Fiction writer. Expert procrastinator. This is my life.
Just a short summary of the last couple of days. I’ve been posting more general posts, and my progress is in there, but I thought I’d do a quick post to summarize how I’m doing on my streak.
Day 27: 1,360
Day 28: 713
Day 29: 1,582
I’m working on day 30 now. It’s been a strange day and I’ve not done much writing so far, but even as late as it is, I’m making a few attempts at my 200 words in 5 minutes goal. Who knows, maybe this’ll be the day! :)
Write in super short sessions. Not short as in one hour, or thirty minutes, but really, really short. So short that there’s almost no chance your mind will wander, and every time your timer goes off, you’ve just been reminded of what you’re supposed to be doing.
Here’s why I’m giving this advice.
Three days ago, I started writing in 5 minute sessions.
I’ve written at a faster pace in the last three days than I’ve done since I started keeping track of that kind of thing in January 2013.
These 5 minute sessions have gotten me to 1,581 today on one story. I wrote almost all those words in eleven 5 minute sprints, although I did have one 15 minute session where I was just writing some stuff that I needed to get down before I stopped on that story—I had made it to 1,200 but wasn’t quite ready to stop. That’s 1,355 words an hour. My usual pace is 300–500 words an hour.
Last year, I spent a lot of time trying to reach 1,000 words an hour consistently. That didn’t work out. In case you’re thinking I’m losing time to the breaks between the sessions, I tracked the time and found that over 5 sessions, I spent 3 minutes in breaks, total.
This has made me really think about how easily distracted I am and how that’s been affecting my writing. I mean, I know it’s been affecting my writing, but I haven’t really had any way to see just how short a period I’m able to stay focused at a high level when I’m writing until this experiment started.
I don’t want to over think this, but I’m definitely having thoughts about it, and I’ll be keeping it up for as long as it works.
I haven’t yet reached 200 words in 5 minutes, but that’s what I’m aiming for.
For those not in the know, I write what I consider finished words. I don’t do rough drafting with the intent to fix stuff later. I make sure things are right before I move on from one sentence and paragraph to another. If I fix stuff later, it’s because there are mistakes that need fixed.
What that means is that I don’t allow spelling mistakes, typos, or other stuff to slide as I write. So 200 is a GREAT goal for me. And I’m just going to keep trying until I reach it. :D Someday I will.
I don’t know whether to call these sessions or sprints. Sprint fits best, because session is more inclusive of the time where I’m taking a quick read of my last paragraph and getting ready to hit that timer again.
This is likely giving me an inflated WPH count. I say that because my usual method includes that “breathing time” I seem to need between sprints. When I write for 1 hour, I’m including a lot of that breathing time, where my fingers are resting and I’m just staring into space. With these sessions, I’ve made it a point to do as little of that as I can, because I want to hit 200 words in 5 minutes at least once today. :) It’s a goal I have and it’s what keeps me doing session after session.
But this is really working for me. I mean, I might have just discovered one of my best ways of working. I’m so easily distracted when I write that having a 5 minute timer running keeps me super focused in the way a longer timer doesn’t.
I used to do 15 minute sessions, back in June/July 2012. Then I started playing around with things and decided half hour and even one hour sessions gave me better word counts. I never thought of going backward with my times. But it’s doing more for me than most any other session length I’ve ever tried. :)
None of those other session lengths have been able to keep me entirely in the moment the way these 5 minute sessions do. I struggled to reach 250 in 15 or 1000 in 60.
Yet, the lowest count I’ve hit this morning with 5 minutes is 116 words. That’s a pace of 348 in 15 and 1392 in 1 hour. The 5 minute sessions are generating my best word counts per hour of writing since I’ve started tracking them.
My brain seems to love the breaks between 5 minute sessions. It’s really helping me stay focused.
All I have to concentrate on is keeping the length of those breaks under control so I don’t break out of what is likely a flow state for me.
But my brain likes it. ;) So does my muse.