Month: June 2016

Editing and proofreading continues

Lynn

I need to be accountable for today’s editing and proofreading work, and that’s a fact. Yesterday, I did not come close to finishing and I really needed to. So today is it. I must work, stay focused, and get this done, even if it takes all day.

Consider it a challenge: I must finish my edits and proofreading for this book today.

I’m starting at location 641 of 4185 total locations this morning, meaning I have 85% of the book left to edit and proof.

I’m going to follow a pattern today, to see if it helps me get into a groove and maybe eliminate the overwhelm that usually comes at the end when I realize I have 32 Kindle screens worth of highlights in the “Notes” section to deal with. The plan is to have nothing left there when I’m done but the bigger issues I need to double check or fix.

The plan:

  1. Read in 1/2 hour one hour sessions
  2. Make corrections/edit
  3. Break for five to ten minutes
  4. Do it again.

Record of time and locations (percent complete):

  • 8:49 am:
    • At location 641 (15%)
  • 9:43 am:
    • At location 856 (21%)
      • And I’ve already discovered that 30 minutes is just too short. I’m going to do an hour of reading for the rest of the sessions.
    • Finished edits for this session at 10:18 am
  • 2:28 pm:
    • At location 1412 (34%)
      • Finished the last reading session around 11:30 am, but then lost 2.5 hours to lunch and several interruptions, and lost another half hour to Kboards.* I also feel like I need a nap, but I really don’t have time for one.
  • 5:02 pm or somewhere thereabouts:
    • At location 1997 (48%)

It’s 9:06 pm and bedtime and I’m not going to finish. I’ll have to do this all over again tomorrow. And the high tomorrow is forecast to be 88°F, with an air quality alert for ozone, and I still have no A/C. :o I’m really starting to wonder if the part they need to fix my unit is ever going to arrive. It’s been 4 weeks now.

*I’m going to have to start staying away from forums and blogs and other writer communities unless I have real downtime (not downtime between writing sessions, etc., but actual downtime, when I’ve already finished everything I need to do for the day and just want to do something to pass the time.

This blog and the accountability I need

Lynn

I have a problem with internal motivation. I don’t have a lot of it. I use this blog to create a sense of accountability with the world at large, despite the fact that I’m mostly writing these posts into a great wide void.

I like that. I think I’d find it a lot harder to write these posts if I thought people were actually reading them. I’d want to say all the right things, and I’m not very good at that. :D

But I do like the sense that someone could be reading, and therefore, whatever I write needs to be real and I need to mean it, at least when I write it.

I admit when I fail. I fail a lot, to be honest. If you read the blog, you know that. I mean it. I fail a lot. Trying is more important to me than succeeding.

But posting my goals, even when they’re crazy and I know almost before I start that I’m going to fail, works in some weird way to keep pushing me forward and that’s important to me.

This blog is important to me, because of that.

Editing and proofreading today

Lynn

I was supposed to be on the editing and proofreading days ago, and yet… here I am, doing it today. And let’s be honest. I’m writing this to delay getting back to it just a little longer. Procrastination, you are my frenemy.

I have about three hours in which to finish all this and I can already say in all honesty that that is not going to happen. No way, no how. It would take me that long just to read the rest of the book without distraction. And I’ve already discovered that there are places in this book that need more attention than that.

I use the Send to Kindle software on my computer to send my docx files to my Kindle Fire for this stage. The book has 4185 locations in Kindle (easier to read for typos there) and I’m at 583. It took me about a hour to get there.  Then I stopped to make some corrections to the book, ended up adding a few bits in to be most consistent with something that happens later in the book and that took about half an hour.

If I use today’s progress to estimate time to finish the editing and proofreading , I come up with about 11 hours total for editing and proofreading time. I’ve done 1.5 hours already, so that’s about 9 hours to finish. That’d put me finishing at 4 a.m. assuming I take no breaks whatsoever.

Then I’ll have to proofread everything I corrected, again.

So I’ll be at it again tomorrow. And I’d better put in as much focused time tonight on it as possible. I’m running up against a couple of deadlines now that I really can’t miss this time.

Oh well. Gotta get back to it, so I’ll leave it there. Maybe I’ll get through the rest of the book faster than I expect and will be able to report back something awesome!

Either way, I’m going to post where I end up. I’d like a written record. :D

I ended at location 641. Ack. I did do more edits, but mostly I spent some time with my son. Ah well. It was a trade off that was worth it in this instance. :D Back at it tomorrow.

Switching things up

Lynn

I’m going to switch things up today, by working half the day on writing, and the other half on copy editing that book I need to get ready to publish. I wanted to get started on the copy editing yesterday and didn’t but definitely should have. Didn’t get close to my word count goal either, and today I need to do better.

The thing is, I’m feeling very stressed. I’m going to have to get over that. It’s really isn’t helping me get anything done.

I think I’ll do 1 hour blocks and trade out. That wasn’t what I intended when I thought about switching out, but the thought of writing or copy editing for hours on end without a break between kind of makes me want to go back to bed instead.

And later…

Ugh! I’m not having any luck at this today. I finally bailed on it and did the books instead (my monthly accounting update to my records and my spreadsheet, etc., and then I did my personal books and my budget). It needed to be done, but not at the cost of missed writing time or another delay of the copy edit. Time is growing short, deadlines are looming, and I’m just making all this so much harder than it has to be!

Multiple stories at once: eighth week

Lynn

Thursday—Wednesday, May 26–June 1

2,220
1,852
2,854
1,181
0
0
193

Total: 8,300 words

I wrote fewer words than I wanted this week, by far (goal is 27,533) but I still ended May in a much better place than usual, so I can’t complain much. Nothing I can do about it anyway so I might as well enjoy the small win.

Probably the biggest reason for the fail is the fact that I still only wrote on one story this week, despite my decision last week not to get stuck in that frame of mind again.

My pace this week was also again much slower than I’d hoped. I averaged 516 wph over the week, and that’s in line with my old average, but much slower than I’ve been tracking since I started with the multiple stories experiment.

I’m just really at a point where I want to finish this book so I can let go of the stress that’s interfering with my ability to let myself work freely on multiple stories. I’m really feeling the pressure to finish this book, and it’s not helping me at all to push it, and yet, I keep pushing it.

Here’s hoping next week will turn out better, but I can already say based on the fact that today is Saturday, that the ninth week isn’t off to a great start.

Honestly, considering the fact that I’m obviously not working on multiple stories right now, and I know it, I’m not even sure these weeks should count.

Trying again to reach my daily goal

Lynn

Yesterday was a bit of a let down. I didn’t reach my goals—not even half.

Today I’m going to try to use the same plan I tried to use yesterday, with a minor change. I’m going to split up my writing sessions: 2 right after breakfast (right now, that is), 2 right after lunch, and the last (and maybe one extra) right after supper. So, the plan is 5–6 hours of writing today.

All with an aim to finish each block as soon as possible, so no dawdling.

Today’s goals

  • Write 3,933 words in 5 hours
  • Copy edit 1/4 of pen name 2 book #2
  • Skim read pen name 2 book #1 (checking for consistency with book #2)

This’ll be a busy day.

  • Writing = 6 hours
  • Copy editing = 3.8 hours (I can copy edit about 5,000 words an hour. Getting through 1/4 of the book is a stretch, but possible, I think, if I’m efficient with my writing time today.)
  • Skim reading = 2 hours (I don’t want to skim so fast I don’t pick up on details.)

Total estimated time = 11.8 hours

Doable, but a stretch. I’m going for it. See you back here when I’ve got something to report. :)

Updating….

I’m really failing at this today. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think some of it is that I need that “mull over” time I talked about when I explained why writing multiple stories seems to work to get me such better word counts.

Or maybe it really is just the fact that I’m distracted by having almost no time to myself right now.

Playing to win today

Lynn

After two more days of pathetically small word counts, I’m planning to make today a winner. I had a great night of sleep and I woke up determined to do better today than I’ve done the last 4 days. My pace has been so bad that I only made it to 477 words in 1.32 hours of writing yesterday. And no, that wasn’t because of deletions; it was because I was second-guessing every word I put down.

Here’s to making today a better day.

Goal: 3,933 words in 5 hours or less.

Second goal: 5 hours or more of writing.

I’m going to make both of those happen by doing the following.

  1. Stop trying to force myself to put all my effort and thought into the one story I most want to finish right now. It’s dragging down my interest in writing and killing my word counts!
  2. Let the stories carry me along without second-guessing them.
  3. Run my kids out of the house if they can’t respect my writing time and leave me alone for 5 hours of writing today. (Sixteen and eighteen year old kids shouldn’t need to interrupt mommy every ten minutes to complain about each other. If they do it again today, I’m putting them to work in the basement or outside in the heat. A little hard work might be good for them both.)

I’ll check in later and post an update below.

Hours Words Session WPH
1 997 997 997

Getting in the hours today has been much harder than I’d hoped! The house hasn’t been too hot to work in, but the distractions have been just as bad as ever. I’ve managed to get up some speed, but only because I followed through on #1.

Total: 1,673 words in 2.18 hours

Hmm. I need a new plan. :o

Distractions still abound but today is going to be different

Lynn

I’m coming off two days of zero word counts and I’m feeling disheartened by that. It’s been so uncomfortably hot in here without my A/C and I’m not doing well with the kids at home either. However, today I’m going to turn that all around. I still don’t have A/C and the kids will still be here, but I’m determined to write 3,933 words today at a minimum and get some copy editing done on a book I want to get published sooner rather than later.

I’m coming off a good night’s sleep and I’m ready to get started.

Here’s how it’s going.

Hours Words Session WPH
1 114 114 114

Hour 1 was a serious letdown. I know what happened though, and it was me, getting hung up on what was already written instead of moving on to what’s not.

Getting over that now, before I start hour 2. Not going change anything in the rest of the stuff I’m reading through unless it’s an outright mistake. I “fixed” an action I didn’t like on the part of the character, and as a result, I ended up sucked into changing other stuff that probably didn’t need to be changed. By the time I was done, I’d changed a lot of it back (what usually happens and why changing stuff is a total waste of my time).

1 286 172 172

So, hour 2 wasn’t really any better. The distractions here are killing my momentum.

Failure in May wasn’t as bad as it feels

Lynn

I didn’t write but 1/3 of what I wanted to write in May, but in the end, when I looked harder at the numbers, I discovered it wasn’t as bad a failure as it feels. May’s word count comes in at 35,296.

Only 7 months out of 46 have been higher. May was my 47th month of publishing, and that makes June my 4 year anniversary as a self-publisher. :D How absolutely amazing!

Between April and May, I’ve had my best two month word count, ever, by 1,470 words.

February–March 2013 = 91,075 words
April–May 2016 = 92,545 words

My next best two month period was November–December 2015 when I wrote 73,377 words.

Gotta say, I’m happier than I was after looking at these numbers. I’m still showing improvement, and I’m excited by my progress. :D Here’s hoping June is a great month for word counts. :)