Month: October 2016

Word count post for Oct. 23–26, 2016

Lynn

Oct. 23: 3,095
Oct. 24: 218
Oct. 25: 1,982
Oct. 26: 2,281

Daily average since 9/19 (as of Oct. 26): 1,109 words

It’s still trending up. That’s excellent news. I really believe I’m eventually going to get there. 2,000 is a very reasonable number.

I also checked my zero word count days average for every month since I started recording my numbers (it wasn’t as hard as you might think, since I already have a formula in my spreadsheet that already tells me how many I have each month).

My average is 10 zero word days a month.

Of course, that is just an average, but it does give me somewhere to start if I want to reach 2,000 words a day on average over the course of a month. If I write 3,000 words on average every day that I write, and I still maintain the 10 days a month average on zero word days, I’ll end up with about a 2,000 a day average in the long run.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that yet, but it’s definitely something I’m going to think about. :)

Another trying to write 6,000 words in a day post

Lynn

Today I’m trying to make up for lost time.

I’ve set aside 8 hours today for writing. I hope to get 14 total 30 minute sessions out of them, unless I finish the book sooner. To get to the estimated word count I originally set for this book, I need to write 6,311 words today. Since I’ve set aside only 8 hours, and at least 1 of those hours will get lost to interruptions, I need to write about 900 words an hour today.

That’s a BIG challenge. :D

I’m up for it. This book is going to end today.

Hang ups that stop me from writing

Lynn

I don’t work well when I know I have somewhere to be or something to do. Today, there’s a wedding. I had planned to do a lot of writing this morning, because I just haven’t finished that book yet. Have I done that writing? No. Because I keep rearranging my schedule, and because there’s this thing cluttering up my head that tells me I’ve got somewhere to go!

As if I didn’t know that. I’ve even prepared in advance by setting a timer on my phone. Do you think that’s helped? Of course not.

That distracted feeling just won’t leave me. I haven’t been able to focus at all.

Sigh. I hate days like this. I should have been able to get so much done this morning, and now all that time is just gone. Poof. Never to be seen again.

My evening is much less time friendly. And this is it, the day; I really have to finish this book.

Trying to write 6,000 words in one day

Lynn

Here’s what I’m going to do to try to meet this 6,000 words in a day goal.

Well, first:

  1. These need to be final copy words or very close to it.
  2. They’ll all be on one story, because I really need to finish this book to meet my personal deadline.

Here’s how I’m going to structure this:

  1. I’m going to write in 30 minute sessions.
  2. I have 4 massive 4 hour blocks scheduled on my calendar. 7:30 to 11:30, 12:30 to 4:30
  3. I want to complete 7 sessions in each 4 hour block.
  4. I want to reach 858 wph average over all the sessions.
  5. I want to reach 3,000 words for each 4 hour block.

There it is: the plan. I’ve been trying this for days, tbh, but today is the first day where I’m going to be trying 30 minute sessions, and where I’ve laid out how a goal number of sessions I want to finish in each block.

Wish me luck. :)

FYI, I got SO lucky yesterday. No jury duty today! The case that was scheduled for court today is off the docket. Or something like that. That means I have the day to work on finishing this book. :)

Here’s how things stand at 4:24 pm:

  1. This is working well today
  2. I’m completely outside these windows now and nowhere near where I should be on number of sessions from (1) above
  3. Got through 4 in block 1 and sitting at 6 total all day a few minutes from the end of block 2
  4. My pace is 746 wph so far
  5. I haven’t even yet reached the first 3,000 of the day

I have to stop at 7:30 pm to make a book cover, unless I decide to put it off in favor of more writing. I’m still planning to write as much as possible, because even if I don’t hit 6,000 words today, I’m feeling close to the end of this book and I’d love to finish it tonight. :)

 

Word count post for Oct. 19–20, 2016

Lynn

Oct. 19: 1,162
Oct. 20: 2,906

Considering the number of words I was trying to write on those two days (6,000), I’d say those are pretty grim numbers.

On the other hand, it’s a 2,000 words a day average, so yay?

Daily average since 9/19: 978 words.

I’ve improved. It’s been a month now, and I’m up to 978 words a day, which is actually fantastic compared to my average for the month before (which was 15 words a day, not kidding).

Since I’m not going to move my start day for this average, it’s going to take me a long time to get it up to 2,000 at this point. According to my spreadsheet, I need 31,722 words above 2,000 a day to catch up.

Word count post for Oct. 16–18, 2016

Lynn

Oct. 16: 612
Oct. 17: 1,299
Oct. 18: 4,013

I picked up some steam yesterday (the 18th), but I haven’t had much follow on success today.

Also, yesterday I was actually trying to hit 6,000 words, so that was a bit of a fail. I’m not crying over it or anything, though. Writing 4,013 words in a day is a good day for me.

Daily average since 9/19: 910 words.

Need a push today

Lynn

I need a push today, so public humiliation it is! ;)

The plan is to write for 50 minutes out of every hour.

9:30–12:30
1:00–4:00

I need more time than I’m giving myself, but I don’t want to put in more time than I have to for these words, so I’m depending on Parkinson’s law to get me there (praying, in other words, for a miracle).

#DIV/0! avg wph
    4,776 words to go
#DIV/0! hours to go
6 planned
6 to go
795.917 per session
955.1 goal wph

So, it’s 9:11 and I have to get started or my plan for the rest of this week is toast.

*** Update ***

It’s 3:53 pm and I’ve finished 2—yes, 2—sessions. How has that happened? I had 6 hours set aside for writing and I’ve spent a lot of time at the computer today. I can’t pull any one thing out of my head and say that’s what caused me to lose time today, but I’d say I’m about to have to institute a no WIFI rule until I get better at staying on task. :o The internet is a tempting little morsel when writing starts to feel like work.

Here’s where I sit:

        521 avg wph
     3,821 words to go
7.32739 hours to go
6 planned
4 to go
955.125 per session
1146.15 goal wph

I did do a little writing outside of one of my sessions so that’s why the number don’t exactly add up.

Time to get back to it. I unscheduled the rest of the stuff I was hoping to get to this evening, because getting the rest of those words is more important than any of those things. Considering my pace, I’m definitely going to need to do more than the 4 sessions I have left, so it’s liable to be a long night.

Bummer.

Panic! Panic! Panic!

Lynn

Yeah, I’m still having trouble getting moving on this book. I’ve done edits today instead, so my chapters are all edited through chapter 15. (I generally edit as I go, but these are what I’d call copy edits, and some very limited line edits.)

I even timed them just like I did on my last book. It made a huge difference in how focused I was able to stay. I mean HUGE. I’ll be doing this from now on. Every time. It made that much of a difference.

Chapter Read Time Edit Time
1 3
2 14
3 10
4 17
5 13
6 14 10
7 18
8 11
9 12
10 14
11 12
12 15 16
13
14
15

12.75 = Average minutes per chapter reading time

26 = Number of minutes it took me to actually make the edits*

*I highlight stuff that needs fixed or changed on the file by sending the Word docx to my Kindle email address where I read it on my Kindle. Much easier to “see” the story (and mistakes) that way and not get lost in the writing phase again and start rewriting stuff that’s just fine the way it is.

Chapters 13–15 aren’t on the chart because I did those the night before last and don’t consider what I did the final edit.

Chapters 1–12 are done, completely, unless the next 20,000 words I write requires me to go back and change something—which I’ll avoid unless it becomes unavoidable. ;)

I’ve been done with the editing for a while now, but I still can’t seem to get started on the writing. The stuff I read was so good that now I’m afraid I can’t follow up—ugh! I know how that sounds, but I really liked what I read, and if I don’t like it, how can I expect anyone else to like it? :P

I need to start writing RIGHT NOW, or I face missing my personal deadline. In fact, that ship might have already sailed, but I’m not quite ready to admit defeat.

Somehow I need write 6,582 words in the next 3 hours. :o

Knowing my average pace—and even my above average best pace ever pace, there ain’t no way that’s happening, so I just need get as many words as I possibly can before I have to call it a night 3 hours from now.

So… see ya! I have important things to do.

In a twist anyone (but me) could see coming…

Lynn

I did not spend yesterday or today writing lots of words.

I did read a few chapters of the book I’m trying to get back into and do some edits last night, adding a few words to the story, then spent about half an hour writing this morning, but I’m very far from where I wanted to be right now on my word count.

That puts me in a pickle, because the word counts I need to reach each day to reach my goal for the week are above anything I’ve ever done in a single day—and I’ll need to keep it up for 3 days in a row.

The word counts aren’t impossible, but they kind of really feel that way. There’s a mental barrier there at 6,000 words—I’ve yet to go above 5,758 words in a day, and then there’s the creative barrier, and the energy barrier.

I need about 20,175 words in 3 days, or about 6,606 words each day. At my usual output and ratio of writing time to break time, there just isn’t enough time in the day to reach those goals unless I’m at the absolute top of my game.

Also, I kind of suspect the reason I stalled out today and didn’t get restarted on my writing is because there’s some stuff I don’t remember that I need to know for me to keep going with this story. I’m going to have to take some time to read some of the previous chapters of this book if I have any hope of finishing the book quickly. Meaning I really can’t get back to writing tonight until I’ve done that.

Since I just did an experiment earlier this week, timing my read through of the last book I finished, I know I can read 3 chapters an hour (taking approx. 14 minutes per chapter, plus a necessary break). I read every word at this speed, and it’s great for catching typos and such. I’m on chapter 15, but I already went through chapters 12–15 last night.

So 4 hours of reading to catch up to where I am.

I do believe this is a “have to do it” thing.

So, decision made, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to use the time I have available tonight to do this, and then get up tomorrow with the intent to write as much as I possibly can.

The only other option is to do hours of reading tonight, go right into the writing, and stay up so late that I’m miserable tomorrow and get nothing done. :o

Considering how many words I’ll still need to write tomorrow even if I have a fantastic night of writing tonight, I need to avoid that outcome. ;)

Writing plan for Oct. 13, 2016

Lynn

So today I plan to write, despite feeling a bit icky. I have a headache and I’m unusually tired, considering I had a full night’s sleep. Probably the reduction in caffeine after a week of too much of it. :o

I’m going to continue cutting back. I haven’t decided to quit again, just do a better job not overdoing it. I switched to decaf again, so I don’t have to resist the urge to drink coffee while cutting back, and that leaves only my sweet tea and green tea as main sources to watch out for while I drink just enough to feel better.

Okay, enough of that. I have a plan to write a lot of words over the next week, about 20,325 in six days to be exact. If I don’t hit my goal today, I’ll have to scrap the plan. It’s already much later than I had planned to start today and I don’t even know how that happened.

The plan*

50 minute sessions with a goal of 550 words per session.

11:00–3:00 (4 sessions: 2,200 words)
5–8 (3 sessions: 1,650 words)

I need to write 3,388 words today, and that writing schedule should get me there.

*I originally planned to start at 7:00 this morning, but I didn’t, so I just shifted the entire day’s schedule. I decided a while back that getting to my word count goals is more important than starting and stopping at a particular time.

 

Word count post for Oct. 12, 2016

Lynn

0 words.

Well. Not much to say about that. I had planned to write yesterday, but a late night before really messed up my day. I ended up spending my time on catch up stuff, like checkbook, bills, and gnucash (where I keep up with my writing biz stuff). I also cut back on the coffee and caffeine (it’s a never ending cycle), and ended up with a headache that’s carried forward into today. Regardless, today I plan to write.

Daily average since 9/19: 834 words.

Word count post for Oct. 9–11, 2016

Lynn

Oct. 9: 3,106
Oct. 10: 0
Oct. 11: 149

Daily average since 9/19: 903

===Notes===

So, I finally finished that book! Then I had to take a day off to read it. Then I did some light edits. Now I’m about to resume writing on another book I want to release this year.

I’m trying to make up for the dry spell that went on for so long, and I have no idea if I’ll be able to do it or not, but I have a goal to end this year with my best annual word count since I started this thing.