Month: March 2015

Word count has become my biggest obstacle

Lynn

My daily word count has become my biggest obstacle over the last few years. I’m not sure exactly when it started to overtake every other writing concern I have, but it has and I’m not feeling great about that. I know my daily word counts are important. They’re intricately tied to success as measured by revenue because you can’t sell what isn’t written.

However, I’m also feeling a bit like the excessive focus on word count has had some side effects that I’m not really happy with, the biggest and scariest of which is a diminishing enjoyment of writing.

I know I need something to keep me going in the right direction, but … some days this need to measure everything just gets old. I want to love writing so much that I can’t wait to get started and hate to have to stop. Some days I still feel like this. Less so lately though. It’s hard for me to love writing when I’m constantly disappointed in myself because of writing.

Still, although I’ve axed my timer and my time data (archived it, to be exact), I won’t be abandoning my daily log of my word count. I love having that list of numbers. What I don’t love is looking at it and feeling bad about myself when there’s a blip where the numbers drop or a zero shows up.

On the other hand, I do love a good writing streak. For the moment, I’m going to focus on writing every day (that getting started thing is really important) and worry less about the actual quota. I want to end up with a nice average, but “average” means I don’t have to be so hard on myself for any particular day’s word count if I have a reasonable mix of bad days and good days.

What I’m learning: Consistency is important, but it’s probably better if I’m not rigid about it. I want to write every day, but some days are going to be more fun than others and it’s going to be easier to stay at it longer. We’ll see where that gets me in April.

32 day streak

Lynn

I’m now at 32 days of writing fiction every day. Unlike with previous streaks, this one has no quotas, time or words. My plan is simply to see how many consecutive days I can make it writing fiction every day.

Really and truly, getting started is the hardest part for me. When I do get started, I usually do better than I expect. Like last night. I thought I’d get nothing, but then I decided I wanted to keep my streak alive, want, in fact, to create the best streak I’ve ever had, so I started writing. 439 really decent words later I stopped and went to bed because time had gotten away from me. (A really good thing when it comes to writing.)

I’ve said before, if I eliminate all the zero word days I’ve had in the past and replace them with as little as 50 words, I could have written 15,000 words more than I have since I started writing to publish. If that number had averaged 200 words, that’s an entire extra novel.

Averages are powerful things and I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine I could average 200 words a day for all those days that might be zero word days otherwise.

My ultimate goal is still to reach and maintain a 2,000 word a day average, but these small steps are helping me get there. After a really bad streak of low productivity that lasted more than a year, I’m happy to see improvement.

Why I don’t offer writing tips (most of the time)

Lynn

I’ve been writing for about twenty-five years. It’s really funny that fifteen years ago, I had a site devoted to giving out writing tips. Nowadays I don’t feel qualified to give out writing tips, despite the length of time I’ve been writing fiction. Or maybe it’s that I’ve learned in the meantime that writing tips are a bit worthless. I only discovered true happiness with writing when I finally tossed aside all the tips that had taken up residence inside my head and wrote what I wanted, how I wanted. Sadly, that’s only been in the last ten years or so.

I freely admit that maybe I needed those tips at the time so that I could become the writer I am today. Then again, maybe they delayed my development as a writer. I’ll likely never know.

I also freely admit that I am far from done learning how to write. The difference these days is that I learn from reading others and practicing my own craft, trying to find ways to get the words out so they translate best to the biggest portion of my reading audience. (You can never please everyone, and you’ll go mad if you try.) That’s not to say I don’t read select craft books, because I do. But I avoid the kind of tips that proliferate online in favor of in-depth discussions of topics meant to help writers write good stories.

How can I offer advice to others when I still have so much to learn?

Still, sometimes I want to say to some writers I see scouring the forums and blogs for the secret to better writing: Stop! Just write. Write and write and write, and complete things. Even the terrible things. Finish those stories you start, because that’s how I learned. I took a giant leap forward when I finally started finishing the stories I started.

In the end, though, I have no idea if what worked for me will work for them. Maybe they need those tips. Or maybe they’re just delaying their own development as writers. We’ll likely never know.

I don’t offer writing tips because I don’t feel qualified. I know only what works for me as a reader and a writer. And I use adverbs when I want and I write run on sentences and I quite often mix my metaphors. But it’s what I want and how I want and my writing hasn’t been the same since. It’s lovely to own your art as uniquely yours.

248 words today and a posting hiatus

Lynn

I wrote 248 words today and I think that’s it for me today. I won’t be writing any more tonight. That headachy feeling has never gone away today and I’m calling it a night early to see if some extra rest can knock it out before tomorrow.

To meet my personal deadline for this book I need to up my daily quota for the next several days. Not by a lot but just enough to catch up a few off days.

I also think I’m about to stop these daily posts. They’ve been great but I’m letting them take up more time than I really should be. So… hiatus! I might return to posting after I finish this book. We’ll see. :D

1,284 words yesterday

Lynn

I wrote 1,284 words yesterday. I ended up with a late start last night and just never caught up, coming in about an hour and a half short on the time I should have spent writing.

I’m not having a lot of luck today, either, tbh, but I shall persevere. I’m feeling headachy.

Trying not to fall back into old habits

Lynn

I cut my morning session short. I’m trying not to fall back into old habits here but I just couldn’t bring myself to finish the last hour and seven minutes of writing this morning. Afternoon really, since the writing started late and I broke for lunch and that was what got me. I watched the new episode of Castle as a treat during lunch and … that led to more tv because tv is always more appealing that trying to get through a tough spot in my book. :(

Anyway, I’m back at it for my evening session. I’m just starting fresh with the 2h 5m and trying to finish that—maybe I’ll be lucky enough to really get moving on this book. I can catch up without having to finish that extra hour tonight if I can write 765 wph tonight. I won’t be caught up with yesterday’s missing words but I’ll at least not be any further behind. To catch up totally, I’ll have to write 1,025 wph tonight. I’m going to try, I mean why not?, but it might take more inspiration than I’ve got at the moment!

Trying anyway. :D

1,605 words yesterday

Lynn

I’m trying not to be disappointed! I wrote 1,605 words yesterday. At the halfway point, after I’d completed my morning session, it looked like I’d reach 2,000 for the day, even though I had to work for that morning word count a little too hard. By the time I finished up the evening session, however, my pace had slowed considerably and I just couldn’t make it. I’m trying to loosen up this morning, think positively and all that, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m feeling a bit … stuck, for lack of a better word, and the writing involved an awful lot of deleting yesterday! I’m hoping there won’t be an encore.

Novel feels like it’s going to go long

Lynn

I aim for about 50,000 words when I write a novel. I can’t say I have a lot of luck keeping to that word count. The story usually ends up bigger because I don’t like to let my characters have wild changes of heart without a darn good reason. I believe change is hard and honestly, I believe most people never change and those who do fight for it tooth and nail.

Now, since I can’t really divorce myself completely from my characters, when I’m writing one that has to change in a big way before his story is done, I end up having to write more to make it happen. This seems to be what’s happening in this book. My main character has taken the first steps to change, but the fact is, he’s not there yet and I have a LOT of story left to squeeze into 20,000 words. :o

I’m going to try, because I always do, but I have a feeling this one’s going to get away from me.

464 words yesterday

Lynn

I wrote more than 464 words yesterday, but alas, this morning I deleted some stuff I’d been hanging onto at the end of the doc because I’m not going to be using it. Since I didn’t want to start from a negative position this morning, I knocked those words off yesterday’s count.

I mean, I haven’t started writing yet, so why not? :D

Who cares anyway, right? I had a positive yesterday, and I’m about to start writing the moment I close this window in about 10 seconds. ;)

Negative 52 words yesterday

Lynn

I wrote −52 words yesterday, or better said, I wrote some words and deleted some words and my net loss was 52 words.

I hate it when my word count starts going backward.

I could have done so much better. In defense of my lack of writing, I will say I was distracted for a good part of the day because right before I was supposed to start my first session, I smelled gasoline in the house. I traced it to a leaking gas tank in my lawn mower in the basement, and the only thing I can think happened is that the cold weather did something to it, even though it was in the basement and the basement never got that cold. I mean, my pipes didn’t freeze. But still, I spent a lot of time worrying about that and trying to air out the basement and the rest of the house, and ended up with a headache to boot.

Still, I should have gotten some writing done. I had time. I just chose not to write. :(

Today, I need to make up some lost ground. I have a schedule for completing this book and I don’t want to push past the deadline I’ve set myself unless I have to. Situations like yesterday aren’t troublesome enough to be a legitimate reason for pushing my deadline.

I’m working on treating my deadlines with more respect.

599 words today

Lynn

I wrote 599 words today. I wish it had been more. I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t manage to stick with it today but I’m going to blame it on a lack of sleep the night before.

Tomorrow is another day as they say.

Today’s goal: 625 words x 5

Lynn

** Well, I’m still at 552, so I’m going to save this for tomorrow and try again. Right now I’m just hoping to work up the energy to finish the night above 1,000. :D **

Basically, I want a repeat of yesterday. I started not to create this post, but with that sense of urgency gone (I get anxious to post an update but know I can’t until I finish something update-worthy) I found myself staring at my spreadsheet and feeling no push to get started at all.

So, here I am. I have a lot of books I want to write this year and they won’t write themselves.

Goal 1— 625 (at 552)
Goal 2— 1250
Goal 3— 1875
Goal 4— 2500
Goal 5— 3125

I’m writing in 1h 15m sessions where the goal is 500 wph. Honestly, I’m enjoying this session length so much I’d like this to be my regular routine. When I’m not on a deadline, this will fit right in with my morning and evening writing routine I love so much. 2 sessions first thing and 2 sessions last thing. It adds up to just 40 more minutes of writing a day than my original goal and I can use those to catch up on my goal for a 2k daily average for the year. And when I don’t get to the evening session, I’ll still have written over a thousand words and that’s nothing to snort about. Now, for fresh tea and getting started…

Progress—

I’ll be back in about an hour and a half to update my progress.

Goal 1: First session went too slow and I only made it to 552 words. My pace was way off yesterday’s for my first session. By this time yesterday, I was also already well into my second session. My late start might be the problem or it might just be the fact that I came up a couple of hours short of sleep last night. I tried to get an extra hour or so of sleep this morning the same as I did yesterday, but I couldn’t. I do think it’s affecting my thinking and my stamina. I’m really not liking this time change after all. It didn’t seem to affect me the first day but now I’m really feeling it. I’m getting tired of yawning. It might be time for a quick refresher nap if I can manage it. It’ll put be further behind but it might speed up my writing enough to make up for that. Worth a shot anyway. ;)

Today’s goal: 625 words x 5

Lynn

I’m going to update this post as the day goes along, keeping a running log of my progress.

Goal 1— 625 (at 735)
Goal 2— 1250 (at 1,504)
Goal 3— 1875 (at 2,163)
Goal 4— 2500 (finished at 3,183!)
Goal 5— 3125

The last time I wrote at least 3,000 words in a day was September 18, 2014. No wonder I’m writing slow these days. I’m out of practice. :o I should make a point of having at least one 3,000 word day a week.

Progress—

Goal 1: First session went well and I made it to 735 words. I started just a bit later than I thought I would but I still think I can get in two more sessions before I have to stop for some family/life stuff. I’ll be picking up the last two sessions later this evening around 6:30 if all goes according to plan.

Goal 2: I ended this session with 1,504 words total. The session went well, although I forgot that I needed to have lunch so I paused to cook and eat. So, of course, I’m not going to be able to do more than get started with the next session before I have to stop. Still, if I can keep up my pace, I will reach my goal today. The book is back on track for the moment and I’m liking it again (a lot!). :D

Goal 3: This one started a lot later than I’d hoped, so I’m very glad it went well. I’ve ended the session with 2,163 words, meaning there’s actually the possibility I’ll meet this goal with one more solid session. Fingers crossed! I’m going to push for it!

Goal 4: I reached my word count goal for the day after only 4 sessions instead of 5 and finished at 3,183 words for the day. Yay!

Oh the shame, I wrote 155 words yesterday

Lynn

I hesitated to even write this post! I wrote 155 words yesterday. It was more time spent revisiting old material and I never even got my timers started because I’m making it a point not to run my timer when I’m working over material that’s already written.

I don’t want to be revisiting this stuff, but the book is not going well and I knew I needed to get some stuff figured out before I moved on. That’s what I mean by revisiting old material. I’m not really rewriting, per se, I’m just trying to reconfigure what’s happening and in the process things do get changed. Put another way, I don’t rewrite sentences to make them sound better (most of the time—I’m not going to say I never); I rewrite sentences to fit the story I’m trying to tell.

The real truth in all this is that I’m just not spending enough time writing. I tend to shut down and bail as soon as it gets hard. I need to overcome this habit if I want to be prolific (and I do—obviously just not as badly as I want writing to be easy for me).

I’m late starting today (it’s 9:54 am ) but I aim to do a better job of staying with the writing today even when it gets hard.

Just read my day before yesterday post

Lynn

And I’m feeling a bit let down by myself. I really thought I had a shot at reaching the 2,167 words yesterday when I wrote the post the day before. Then I forgot all about it and yesterday morning I updated my reports and adjusted my figure based on more accurate numbers. Still, if I’d met my goal, I would have done better than the 2,167 by a few hundred words so now I’m even more bummed.

I’m starting to hate this book. This isn’t a usual feeling for me so I’m feeling out of sorts. I can’t stop feeling like it’s horrible, like I’ve written several of my characters one way and then another, and that not only are they are inconsistent, but they’re just repeats of characters I’ve done before. I don’t usually feel that way either!

Something’s going to have to break loose today or I’m going to have to delete … about 9,000 words. Ugh! What a mess. Talk about being behind schedule. If I delete that much, I might as well kiss the idea of finishing this book this month goodbye, because it won’t happen.

I’m also a bit disturbed by the amount of deleting I’ve been doing over the past 6 months. I’m starting to wonder if it’s getting out of control—meaning I’m letting perfectionism ruin perfectly good writing. I’m going to have to think about that before I hit the delete key this time.

Perfectionism is a dream destroyer. I can’t let it into my writing. :o

906 words today

Lynn

Okay, I’m guessing again because I can’t remember and I’m not on my computer at the moment and won’t be again tonight. I think I wrote 906 words today. I’ll correct it tomorrow if I’m wrong. :)

Corrected. :)

205 words today

Lynn

I wrote only 205 words today, despite stopping only 25 minutes short on my morning session. Too much reworking old material instead of writing new, something I detailed in my post with yesterday’s word count.

Tomorrow, I stop letting myself stop my sessions short like this. I really should have finished it, and instead I watched too much tv, thinking I could think my way out of this if I just let my mind relax.

Yeah. That’s exactly how that works.*

Tomorrow. Seriously. I’m going to break the 2,167 word wall that seems to have sprung up in front of me sometime over the last two months. I haven’t had a 2,000 word day since January 3. It’s time to correct that.

Also, I want to watch more of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Archer season 5 on Netflix, and I want to do it without feeling guilty. So, 2,167 tomorrow. Barring a dire emergency, count on it. :D

*Sarcasm.