So, what to call this kind of post? I’ve decided on “writing in progress post” because it seems to fit.
Yes, I really do hope my stories come across as more creative than my blog titles. ;)
I’ve done plenty of these kinds of posts before, but I want them to be easier to pick out when I’m skimming the list so they’re getting their own special name, just like the word count posts I’ve started posting.
Now, on to today’s writing.
The plan and my session updates
3 × 15 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of 250 words a session
HOWEVER, if I haven’t reached 750 by the end of the hour, I’m going to consider that hour not finished. An hour must reach 750 words before I can move on to the next hour. I’m hoping this will only actually take 8 hours of writing, but… wishes and horses, you know? ;)
Spreadsheet tracking my sessions
Updating at the end of each hour… or so. :D
| End of hour goal | |||||||
| 1 | 750 | 38 | 218 | 433 | 530 | 719 | 774 |
| 2 | 1500 | 835 | 915 | 1101 | |||
| 3 | 2250 | ||||||
| 4 | 3000 | ||||||
| 5 | 3750 | ||||||
| 6 | 4500 | ||||||
| 7 | 5250 | ||||||
| 8 | 6000 |
It’s very, very obvious that I’m not up to speed. I’m not actually at new words yet because I started with the chapter I left off at when my progress stalled. It’s okay. I’ll be past it soon and on to all new stuff. I just have to figure out what the heck is supposed to happen next (which is possibly part of the reason I’ve been avoiding this book)!
Halfway through hour 2, I had to change how this table was set up. It wasn’t working at all easily with my word count spreadsheet.
Something that’s really bothering me today (and it could just be a today issue) is that the 15 minutes isn’t giving me enough time to get into the zone. I’m taking advantage of too many breaks, and they’re taking too much time away from the writing. I should have finished significantly more sessions by now than I have. Possibly time to reevaluate.
Alrighty. I did some reevaluating. For the moment, the 15 minute sessions just aren’t working. I don’t know why, exactly, but I have thoughts on it. So, for the moment, and maybe for more than the moment, I’m going to switch the 3 15 minute sessions an hour to a 45 minute session. That’s the only adjustment I’m making right now. Since the whole point is the scheduled writing time, my session lengths are the least important part of the plan and I’m not the least bit put off that I’ve already needed to make changes to that. It’s all about the trade off between how long I need to get into the zone and how long I can stay focused and keep my writing pace high enough to get me better word counts. :)
It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t seem to stay on schedule today enough to get in all the hours I wanted. All I can assume (because I wasn’t tracking it precisely) is that the breaks were just significantly longer than they needed to be and that it added up to a huge chunk of wasted time. Not feeling well for the last couple of days has also made me drag a bit, so I understand some of that. Anyway, on to tomorrow. I have high hopes I’m picking up some momentum. Now all I need to do is get a better night’s sleep.