Tag: Writing every day

That’s funny

Lynn

So far today I’ve written 664 words in 1.75 hours. That’s 379 words an hour. Considering I deleted a nice little chunk of words in my second session this afternoon, I’m not too disappointed.

Words left to write today = 893

Hours needed to write them @ 379 wph = 2.353539157

I’d like to do those words at 600 wph or better, because then I can move on to catching up a few days’ word counts where I didn’t reach my minimum. Of course, here it is 3:57 pm and I’m just now reaching 1.75 hours completed, so that could be a problem. Anyway, onward and upward one hopes. :D

Today’s title courtesy of the fact that I forgot to title the post and that was the first phrase that popped into my head.

Update: I finished off the day with 1,616 words and it took me 3.5 hours of timed writing to write them. Not great, but not my worst effort to be sure. :D

Had a plan; how about this summary instead?

Lynn

On Tuesday the 11th, I decided to set a daily minimum word count and start writing 1,557 words every day. I began following that rule on the 12th. Overall, this is one experiment that seems to be working out well.

Here are my word counts for the last 7 days, beginning with July 12.

1,667
935
1,628
1,969
405
1,562
1,615

That’s an 80% completion rate, which is pretty damn good in my book.

The reason for today’s title is this: today’s word count sits at 402 words and it’s 10:15 pm. I had a plan for today, but I didn’t follow through. I don’t have a good reason for that, but I’m sitting here thinking I might still have time to finish today’s minimum word count if I start now. In truth, this is probably a perfect example of the thinking I talked about in yesterday’s morning post.

But I really think I could possibly still make it. So of course I’m going to have to try now or I’ll regret it. And if I don’t, well, at least I can be somewhat certain I’ll end up with more words than I started with.

(And I ended with 688 words. Although I didn’t make it to my minimum before 12, I’m glad I tried.)

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.)

A plan for the future

Lynn

I’m tired of lowercase titles. And yet, I continue to use them. :)

Today I have a plan.

20 minute blocks x 12 of them @ ~750 words an hour = 3,000 words

Yep. That’s my plan.

In fact, it’s my plan for every day for the indefinite future. I’ve been giving some thought to the need for change and some direction for the rest of my year. Those thoughts led me to realize I need to expect more from myself; it’s the only way to grow. I don’t want to be stagnant. A moribund life is not the life I want, despite the fact that my brain is all about strolling down easy street.

I made a note to myself last night. It’s important.

Write for fun! Do more than that though. Make time for other stuff. Don’t drag it out.

I need to write with focus. I need to focus on writing. I need to meet my goals early so I can do other things. Then as a reward, if I want, I can write more later. But always, I need to remember that the only way to meet my goals is to actually prioritize writing and do it first. I get to do it first and save all the stuff in my life that I don’t really want to do for later.

What I’ve typically done, though, is dawdle until I feel pressured to do these other things at the expense of what little time I’ve left myself for writing, because there are immediate consequences if I don’t. (Bills! Dishes! Laundry! Talking to relatives and friends! All of these have consequences for me that I’m not willing to accept if I don’t do them.)

I’ve always felt as if writing daily is a priority, and therefore I feel all the guilt one feels when one doesn’t do that important thing one should have done, but when it comes down to it, I haven’t treated it that way at all.

That’s the big thing I need to change about myself. That’s what I’m going to be focused on changing.

Write in the morning

Reach my word count goal

Or at least do the number of sessions I’ve decided I should be doing at a minimum each day

Then worry about the rest of life and whatever I want to do with my time after that, even if it’s just more writing

Simple. :D

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!

Even passive time tracking is just a distraction

Lynn

I mentioned ManicTime in a previous post but said I had uninstalled it. I did. I also went back and reinstalled it, making a setting change that allowed it to get much closer to the kind of passive time tracking I wanted. I changed the “away” time activation from 10 minutes to 1 minute. Every time I stepped away from the computer for more than 1 minute, ManicTime recorded me as away and didn’t record time on whatever window I happened to have in focus on the screen.

That was great.

Until about an hour ago when I realized I really don’t need this distraction. And yes, it’s a massive distraction, even running completely in the background, simply because I know it’s there and I’m tempted to check my time log every time you turn around.

So earlier tonight, I uninstalled the program, again.

The truth is, I have only one plan for this year, and that plan is this: write more.

I hope to accomplish that by writing every day.

As of the 20th of this month, that’s been true. I’ve written something every day. Some of the entries on my word count log for the last six days are minuscule because of this read through project, but they’re there, and I know I’ve put in effort.

Maybe not as much effort as I hope to build up to putting in, but we all have to start somewhere. Muscles take time to grow. ;)

Word count minuscule, but I wrote

Lynn

Yesterday I wrote. My word count was minuscule, but I went back to a scene giving me trouble and spent a few hours on it. I didn’t gain much word count, but I did make progress with the story.

Today I’ve been doing the same. By the time I quit, I want to have the story at a place where I can really pick up speed tomorrow. As of right now, I want to try to make tomorrow a four to five thousand plus word day.

It might not happen, but that’s kind of where I think I want tomorrow to go. I have to get the complications with this story straightened out first though. I can’t write at the pace I need for a high word count if the story isn’t moving along smoothly.

Whatever happens, I did start my effort to write every day yesterday and I’ve continued it today. I’m now on a two day streak. ;)

I am so behind

Lynn

I’ve written 2,065 words this month. Let me just say that’s not where I imagined I’d be at this point in the month.

Since I have a book to finish, I’m going to have to try to write today and keep writing until I’ve written a damn lot of words. :o

To do that, I’m going to have to kick this damn perfectionism I’ve got going on to the curb. I keep letting people in my head, but they’re not even the main problem. I’m the problem. I’m the critic from hell. When I’m in one of my moods, nothing is ever good enough. I can’t write fast because I can’t stop criticizing what I’ve written as I write. I also over write. Seriously. I spend way too much time trying to draw a picture of the images in my head with words, and I’m starting to realize just how dumb that is. It’s limiting. I need to lean a little heavier on the reader’s imagination.

Or something like that.

Anyway, I’m about to have a late breakfast. It’s 11:07 am, but I stayed up until 2 in the morning so I’m not that surprised. What sucks is that I’ve actually been awake since 7 and I’m already tired.

But a writing day it is today.

Also, I’ve decided that today is the first day of me writing every day. I’m going to do it. I’m afraid to commit, but I’m kind of in a contrary mood today and by damn I’m going to start writing every day if I have to glue my fingers to a pen to make it happen.

I have to start writing more and that’s just all there is to it. I can’t be happy as a writer if I don’t, because writing stokes the desire to write more, and not writing just makes me apathetic and write even less over time. I can’t afford that unless I want to find another career.

And I don’t. I like this one just fine.

I want to write every day

Lynn

How can I say this and it not be a goal for the year, for the month, for my life? I don’t know, but I have and it isn’t. It’s a statement of fact. I want to be the kind of writer who writes every day. It’s not a challenge and I’m not making it into an experiment. I’m just throwing it out there so that I can hear myself say it because it’s true.

I want to write every day.

The writing streaks are dead—sort of

Lynn

I’ve let the writing streaks end. Last night, I wrote, but I deleted and then wrote and then deleted, and I had a negative day and just couldn’t climb out of it before I was too tired to continue. I’ve been staying up way too late and 1 a.m. last night did me in.

However! There is a however. :D

I wrote. So technically I have a new writing streak to replace the old two.

148 – 12/30
172 – 12/31
203 – 1/1
209 – 1/2
246 – 1/3
277 – 1/4
345 – 1/5
470 – 1/6
(35) – 1/7

 

  1. I’ve written fiction every day

I’d love to know how much I wrote yesterday, because I have a feeling my >100 words streak would still be alive, but that’s not how I count words and I’m not going to change that. It’s not necessary anyway. I have no goals, am using no timers, and following no schedule. A broken writing streak isn’t breaking any kind of commitment to myself.

I’ll just let a new one happen.