Tag: Writing schedules

I can’t keep to a schedule, but I’d love it if I could. I want a schedule, but boy do I hate schedules. It’s the same-old, same-old: a love/hate relationship with time.

Day 2 of the new schedule

Lynn
Scheduled 9:00-10:30 1:00-2:30 7:30-9:00 Words
Day 1 10:15-11:57 4:29-5:22 .75 hrs  771
Day 2 none  none  none  0

All sessions are 1.5 hours of writing time regardless of length unless I say otherwise.

Day 2

As you can see, I’ve written nothing today. I wasn’t sick, despite being sick yesterday. I just didn’t get started. Instead, I spent lots of time with my daughter and the stray puppy my daughter recently adopted. My daughter left this evening for a week, and the puppy isn’t feeling great after having been spayed yesterday, and I guess I’ll just have to try extra hard to make tomorrow a really good writing day.

Puppy is cute though, huh?

Puppy

Turns out she’s about 6 months old. She’s a very sweet puppy. I wish I liked animals more, but I really don’t. Luckily, my daughter does, so the puppy has someone to play with her.

The puppy makes me pet her every time I go to the door, and she licks my toes. It’s yucky, but I put up with it because I can’t stand the thought of being mean to her. :o

The vet says she’s a mix of a mix, possibly with some Labrador and German Shepherd in her. Whatever she is, she listens better than most, and she’s one of the friendliest dogs I’ve known.

When she arrived, she was clean and well-behaved and looked like she’d been eating well. I also had one of the weirdest incidents I’ve ever had here a night or two after she showed up, and it has me convinced that the puppy showing up on my doorstep wasn’t by chance.

Someone dumped that poor little dog in my yard on purpose.

At about 8:30 the night after she arrived, the neighbor across the street called to let me know someone had stopped in my driveway and then left quickly. Thinking it was strange, and that maybe they’d been messing with my mailbox, I took a flashlight and walked down the drive.

There, right in the middle of my driveway, someone had left an aluminum pie plate piled high with dog food and another full of water.

Someone obviously wanted to make sure the puppy thought my home was her new home.

Like I said, weird. Who the hell stops in someone else’s driveway and leaves food and water for a dog?

Also, what an asshole thing to do. I really didn’t need or want a pet, but I couldn’t very well let the puppy starve. I tried to find her a home, but I couldn’t find anyone interested, and by then, my daughter had really taken to her.

So now we have another dog. Blackie’s getting old so he wasn’t that thrilled to find himself sharing attention, but he’s adapting. I’m not sure I am. I don’t want to care about another dog, but it’s hard to stay hard hearted when they look at you like they do.

Today starts a two week experiment with a new schedule

Lynn

Here’s the writing schedule I’m going to follow for the next two weeks.

9:00-10:30
1:00-2:30
7:30-9:00

Why have I changed my schedule yet again?

The other schedule wasn’t working for me. At all. I didn’t write one single time during my scheduled writing time. Right now, in particular, I’m having trouble with getting started, and the large blocks of time weren’t helping that. Even two hours felt like too much of a commitment when there wasn’t a lot of time empty between the sessions.

So I created this new schedule with one thing in mind: making sure I don’t feel like I have a job.

That’s important. I don’t ever want writing to feel like a job.

  • I split the time blocks up so that I have huge breaks between writing sessions.
  • I made the sessions as short as I could while making them long enough that I can still get into flow during them.
  • I gave myself 3 of them so my total writing time each day fits into my long-term goals. 3 × 1.5 = 4.5 hours.
  • I started the first one later in the morning so I can sleep late if I have a bad night of sleep.
  • I’m not going to move the scheduled times if something comes up to preempt the time. I’ll just assume that I’ll miss one or two of these a month and live with that knowledge. (I won’t schedule anything during these times unless there’s no other choice.)
  • I’m not going to skip a session and claim that as a preempted time. I’ll just start writing as soon as I can near the time I was supposed to start and write for 1.5 hours. There’s enough time between sessions that this shouldn’t be a big deal.

I’m feeling hopeful this morning that this is the right thing to do.

Now, I’m off to get that first session done. I’ll post later today with the results for the first day of this experiment.

Here’s an update on a few other ongoing experiments

The no sweets experiment has been working really well (I’m down 4 pounds in two weeks), and I’ve decided to extend it indefinitely. The only exception is that I will allow myself sweets if I go to a birthday party, which is rarely more often than once a month, and usually less often. I’ll also allow myself sweets at my family’s annual Christmas party, but that’s it. These exceptions are clearly defined so they shouldn’t put any decision-making stress on me. That’s something I’ve liked about this experiment: no decisions. If it’s a sweet, the answer to “Can I?” is simple: “No.”

No caffeine: I haven’t had any coffee and I haven’t had any other caffeinated drinks either.

No Kboards or TPV: I haven’t been back to Kboards or TPV since I started that experiment. The fear of missing out is what was keeping me clicking on links. I’ve read a few author blogs I’d begun to ignore and checked out a podcast or two, but I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything, other than the entertainment factor I get from reading the posts themselves. This experiment has been good for me.

The experiment begins: rules of adjustment

Lynn

So today I’ve already had to make an adjustment to the schedule (but only for today) because I rose late and I’m not getting started at 7 am.

The first thing I decided was that I’m going to have to have some rules for adjustments. :)

Rules for adjustments to the schedule

  1. Lost time should be made up in the same day.
  2. Lost time should be added to the end of the 1–3 time block.
  3. The 11 am to 1 pm break should stay the same no matter what time I get started.
  4. Assume there’s an “if possible” tacked on to the end of every rule above. :)

Benefits of the rules

  1. Sticking to the planned number of hours of work gives me plenty of time to meet my writing goals: 3,233 words a day, 98,333 words a month, 1,180,000 words a year. If it’s ever going to happen, I’ve got to guard the time I need for it.
  2. Even if I skip my entire morning, I’ll still only have to work until 7 pm to make it up! Meaning I don’t even have to take a break for supper because although I don’t like eating late, 7 pm isn’t too late. ;)
  3. A simple, recurring lunch schedule throughout the summer means my children can plan to have lunch with me if they want without having to wait to see what kind of work day I’m having. At their ages, they don’t always want, but sometimes they do.
  4. Having some leeway in the application of the rules always makes me feel better.

I’m feeling hopeful about this schedule. I’m also not feeling pressured the way I usually feel, even though I’ve already messed up with today’s late start, so I’m hoping that’s a sign of good things to come from this experiment!

Experimenting with a schedule again

Lynn

I know it’s crazy. I know I’ve done this before. I know it didn’t work. I kind of don’t care. I need something to get me out of this black hole my writing productivity has fallen into and I’m thinking a schedule might be what I need.

It’s a move born of desperation, I promise. My last resort, if you will.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to a 40 hour a week schedule (okay, technically 42, but I like working with whole numbers and I want to write 7 days a week). This plan came about because of an article I read today called “The Unexpected Freedom of an Eight-Hour Workday.” It touched a nerve.

So I’m giving it another shot. Anything to save me from myself.

I’m planning to work for 6 hours each day. I’ll write until I reach my 3,233 words a day goal (hopefully in 4–5 hours) and fill the rest of my time with publishing work.

The schedule for almost all days: 7–11 & 1–3.

So that’s it, the sum total of my plan.

June 28 writing

Lynn

I’m going to log my writing today.

I finally got a really good night of sleep, but that means I’m starting one hour and a half later than I’d planned. Here’s the revised plan.

8:30–10:30 Write
11:30–1:30 Write
2:30–4:30 1:30–3:30 Write
4:30–6:30 Work on paperbacks Write
7:30–9:30 8:30–9:30 Work on paperbacks Write

(Edited as changes became necessary, but I’m leaving original entries so I can see what worked and what didn’t.)

I decided on two hour blocks with one hour between, because… I’m not really sure. It felt right: enough time to really get into what I’m doing and a nice long break between. If I can make the two hour blocks work, I’m going to carry this forward.

(Not such long hours though—ten isn’t too many for today, when I need to get so much done, but I certainly don’t think this is good for me long-term. I’ll stick to the four hours a day and 3,233 words I want long-term, but I’ll try to do it 7–9 & 10–12. That’ll leave me two two-hour blocks for publishing stuff every day so I can really dig into my cover design studies and do lots of other stuff that’s been backing up on me. Honestly, I’ve been squandering time for too long.* It’s time I used what time I have for the things that are important to me.)

We’ll see. Today is definitely more experiment than anything else.

Results (as I go)

Hours Words Session WPH
Story 1 1.08333 199 199 184
Story 2 0.91667 606 407 444

I’m numbering the stories in the order I work on them so my work pattern is clear to me later.

At this point, I’m completely off the scheduled times. I’m not sure how I’m going to adjust, but I’m going to figure something out. Likely I’ll lose the last paperback work session. (I figured it out and edited the plan above.)

Well here it is many, many hours later and I’m just not getting ready to write for another hour. Can I explain why I didn’t work during the other times I planned to work today? No.

I really don’t have an explanation and all I can say is that I feel like I’m trapped inside myself, unable to get free. Like my head needs to be opened up and I need to take my brain out, shake it around, wipe it off, and then put it back. It just doesn’t feel right. There’s a tiny voice in there telling me I should probably be on some kind of medication, but I don’t listen to imaginary voices, any more than I listen to the voice of reason. :D

 

*I’m not much of a sports fan, but I read the news today about Pat Summit’s death. I’ve always respected her drive, and her abilities. It made me feel… regretful, you could say, that I’ve not valued my time more. Maybe the feeling won’t last, but I want to take advantage of that feeling while I can. RIP Pat Summit.

June 27 writing schedule update

Lynn

As you’ve probably already guessed, the schedule hasn’t helped in any way to get me started writing again. I haven’t even come close to getting started on time a single time since I came up with it, because for some reason beyond me, I’ve gone from going to bed at a reasonable hour to staying up until midnight. Needless to say, I haven’t been getting up at 6 AM and I haven’t been getting started by 7 AM.

I’ve revised the schedule for tomorrow and tried to set up another for today so I don’t end the day having written nothing again. But I have a feeling I have deeper issues to worry over.

Allowing myself to work on multiple books at once without making any kind of commitment to finish any one before another was working great for me.

I screwed that up. I’ve cost myself loads of time that I am CERTAIN I wouldn’t have lost if I’d just stuck to that. I bet I’d be finished with at least one of my almost finished books by now.

Instead I changed my focus, and now I’m in a terrible position of REALLY needing to finish a certain book before the others, making me feel overwhelmed and stressed and setting off a wave of procrastination and avoidance that I knew would happen—but thought, foolishly, that maybe this time it wouldn’t.

I don’t know if I can get out of this without missing my deadline—a deadline I put on myself but that I mentioned in several places in a way that makes it feel like an honest-to-God obligation.

I suspect I’m going to miss it and I suspect there’s nothing I can do about that.

I don’t like failing in situations like these, when I know it’s all my fault—I totally set myself up for failure in this instance.

Okay, deep breath. I’m moving on to another post, one where I set out my plan to get out of this mess I’ve created for myself.

Also, this is not in any way related, but I’ve decided my categories and tags on this site are pretty useless for finding things. Expect changes.

When something isn’t working, it’s time to change something

Lynn

I still believe that writing on multiple stories is the way to a better word count for me. So this isn’t about that. What it’s about is the fact that I just cannot seem to get moving again on ANY of my books. I am stuck.

So if what I’m doing isn’t working—and nothing I’ve tried of late has worked to get me started again—it’s time to try something different.

Something different doesn’t mean something new

I’m going back to a schedule. I know I have a terrible history with schedules, but for the moment, I think it will help. I don’t know how long I’ll need it, but starting tomorrow I’m going to make it very important that I sit down and write EVERY DAY during my scheduled writing time.

I’m dropping back to my 3,233 daily goal (which is 1,180,000 / 365) from my more recent attempt to write 3,933 daily (1,180,000 / 12 / 25). This means I need only 4 hours of timed writing if I can reach an average pace of 808 words per hour—a stretch, but definitely possible with my increased speeds of late.

At this lower daily word count, I will have to write every day to reach my goal, so I’m setting aside the idea that I can’t write on publish days, if only because I blame the days I took off this past month for my current inertia. I need my daily writing to become habitual.

The schedule

The schedule is a morning schedule, because I wake up early whether I want to or not, and trying to mess with that never works out well for me. The fact is, I’ve been getting up early for several months now, and I don’t expect that to change until the sun stops coming up before 6 AM.

  • 7:00 to 8:00
  • 8:10 to 9:10
  • 9:20 to 10:20
  • 10:30 to 11:30

I’m going to make a big deal about upsetting my schedule or changing my routine. Writing daily is important. At 4 hours a day, that’s only 28 hours a week of writing time. There’s just no reason for these hours not to be treated as the critical hours they are. I’m hardly asking too much of myself even after you factor in break times and the time I need for publishing related activities.

And that’s really all I have to say in this post. The plan is not all that different from many other plans I’ve made over the years, but it’s different at this moment from what I’ve been doing. Schedules have worked for me in the past, even if only for a while, and I’ll take that if that’s all I get. I just need something to get me focused on writing again. Wish me luck. :)

I’m accepting no excuses for tomorrow. At 11:30 am tomorrow, I’ll post my first results (accountability) post for this new schedule.

Today I try to settle into a summer routine

Lynn

My summer routine this year?

Try to write for 4 hours before I stop for lunch, then finish my last hour right after lunch but before a nap. That way I won’t find myself spending my time on other things and then, when I don’t have enough time left in the day to write for 5 hours, agonizing over why I didn’t meet my goals.

I like the idea of this routine a lot. Unfortunately, it’s very common for me to like a routine in theory and then not be able to stick to it to save my life. I’m going to give this one a shot today.

That means stopping this post right now and getting to work ASAP. I’ll use a lot more than 4 hours for those 4 hours of writing and I don’t want to waste time before I get started!

 

Time to focus on the 12-month 1,180,000 words challenge

Lynn

So I’ve been giving some thought to what I can do to get moving on this challenge: 12 months, 1,180,000 words. I need to stay focused. I’ve had to step back from the cover design practice, because I had become well and truly obsessed.

57 of 98 days since January 1 have been zero word days. That’s… scary high. I don’t know that I’ve had that many in so few months at any time since I started writing to publish. Saying that made me wonder, so I pulled up my spreadsheet and set up a quick formula to count and discovered that I do have one period of 98 days that had 68 zero words days in it. That one ended in November 2013.

The fact is, I don’t want any zero word days anymore except for true emergency/sick days and publishing days.

I’ve got to figure out how to make that happen.

One way is to start having more fun with writing. I’m stagnating, I think, under self-imposed expectations, and that’s stealing a lot of the fun from writing. When it isn’t fun, I don’t want to do it.

I want to wake up excited to get started every day. I know I can get back there, but I’m going to have to break through this wall of expectation first.

I’ll be trying to do that today: putting all my fears and expectations aside and writing only what excites me. I have a rule: skip the boring parts. In fact, I have more than one rule: No more length limits / deadlines. Just write the story. Write the parts I like, skip the boring stuff. I also believe that art and great story do not come from purposeful thinking. That came from Dean Wesley Smith, although I can’t remember if he said it in a lecture or on his blog. A search of the blog didn’t turn up anything, so I’m going to assume it was a lecture. I’ve paid to watch several and I recommended them to anyone who asks about them.

As for the cover design practice, here’s what happened.

I’ve made some huge leaps forward with the cover design over the last few weeks, but I started to realize a few days ago that I’m suffering under the lack of a deadline for finishing the covers. In the past, I always waited to do covers until the book was finished and I was doing copy edits. That meant I had a hard deadline of ASAP, because I usually need to get those books published. Without that deadline, I’ve discovered I spend too much time trying variations, avoiding commitment, and being indecisive about whether the cover or the series look is good enough. And although I tried the outsourcing approach, it felt like more work than just doing it myself. And no, I wasn’t satisfied, in any way, with that experience. I won’t be doing it again any time soon. The designer was good, the covers were pretty, but they just weren’t what I wanted, and the whole process took away my control and made publishing a lot less fun.

Outsourcing cover design is not for me. I have 100% decided to stick to doing my own covers for the foreseeable future.

But night before last, I finally decided I have to go back to working on covers only when I’m closer to finishing a book. That’ll impose at least something of a deadline and I won’t be able to get hung up on all the little details that have led me to create 9 different versions of the same cover. Not tweaks. Entirely different versions. Nine. Yes the series needs a cohesive new look, but gah, that’s ridiculous. I have to be able to decide on these things. And I can’t decide when I have what feels like unlimited time—I need time pressure to force me to make decisions.

The fact is, I am very much still in the throes of this obsession. I’m waking up at night with ideas to try and today it’s going to be a challenge to set all that out of my thoughts.

I resisted yesterday, although I didn’t write as I’d planned to. Yesterday, I had to take some time to do my estimated 2016 taxes and make that first payment—something I started, I admit, as a way to avoid getting to work on writing, but it was something that had to be done and once I’d started it, I realized that. I spent about 4.5 hours on it, doing the worksheets, estimating an income that just can’t really be estimated because it’s so variable, and I was wrung out by the time I had made the quarterly payment.

Kind of amazing that I would do taxes to avoid doing something I like as much as I like writing. In the end, I decided to take the easy way out: I paid 100% of last year’s tax liability and decided to just save the rest until I file. I’ll probably owe a shit-ton of tax at that point, but I won’t owe penalties. My hope is to double my income this year, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m safe and won’t have paid in too much.

Finally, though, it’s time to focus.

Today I will work on multiple stories.

Tomorrow I’ll do the same.

I’m going to resist the trap of forcing myself to work only on the story I need to finish next. That method is how I become stuck and lose my forward momentum. Total word count is the goal. If my word count is going up, that means I’m getting my books written.

I won’t worry about finishing that book I’ve been struggling with (not like I’m expecting massive sales from it anyway, so what’s it matter when it gets done?).

I will write for one hour on each story that I have in progress in each of my series. That’s 6 stories, so 6 hours of writing.

I’ll write a few extra sessions on one particular story: I have 20 days to finish that one, with about 45,000 words left on it, meaning I need about 2,250 words every day for those 20 days. If it takes three sessions (~750 wph), then I’ll need to write for 8 hours; if it only takes two sessions (~1,125 wph), then I’ll only need to write for 7 hours. That last is what I’d prefer, but we’ll see.

I’ve only written for 7 hours in a day a few times; it’s not something I find success at often. But I’m hoping the switch between stories will keep me fresh and keep my interest going. We’ll see.

My long-term plan for 5 hours of writing a day hasn’t changed. I won’t be writing on every story, every day, but for now—until I catch up a bit and get excited about my books again, I do plan to do just that.

If I do as much writing as I want to do today, I could break my current one-day word count record and crack the 6,000 words in a day barrier. I’ve never written 6,000 words of fiction in one day before, not since I started keeping records. It’s also highly unlikely I ever did it before I kept records.

So, time to get to it. :D I’ll update later in a separate post. This one is already too long.

A couple more thoughts on the last post

Lynn

I’ve had a couple more thoughts on the last post I want to clarify.

The schedule is really a “routine” suggestion.

The routine I want is to start writing early enough every day that I can guarantee I’ll finish 5 hours of writing every day, because I need 98,333 words every month to meet my “1,180,000 words in 12 months” challenge and I can’t get them if I don’t.

That’s the real purpose of the schedule.

So, as before, the schedule is more of a suggestion than a rule, but I do need to get that 5 hours of writing in every day so that my publishing days don’t make it impossible for me to meet my challenge. The best way to make that happen is to get started every day either on schedule at 9 or before.

…which brings me back to the idea that I’m really just doing this so I don’t forget that I want to write in 4 blocks of 1.25 hours, and that I want to get started early enough so I actually have a chance of getting them all done.

So why do I need a schedule? I have no idea.

…which realization caused me to delete the schedule. What I need is a reminder I can’t ignore (which I just put on my daily word count spreadsheet) that I want to write 5 hours every day.

This is one day where my bad mood might have just rewarded me with some clear thinking.

Alright. Moving on. Tomorrow I will write for 5 hours.

Today I will write for about 2 (more), then call it a night.

New plan, same goal

Lynn

I haven’t been writing much lately. I’m just not happy with this book I have going and I’m going to have to choose to move on soon before I lose every bit of enthusiasm I have for writing. :o

On that note, I made a new schedule for myself today. I decided that although daily writing is still the routine I want, I know when publishing time comes, I won’t be writing, so I need to allow for that in my daily writing goal. I decided 5 days a month is a good estimate of the number of days I usually spend obsessed with publishing tasks.

1,180,000 ÷ 12 ÷ 25 = 3,933 words

I can’t write 3,933 words in 4 hours. I’d love to be able to, and maybe someday I’ll get there, but right now, if I aim for that, I’m setting myself up to fall short every time. I can write 3,933 words in 5 hours. It’ll require a bit of the “less time, more words” mentality, but I can do it consistently enough that I don’t believe I’m setting myself up for failure. :)

So, I split 5 hours into 4 blocks of 1.25 hours apiece. When I was drinking coffee and tea, this would have been a really bad idea, but I’m thinking I can do it now. Might as well take advantage of some of the benefits of being coffee and tea free, right?

Back when I had found what I believed was my ideal schedule, I started my writing day at 9 am and kept my lunch break as short as possible so I didn’t feel like it was an interruption. I decided to revisit that idea, and used it to hone my schedule. I want my midday break long enough, but not too long.

9:00–10:15 (need 984 words)
30 minute break
10:45–12:00 (need 984 words)
1 hour break
1:00–2:15 (need 983 words)
30 minute break
2:45–4:00 (need 983 words)

I usually get up between 6 and 7 in the morning. That gives me plenty of time to ease into my day, which I much prefer to rushing around and sitting down as soon as possible to write. I don’t like getting started first thing in the morning unless I’m really struggling to hold in some thought I woke up with. I remember really liking my 9 am start time. So I’m going back to it.

On the other hand, I would love to write through the evening, but I need to be done with my daily writing by 4 because I just can’t count on getting more words in later. So 4 is the cut off. Of course, if I want to write outside these times, I certainly won’t stop myself from doing it just because of the schedule.

Finally, I know a schedule isn’t something a lot of people need or want. I don’t even want it. (I really don’t.) But I do need it. I’m not good at visualizing how much time I have left in a day, and I’ve definitely found that without the schedule, I get lost in my days.

I spend more time making schedules than following them. I let myself down a lot when it comes to these things I don’t really want to do.* I don’t really know how to change that, because I want to but nothing I do seems to give me the push I need to actually change.

Heavy thoughts for the day, and I’m ready to end this post. There’s the schedule and I’m going to start tomorrow trying to stick to it.

Today I’m going for a shortened, modified version that starts at 4:30 pm. See ya when I get some writing done.

*I want to write, so I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean, but it’s how the thought came out so I’m leaving it. Or maybe it’s that I want to want to write, but I really only want to write what I want and since I’m bored or otherwise unhappy with what I’m working on, I don’t want to write it. I usually stop myself from writing anything else when I’m going through this kind of thing with self-talk about how if I’m going to write, I should just push through what I’m working on and get it done. Then, of course, I avoid writing altogether because it all feels too damn hard.

Today’s plan and a new schedule

Lynn

Here’s today’s plan. It also lays out the new schedule I’m giving a try. There’s a planned 5 minute break between each 40 minute session. (Updates in parentheses.)

NO WIFI until I’ve finished my first writing sessions. (Did that.)
NO WIFI during any writing sessions. (So far, so good.)

7:30–8:55
40m (40m, 536 words)*
40m (40m, 535 words)*
(Total so far: 1,071 words)

10:30–11:55
40m (40m, 561 words)*
40m (40m, 537 words)*
(Total so far: 2,169 words)

1:30–2:55
40m (40m, 470 words)**
40m (40m, 255 words)**
(Total words today: 2,894 words)

And yes, still NO TV until I’ve finished this book!

*I’m looking at my 2 blocks this morning and thinking wow. That consistency in output is startling for me. Also, my average words per hour is 813 at the moment, and it’s a caffeine-free number! :D

As long as I don’t bog down in the last block of writing sessions, I should make my 3,233 word goal today. I’m really hoping I can speed up a bit and write a few extra words too. :)

**Alright. I finished the day with less than my goal of 3,233, but those last two sessions were hard. I started much later than I’d planned, at nearly 4 pm and I was tired, and it shows in my word counts. The plan is to possibly do another writing session of indeterminate length later tonight if I feel like it to make up the difference between my word count and 3,233 (339 words). I just hate to end the day that close to true success. :D

Schedule is a suggestion, not a rule

Lynn

This morning, I couldn’t seem to get started on my writing, and after thinking it over a bit, I decided that maybe I just had too much on my mind. I have an account at Dreamstime for stock photos and had signed up for a 5 images a month subscription in late December (usually I just buy credits) and it was set to renew later tonight. I didn’t want it to renew, but I couldn’t cancel it without downloading the images that had rolled over into this month or I’d have paid for January and February for nothing. :o

So I decided to get that taken care of. It took me a long, long time to pick out images!

In the end, I cancelled that subscription but decided that using credits isn’t going to be economically sound if I publish as much as I want to this year (if!), and I chose to buy their much more robust 150 images a month subscription instead.

Yes, it’s quite a bit more money. But 150(!) images a month, and I can download all in one day if I want (some stock sites won’t let you do that, instead imposing a daily download limit in addition to the monthly limit), and that means I don’t have to be so picky with images—the new subscription knocks the cost down to less than $1 each. With credits (or through the subscription I’ve been using for the last two months), those same images cost me about $8 each.

I’m going to spend a couple of months picking a wide selection of images and then see what I’ve got. But it’s a good deal and I need the stock if I’m going to keep trying to learn to design better covers for my books. :)

Now, with that many images at my disposal, I’m really looking forward to my cover design practice. Lots of great images to play around with without spending a fortune buying up credits—and I don’t have to spend time using comp images and then redo all my work when I hit on a clever design I want to use for real. :)

I didn’t end up getting any writing done today, and I’ve had to remind myself: the schedule is a suggestion, not a rule. My ultimate goal is 28 hours a week of timed writing and 22,630 words. I can have days where I just have to do other things.

See you back here tomorrow for some make up writing. :D

 

Looking forward: plans for 2016

Lynn

I posted about my new plans for the year in another post and then decided I should highlight them in a post of their own.

Last night I sat down and reevaluated. I decided I absolutely didn’t want to give up on my big plans for the year, despite the month and a half I’ve fallen behind.

I want to challenge myself to do something amazing this year. So here’s what I ended up with.

I set aside the following time for writing, daily, including weekends: 8–11 am & 2–3 pm. It adds up to 28 hours a week.

I figured it based on some ridiculously grand plans I have for the year. But those plans aren’t so ridiculous at all, if I actually put in the damn writing time. The only reason they’re “ridiculously grand” is because I still haven’t shown that I can write more than 268,191 in a year. In fact, my average for 3.5 years is 252,190 because I appear to be quite regular on an annual basis with my irregular output!

But I want 2016 to be the year that changes. Therefore, the plans…

Novels: 6 x 60,000
Novels: 12 x 50,000
Short stories: 12 x 10,000
Novellas: 4 x 25,000

1,180,000 words / 12 months = 98,333 words / 4 hours a day = 3,233 @ 808 wph

Yes, that’s a higher WPH than my average. But there’s a benefit to squeezing the amount of work you need to do into a shorter amount of time. It’s been proven time and again that if most people have time to waste, they’ll waste it. I want to stop wasting so much time so I can write more.

Because there are two variables to the writing more equation: time and speed.

Spend more time and do it faster. Combine the two and you have two multipliers instead of one.

Yes, these are big plans. But I can do it if I get out of my own way.

This is a challenge and I’m going to give it a name—as soon as I think of one! :D

If you don’t look, it’s not real, right?

Lynn

You know how you avoid looking at your schedule and the clock because you know if you do, you’ll find out it’s way past time for you to start writing on the new schedule you made for yourself last night and how you get this feeling that as long as you don’t look, you haven’t screwed up yet?

That’s me, this morning.

I just looked at the clock and my calendar and I am now having to admit that I’m two and a half hours late getting started.

:'(

FYI, it’s a nice schedule too.

I set aside the following time for writing, daily, including weekends: 8–11 am & 2–3 pm. It adds up to 28 hours a week.

I figured it based on some ridiculously grand plans I have for the year. But those plans aren’t so ridiculous at all, if I actually put in the damn writing time. The only reason they’re “ridiculously grand” is because I still haven’t shown that I can write more than 268,191 in a year. In fact, my average for 3.5 years is 252,190 because I appear to be quite regular on an annual basis with my irregular output!

But I want 2016 to be the year that changes. Therefore, the plans…

Novels: 6 x 60,000
Novels: 12 x 50,000
Short stories: 12 x 10,000
Novellas: 4 x 25,000

1,180,000 words / 12 months = 98,333 words / 4 hours a day = 3,233 @ 808 wph

Yes, that’s a higher WPH than my average. But there’s a benefit to squeezing the amount of work you need to do into a shorter amount of time. It’s been proven time and again that if most people have time to waste, they’ll waste it. I want to stop wasting so much time so I can write more.

Because there are two variables to the writing more equation: time and speed.

Spend more time and do it faster. Combine the two and you have two multipliers instead of one.

But anyway, today was to be day one of getting back to it, and I’ve already screwed up. Cue the silent screaming while I remind myself that I don’t have to give up on today just because the schedule is a bust.

Revisiting time as a measure of productivity

Lynn

I’ve had some thoughts about time spent writing versus word count quotas that I’m thinking might help me break out of this no-writing funk I’m stuck in.

A while back—more than two years ago, actually—I tried to improve my daily word count by setting myself a daily writing time quota. Although it didn’t work out in the long-run, it did work for a little while. I’m thinking it might be time to revisit “time” as a measuring stick for my dedication to my craft.

I think it might work out better now, and the reason is that I’ve been developing a different attitude about the value of work.

The biggest problem I’ve identified with having a word count quota still exists.

When I rely on word count goals, I put off starting until it’s too late because I’m terrible at estimating how much time it takes me to do things.

But…

When I rely on fixed time goals (schedule based) I lose the motivation to work efficiently because there’s no reward for getting done early.

This particular problem no longer resonates with me, and I believe that’s because of the attitude change which has given me a different perspective.

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.

Refocusing on my schedule

Lynn

I can’t really explain why I didn’t end up writing much yesterday. I did get a few words in at the end of the day, enough to make me comfortable saying that I am restarting my “no more zero word days” challenge. From yesterday forward, no more zero word days. The more days I can string together, the greater my victory. Failure just means I have another opportunity to create an even longer string of days.

Funnily enough, after writing yesterday that it’s been five months since I started trying to follow my current schedule, I have decided that following the schedule alone is not going to be enough to keep me writing on a regular basis.

I’ve crunched some numbers and discovered that some of my best daily word count averages were stretched over times when I kept myself accountable for how much time I spent writing, not how much time I had set aside to write. It didn’t seem to matter how I held myself accountable, whether it was timed writing or simply timing my writing (counting down versus counting up), only that I was accountable for what time I did spend writing.

That probably explains why the schedule worked so well to start with but no longer seems to make a difference. In the beginning, I did treat those times much more like timed writing sessions, whereas now, I seem to treat the schedule more as time set aside during which I should be writing. I don’t even feel that guilty when I don’t write during that time! This post proves it. It’s 10:34, and I should be writing right this minute.

I’m not ready to give up the current schedule (because I really like it and I do feel that of all the schedules I’ve ever tried, it’s the one that suits me best), but there’s not a lot of room for doubt about how I should be thinking of my writing time and it’s not the way I’m currently thinking of it.

I’m going to continue to try to find ways to push myself to write during my scheduled times, using whatever tricks are necessary. I meant it when I said this was the year of the schedule. The year isn’t over yet and I’m sticking it out.

Here’s a short quote from what I wrote in that post. It’s why I’m not giving up on the schedule, even after five months of mostly failure. I did take a quick look and I was wrong about the three weeks of success. It was closer to six. Six weeks of success out of five months isn’t that bad.

So here’s the challenge. I’m going to make a schedule. Every day will be a challenge to stick to it. I’ll probably fail more often than I succeed. Maybe if I’m lucky some good habits will develop around the times I’m supposed to be writing that will make it work over the long-term even if I have a lot of short-term failures. If not, well, how’s it any worse than what I’ve already got going on?

No more searching for the best system, no more word count quotas or goal-setting, no more excuses. It’s time to move on from all that and settle in. The remainder of 2015 is going to be the year of the schedule.

As for today, I’m still thrilling over how fun writing was on Wednesday when I was working through my list of stories, trying to write 50 words on each one and then moving on, so even though I had trouble getting started yesterday, I don’t think I’m going to have trouble getting started today because it’s not the writing that’s the issue. It’s my lack of respect for my writing time. Which I’m about to fix right this minute.

First step in practicing writing faster is going to have me keeping up with how much time I spend writing these blogs posts.

Started: 10:07 am
Finished: 10:55 am

My new to-the-point production schedule

Lynn

I think I mentioned before that I had to toss the last production schedule I made. I archived it, but I don’t think I’ll be revisiting it. It included deadlines and word count calculations detailed by book that were just too much for my poor brain to handle. To be blunt, it stressed me out. I’ve mentioned before that the way I handle stress is to shut down and do nothing.

I’ve done a lot of nothing over the last few weeks. Changing that is a high priority this week.

First I calculated how many days I can realistically expect myself to work in a year. This is an ideal number, of course, but I have to start somewhere.

Holidays 4
Unexpected 12
Vacation (wkdays) 15
Weekends 104
total days off 135
total working days 230

Then I calculated the number of words I would like to write in the next 12 months based on the release schedule I’d like to maintain for each series—no deadlines attached.

Year’s production Number avg wc total wc
Series #3 6 65,000 390,000
Pen names series #1 4 50,000 200,000
Series #2 4 50,000 200,000
Short stories 12 8,000 96,000
Series #1 4 35,000 140,000
Stand-alone novels 2 50,000 100,000
New pen name novels 1 50,000 50,000
1,176,000

Those gave me my numbers to work from and this was the result:

5,113 words

That’s the number of words I need to write each weekday if I want to reach that level. It seems overwhelming, but I broke it down further into my two daily sessions to fit into my schedule.

6 (hours)
3 2,557 852.17 wph
3 2,557 852.17 wph

Then, for comparison, I calculated my necessary daily average.

3,222 words

That’s the daily average I need to reach and maintain if I want to write all the books on this production schedule within the next 12 months.

It’s my back up plan.

Then I asked myself if this is what I really want.

Yes. It is.

I have so many stories I want to tell before they fade away and become uninteresting to me. The ideas are there and I don’t want to miss my chance to write as many of them as possible before… whatever happens. I’m not dying or anything, not that I know of anyway, but every day that slips away from me makes me just a little bit more afraid that I’ll never get all these stories written before I die. It’s a scary thing to think about, tbh.

Can I do it? I don’t know. I know it won’t get done if I don’t try. Anyway, this is the ideal, again, and I can accept that it won’t be the reality, but it’s what I want, regardless of all that.

If I find it impossible to reach the 5,113 words after giving it my all this week, I can fall back to the “write every day” alternative.

I don’t like word count goals and I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to change that. But—

I know where I’m at and where I want to go, and even if I never look at this again, I will have that number sitting in the back of my brain, reminding me not to quit early, and not to expect less from myself, because this is what it will take to write everything I want to write, not even as quickly as I want to write it.

The first thing I need to do? Stop being a slow writer. 852 words an hour is much faster than I’m used to writing.

Is the schedule improving my daily word count average (for real)?

Lynn

I was ready to do a bit more analysis of whether or not my schedule is helping me write more. This time I decided to get real and use a formula to figure out if the change I noted previously was actually statistically significant. It’s been so long since I’ve had a statistics class that I had to turn to the web for answers. One web search later, I found THIS, which I adapted quite easily to work with my daily log of word counts.

I had noted the start date for the schedule in my daily log, so it was easy to make the formulas work with my own spreadsheet. Here’s what I came up with.

658 average value of data before change (daily word counts)
741 average value of data since change (daily word counts)
952 standard deviation of data since change
133 number of data points since change (how many days I’ve been on the schedule)
1.009489 T-Value
15.73% probability that the change is only due to chance

So, I wouldn’t say the change in word count is significant. After a bit of further reading on Wikipedia, the problem I’m seeing is that I have no idea what to set as the significance level. I can’t deny that it’s quite possible the increase in my word count was/is temporary and could have other causes. The truth is that my word counts often improve after I make a change. And honestly, if I look at a rolling 7 day average, I can’t see any patterns at all.

Other than the pattern that sometimes I write a lot and sometimes I don’t write anything! Consistency isn’t something I’m good at.

I did have several more 3,000 word days recently than usual (I’ve never had three of them so close together before), but on the other hand, it had to happen sometime, right? I now have 1,112 days worth of entries and I’m adding a new one every day.

All I’ve really done is give myself something else to think about, unfortunately, while I try to pull myself out of this funk and get on with the writing.