,366 667 800
60 5,108 742 742
15 5,221 113 452
429 Total minutes -0.017803 Hours to finish
5,221 Total words
730 Total WPH 7.15 Hours completed

Making It up as I Go along Today (Success!)

Lynn

So I made some detailed plans this morning to try again for that 6,000 word day I’ve never had.

Then I kind of gave up early. So here I am editing this post to fit my revised plan to reach 3,000 today and save the try for 6,000 words for another day this week, because today just isn’t that day.

The Plan

8:20–9:20 (finished at 9:38, did 10 sessions, reached 751 words) (must have started late without realizing it)
9:30–10:30 (finished at 11:05, did 10 sessions, reached 733 words) (getting behind on time and word counts, not sure why tbh)
11:30–12:30 (finished at 12:53, did 6 sessions, reached 303 words) (crashed and burned this session! Had to read ch 1,2, & 3 to see if something made sense and poof, my time was gone and I’d done only 6 sessions and it was way past time to stop for exercise and lunch)
7:30–8:30 (479 words)
8:40–9:40 (775 words)

Success! I wrote 3,041 words today. :D

For each hour I have a goal of reaching 750 words. To start with I’m going to do ten 5 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of maintaining an average of 75 words for those 5 minute sessions.

I think I’m going to try harder to visualize what I want to write before each 5 minute sprint and see if that helps me reach higher numbers. (So far this hasn’t helped at all. I’m not having any luck today visualizing the scene before I start typing. I don’t know, it’s kind of like I freeze up when I sit down and can only get into the scene as the words start coming together.)

The one thing I’ve definitely noticed is how much more doable a 3,000 word goal feels after having done 4,000 and 5,000 words more than usual these last few weeks. :D

 

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Today’s plan is to reach a record smashing 6,000 words.

I’ve set aside 8 hours for my 5 minute sessions, and I’m trying for 750 each hour in ten 5 minute sessions of approximately 75 words each.

9:20–10:20 (8 sessions, 574 words)
10:30–12:00 (10 sessions, 741 words) (interrupted in the middle of the hour)
12:10–1:10 (10 sessions, 840 words) (switching stories when I come back after a break)
3:10–4:10 (10 sessions, 614 words)
5:00–6:00 (7 sessions, 424 words)
6:20–7:20 (10 sessions, 752 words)
8:30–9:20 (5 sessions, 422 words) (cut the session short)
Hour 8 (cancelled)

But … I’m off to a terribly slow start in the first hour. I have 20 minutes left, and as I write, I’m barely cracking 50 words in 5 minutes. Sometimes I’m not even doing that. I stopped to write this because I feel like the book is screaming out to me that something’s not right and I’m totally ignoring it. And it’s slowed my writing to a crawl.

I should just put everyone in bed together and say to heck with it all. Surely that’ll perk things up! :D

For real, though, I’m having difficulty with something that’s going on. I’m just not sure how to explain it. I’ve set up this really great thing and the payoff is taking too long. But stuff is happening that is forcing that delay. Yet I know I need to do something about that and I have no idea what that something should or could be. Sigh. What a mess!

Ah, well, back to writing. My brain feels foggy and if I don’t get a move on, I’m not going to come in anywhere close to the word count I planned for today.

Also, although I hadn’t planned to bother with a list of the specific timing of my hours, I remembered that I’m planning to revisit all these posts in the future to see if I can identify any patterns of better/worse times to write. So, I’m appending the time as I add the counts. :)

I’m at the beginning of hour 7 and right now, I’m looking at my numbers and thinking it’s going to take a miracle (or one heck of a breakthrough in the writing) to make it in two hours. The sad part is that I’ll be close enough for one more hour to do it, all things staying about the same. The really sad news is that I don’t know if I have that extra hour to give tonight because I have somewhere to be tomorrow! My brother’s wife will be delivering a baby. :D

On that note, I’m going to get started even though I’m really close to cancelling my last sessions after I reach 4,000 and saving the run at 6,000 for another day. We’ll see.

Well, I did end up cutting the next to the last session short and cancelling the last. The numbers just aren’t there and I don’t want to drag this out too late since 6,000 is off the table. :D

Partial success! I reached 4,367 words today. That’s way over my minimum of 2,464 and an excellent day’s writing for me. :)

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Planning seems to be a key to better word counts for me. You’d think this was just a revisit of the schedule I said I was never going to revisit or the daily writing time quota that I decided didn’t work. You’d be wrong.

This feels nothing like that. I sit down and create a plan, either the night before or the morning of and I base that plan on how I’ve been feeling, how I think I’ll feel, what other plans I have, and what goal I want to hit. I also allow for experiments.

9:30–10:30 (376 words)
10:40–11:40 (413 words) (I’m behind at this point and I’m starting to think mornings are not my best time for writing. I consistently seem to do worse in the early morning hours. The new school year has also brought about a lack of sleep that I need to get a handle on asap.)
3:40–4:40 (524 words)
4:50–5:50 (569 words) (can’t seem to pick up speed today!)
7:30–8:30 (609 words)
8:40–9:40 (stopped counting and just wrote)

Partial success! I made it to 2,692. Another day where I came up short of my goal but still reached the minimum I need to stay on track with my plan for a higher daily word count.

Today’s goal is 4,000 words in 6 hour long blocks, where the goal is to reach 725 words in each block by doing ten 5 minute sessions and maintaining a 73 word average per session.

The hefty 4,000 word goal is because tomorrow I’ll be having fun and I can say with certainty that I’ll be pushing myself just to hit my minimum.

I’ve had to adjust the start times for my later sessions.

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Today’s plan is pretty much just a repeat of yesterday’s plan, with slightly very modified start times for my sessions because I won’t be getting started as early.

Same as yesterday, my goal is 2,900 words in 4 hours. That’s 725 words in each one hour session, with a goal of doing ten 5 minute sprints where I maintain an average of 73 words per session (or 15 wpm). Less second guessing and deleting, because I want to finish on time!

Also, if I feel good about it all, I might throw in some extra, but unlike yesterday, I’m not pre-planning that because I’m not convinced I want to do it since I’m starting a bit lot late today.

11:20–12:20 (453 words, interrupted by a phone call I couldn’t avoid – hoping to catch up in next session)
12:30–1:30 (277 words, can’t seem to stay focused!)
2:30–3:30 (491 words, focus desperately needed!)
4:00–5:00 (502 words, omg, writing feels hard today…)
5:10–6:10 (379 words, sitting at 2,143 total, atm, so I guess that means I’ll be back for another hour later)
8:30–9:30 (467 words)

Partial success! I made it to 2,610. So although I didn’t make it to 2,900, I did write more than the minimum I need to stay on track with my plan for a higher daily word count.

It became obvious at a certain point that I needed to add at least a fifth hour into the schedule today so I updated to do that. I hope a sixth isn’t necessary, but if it is, I’ll update as necessary. :o

Today’s Plan (Success!)

Lynn

I’m working on two novels at the moment. Both need to be finished ASAP. One needs 20–25k more words and the other needs 25–30k. If I can follow my plan, I should finish the second one within a week of the first.

I need both of these books completed this month, and preferably not both of them on August 31 either. :o

If I can stick to my plan from this day forward, I can finish the first by the 20th and that’s later than I want but acceptable.

So, the plan is to stick to the plan! :D

Today’s goal is 2,900 words in 4 hours. That’s 725 words in each one hour session, with a goal of doing ten 5 minute sprints where I maintain an average of 73 words per session (or 15 wpm). It’s the second guessing and deleting that kills my speed every time, so I’m going to try to limit that today.

9:20–10:20 (stopped at 10:20, finished 7 sessions, reached 619 words) (seemed to be off to a slow start, lots of second guessing and tweaking as I went!)
10:30–11:30 (stopped at 11:38, finished 3 sessions, forgot to reset, reached 659 words) (got busy tweaking and ended up writing without the timer by mistake—not sure how that happened, tbh)
12:00–1:00 (finished at 1:04, did 9 sessions, reached 900 words even, yay!)
2:30–3:30 (finished at 3:42, did 8 sessions, reached 861 words)

Success! I’ve reached 3,055 words.

Then if the writing is going well and I feel like continuing, I’ll aim for 5,000 in 3 more sessions.

3:40–4:40
4:50–5:50
8:20–9:20

I’ve decided I’m not ready to commit to going for 5,000 today so I’m going ahead and taking the three extra hours off my schedule. I still might do another hour or maybe even two, but I’m going to break for now. :D

It’s time to get tea and settle in and try, try, try to get my creative juices flowing, so I’m going to wrap this planning session up here.

I made some adjustments to my start times for the later sessions.