Month: November 2016

New schedule update

Lynn

So is this a new schedule update or a new schedule update?

Just pretend it’s either. It is a new schedule, and this is a new update.

Here’s the thing: I really like the new schedule. Here’s the next thing: I haven’t been able to stick to it for an entire day once since I set it. Not all three blocks for all three 2 hour sessions. That was Sunday. This is Wednesday.

Today I’ve managed to miss hitting the 2 hour goal for the first block (by 14 minutes) and skip the second block of time (1:00–3:30) altogether. I’m still okay for the third block to start at 6:00 and run to 8:30, so that’s good, but I really need to make up that second block, so I’ve planned to give it a second attempt at 9:00 pm.

If all this is true, why do I like this schedule?

  1. Because I really feel the need for structured work hours right now, while everything else seems to unstructured around me (and it is).
  2. Because it’s helping me rein in the time I spend not writing during writing time.
  3. Because it’s nice to have time where I don’t expect myself to be writing.

Word count post for Nov. 25-28, 2016

Lynn

Nov. 25: 0
Nov. 26: 0
Nov. 27: 970
Nov. 28: 1,867

I’ve been sick. I started feeling sick on the 22nd, but the morning of the 26th was definitely my worst day. I had planned to write on the 25th but I just couldn’t make myself do it. Then I started to feel better by the night of the 26th and here I am, just about completely over it. I have a bit of heaviness in my chest that still bothers me, but the sinuses have cleared up remarkably fast.

Daily average since 9/19: 992 words.

I really didn’t want to fall below 1,000 words again, but I just wasn’t up for another 1,000 words tonight. 2,000 words tomorrow will get me there again and then I can work on making it stick.

A new writing schedule

Lynn

I have a new writing schedule. I wasn’t sure I was going to try a schedule again so soon, but I realized I just wasn’t getting anything done without one right now. So I created this one. (I’ve been sick and I’ve found it’s really hard to work when you feel sick.)

9 to 11:30
1 to 3:30
6 to 8:30

Of course, I keep finding myself wanting to push all the writing time closer together, with very short breaks between, but I stop myself, because it feels pretty obvious to me that one reason this one is working for me (and it really is at the moment) is because of those generous breaks. They give me time to breathe and they help keep writing from feeling like all work and no play.

My goal for each 2.5 hour block is finishing a 2 hour timed session, during which I pause for breaks and come right back to the computer.

I didn’t finish all the time yesterday, and I haven’t (and won’t) finish it all today, but I have finished considerably more than I’ve been doing and I’m really happy with that.

Nov. 25 and I have a cold

Lynn

My cold symptoms started the 22nd, but today is the worst day so far. Sneezing, coughing and general malaise. I’ve had worse colds. Still not enjoying this one.

I’ll get too far behind my word counts if I allow another low word count day so I’m going to write today despite the cold.

The plan is for four 1.5 hour blocks where I aim for 1,000 words each. I’m going to try to surprise myself.

No particular schedule, just aiming to get those sessions done and reach my word goal for each of them.

Word count post for Nov. 22, 2016

Lynn

315 words.

I was sick. Although I didn’t really start to feel sick until last night so that excuse doesn’t really fly. Except maybe my body knew I was getting sick and was too busy trying to fight it off to save any energy for writing.

Hey, it’s a better excuse than the truth. I just didn’t ever feel like writing yesterday, and then I got sick.

On the other hand, I’m more sick today than yesterday and I’ve already beat yesterday’s word count by double.

Daily average since 9/19: 1,022 words.

Word count post for Nov. 19–21, 2016

Lynn

Nov. 19: 218
Nov. 20: 393
Nov. 21: 3,325

Daily average since 9/19 (as of Nov. 21): 1,032 words

Yesterday was good. I also reached 6 hours of writing time.

Today has not been good. I haven’t even reached 0 minutes of writing time. I have time to recover, although probably not to reach yesterday’s successful word count, so I’m going to give it a shot. Either that, or fall asleep on the couch. Haven’t decided yet. :o

(PS. I am sick. I have definitely caught a cold from one of my kids and I have the stuffy nose and sore throat to prove it. Maybe I’ll just blame today’s lack of progress on that.)

Nov. 19 and it’s COLD outside today!

Lynn

Well, we finally got a bit of rain early this morning (like 3 a.m. early) and the wind gusted and my power went out at about 4. I know because I have a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) for my desktop computer, router, and DSL modem, and it has an annoying beep that never fails to wake me up and keep me awake until either it runs out of backup power, the power comes back on, or I shut it off.

I didn’t feel like getting up this morning, so it kept me from drifting back to sleep for about an hour, and then of course, five minutes after it goes off, the light I turned on when I thought about going to shut it down comes on and startles the crap out of me before it goes right back out. I thought I turned it out, but apparently not. I clicked it off one more time so it wouldn’t come on again if the power returned and went back to sleep.

Yesterday had a high in the low 70s (Fahrenheit). Today the high is supposed to be 46.

And boy can I tell. It is cold.

Now I need to write for 8 hours today, because I’ve been behind my goal word count every day since I started my plan to finish this book.

At this point, here’s what I need to finish by 11/29/2016, which is the (modified) date I’d like to finish: 3,859 words a day (average).

Here’s what I need to do today:

3,859 words to go

6.00 hours planned
– hours completed
643 wph needed

And here’s what I want to do:

6,164 words to go

8.00 hours planned
– hours completed
770 wph needed

I’ll settle for the one and be ecstatic with the other.

Trying something different

Lynn

So, yesterday I set a goal to write for 8 hours. I set my countdown timer for 8 hours, and I started it whenever I wrote.

I made it to just under 4 hours to go and 3,073 words for the day before I gave up and went to bed. :)

It sounds like a fail, but it was very much a win. I needed 3,417 words yesterday and I got the closest to reaching my goal since I set it.

I’m trying to do the same again today, hoping to reach 6,000 words.

My pace is off, so even if I reach 8 hours of writing, I might not make it, but I’ll definitely end up with something worth crowing about. I’m already down to 6 hours and 26 minutes, and I have 744 words written. I believe I’ll at least make it to 3,000 again today, and I haven’t given up hope my pace will improve and I’ll reach the record-breaking 6,000 words I’d like to reach. I only need to speed up to 817 words an hour for the rest of the time to do it.

Thoughts—
1. My writing sessions are as long as I can make them before I have to stop for a break.
2. Timers are no longer interrupting me when the words are flowing, reminding me I need a break (I don’t need the reminder because my bladder makes it so that breaks happen too frequently already.)
3. I am more aware of total time invested in writing for the day and how much total time I have left to reach my goal.
4. I’ve tried it before and it didn’t work, but it’s been a few years, and it’s working now, so I’m going to keep it up until it doesn’t work. :)

Word count post for Nov. 16, 2016

Lynn

1,054 words.

Daily average since 9/19: 969 words.

Remember this scale?

1,000 = low word count day
2,000 = average word count day
3,000 = moderate word count day
4,000 = high word count day
5,000 = record breaking word count day (always, because 5k is huge!)

I’m still trying to get into a routine with writing where I’m reaching the average and moderate word count levels more often than I have low word count days.

Clearly, I’m not there yet.

Second day of new plan and I’m failing to keep up

Lynn

As I said in the post where I discussed my new plan:

At this point, here’s what I need to finish by 11/30/2016, which is the date I’d like to finish: 3,150 words a day (average).

Yesterday, I didn’t keep up, writing only 1,846 words, so my goal number of words each day has now gone up to 3,237 (unless I can make up the entire 1,304 words I’m behind today).

The schedule I’m attempting to follow is:

8–9:30
10–11:30
12:30–2
2:30–4

Which is four 1.5 hour sessions. The goal is 1,000 words per session, or a very reasonable pace of 667 words per hour.

Yesterday, I got behind early and never caught up. In fact, I kept getting further and further behind, until I finished the second session at almost 8:30 last night.

Today isn’t looking much better.

It’s 1:42 pm and I’ve finished one session, which I finished at 11:55 am. I wrote 353 words in that 1.5 hours, which is a TERRIBLE pace. I don’t even know how I managed to do that badly.

Then I took a short 30 minute break (yeah, I know it’s almost two hours later!) and here’s where I am.

I’m about to start session 2, and I’m hoping I can pull myself out of this spiral of doom I seem to have fallen into.

Distractions? None. Or if they exist, they’re all in my head. I honestly, 100%, do not know where my time went this morning. All I can assume is that I started late (and didn’t really notice*), then had to take lots of breaks. I did notice that. Lots of bladder pangs this morning for some reason. TMI, I know. Don’t care. If you do, bail now. This is not the blog for you.

Anyway, I’m putting on headphones, cranking up some music, and going to get down to business with this writing thing. I cannot let today become another failure.

*Possible because I took a nap on the couch less than 10 minutes after I got up this morning. I can’t remember if I even noticed how long I was out.

Further update

I am absolutely and completely off the schedule at this point and it’s 11:14 PM and I’m still trying to write.

Here’s a cut and paste from my tracking spreadsheet.

Session Time in Hours Session Words WPH
1.5 353 235
1.5 409 273
0.75 307 409

Ugly, huh?

And here are the stats:

          285 avg wph
       2,168 words to go
7.6036015 hours to go
         6.00 hours planned
         3.75 hours completed
          963 wph needed

At my current pace, it would take me another 7.6 hours to finish today’s word count. Uh huh.

I could get it done in 2 hours and 15 minutes if I could maintain a 963 wph pace.

But did I mention it was 11:20 PM? (It takes time to write these posts.) I’m tired, so none of that will be happening. On the other hand, I did accomplish something this afternoon and evening.

  1. I discovered that although the pace of this book felt ridiculously slow, it was just feeling that way because of how long it was taking me to write stuff into a scene I already had mostly written. (Those 1000-ish words I wrote today.) When I read back through to see if the story’s pace was as bad as I thought, I discovered that it moved along just fine. So—lesson learned. Pacing is not something I can feel as I write. Don’t delete a bunch of stuff because it’s giving me trouble. Read back through the last few chapters first. (That definitely stole some writing time.)
  2. I had to update my timeline for this series and that meant skim reading a lot of pages from the last book looking for clues about dates and the passage of time. Unfortunately for me, some of these danged books overlap, i.e. the stories happen concurrently*, and I had to create a spreadsheet several books back to keep it straight. I’m trying to write my way out of this situation with this book. Future books will not happen concurrently if I can help it!  (That also definitely stole a lot of writing time.)

*Never set up a series that contains stories that happen concurrently unless you’re a glutton for punishment. It’s a nightmare to keep straight!

Now, I’m off to see if I can get more writing done before I crash. The next update will be nothing more than my word count post for the day.

Consider this a cliffhanger. ;)

 

Word count post for Nov. 15, 2016

Lynn

1,846 words.

I have no excuse that makes sense for why I wasn’t able to get two of my four sessions done yesterday. Also, the two I did finish did not total 2,000 words.

The schedule was 8–9:30, 10–11:30, 12:30–2, 2:30–4, or four 1.5 hour sessions. I got behind early and never caught up. In fact, I kept getting further and further behind, until I finished the second session at almost 8:30 last night. (Today appears to be headed in an even worse direction. Here’s hoping I can pull myself out of this spiral.)

Daily average since 9/19: 967 words.

The next book: writing plans

Lynn

I’ve started my next book. At this point, I’m 12,606 words into it. I’ve also started another book (and have two others already started, too), but I’m not going to let myself work on it except when I’ve already finished my goals for the current book. See my previous post about writing one book at a time for reasons.

It’s important that I keep my interest level high on this book because it has a tight deadline. It had an even tighter deadline, but I had to nix that one. See another previous post for those reasons. :)

I’m aiming for about 63,000 words on this book.

The median word count for the series is 67,886 and the average word count is 67,655.

The books range in length from just over 50,000 words to just over 85,000. It’s a pretty big range, to be honest, but I can’t seem to control for length when I’m writing. I wanted them all to be 50,000 but we see how that worked out. :D

I started this book estimating 50,000 words, realized that just wasn’t probable, and raised it to 68,000 after seeing those numbers. Now I’ve backed off, because I actually want it to be closer to 60,000 and I don’t want to set myself up for writing a longer book just by default.

At this point, here’s what I need to finish by 11/30/2016, which is the date I’d like to finish: 3,150 words a day (average).

I’m going to keep this post updated with my progress, although it’ll probably be in batches instead of a daily update.

Why I’m (mostly) forcing myself to stick to writing one book at a time

Lynn

I’m writing this down because I’m sure I’m going to forget it, just when I need to remember it most.

Taking too long to finish a book is a sure way to bore me! I have to start finishing my books faster, if I want to save my love of writing.

Because honestly, it’s starting to bore me. I’ve written a lot of books. There aren’t many things in life that hold my attention after I’ve finished—hell, half the time I can’t even finish.

I’m not a finisher by nature. It’s a real chore to finish.

But books aren’t books if they don’t get finished, and I sure can’t sell unfinished books.

If I lose interest in a story, the story loses out, and the quality does not improve, trust me on that. Writing slow causes me to lose the threads of the story, and to lose motivation, while writing fast keeps my brain in the story, excited and creative. This even applies at the micro level, because my sentences flow better when I don’t constantly tinker with them. I know this is true. I still have to fight that desire regularly. :)

I come up with more ideas, faster, when I’m writing a lot. And I enjoy writing so much more when I’m writing often and fast than I do when it’s a slog and I’m agonizing over plot decisions or worrying about word choices.

If it’s not fun, I’m not going to do it. That’s just the truth.

Blame it on ADHD or laziness, or whatever, but it’s true. If it’s not fun for me, I will do everything in my power to avoid doing it, and when you’re your own boss, that gets to be a problem.

Ah…

Well, I feel better having gotten that out. Now, on to the next post and the day’s writing.

Word count post for Nov. 14, 2016

Lynn

224 words.

So disappointing, considering my goal yesterday.

Daily average since 9/19: 952 words.

I spent last night figuring out just what I would need to do to finish the book I’m working on in the time I have left, realized it was a fool’s dream considering my actual track record, and came up with a new plan, something that still pushes me to do better than I have before, but something that’s not so far outside the realm of possibility.

So I have a new plan for this book. One I feel pretty good about it. I’ll detail it in a post of it’s own, because this is a word count post, not a goal post. ;)

I want to write 6,000 words today

Lynn

I want to write 6,000 words today*, so I’ve made a plan. Actually, I made the plan yesterday. I’m just going to keep trying this until I do it, because I’m ready. I write fast enough: ~550–650 words an hour. I have enough hours in the day, and I have the desire.

What I possibly don’t have is the focus and concentration I need, but that comes and goes and I can’t let that stop me from trying. :)

I’m starting late, but I’m just going to try to write faster and stick to the version of the plan I spelled out yesterday, with 1 hour between sessions. All my record days of > 5,000 words happened in less than 8 hours of writing, one in only 6 hours.

The plan and results:

10:00–11:30 – Made it 12 minutes in, but constant interruptions made it a nonstarter. I reset the timer and started again for the next session (at 12:11). I had made a few edits, but only netted 5 words during those 12 minutes anyway. No joke. Also, I rethought my plan and made some adjustments.
1:00–2:30 – 103 words (1.25 hours) – I spend most of this time making some changes instead of writing.
3:30–5:00 – Skipped.

***Okay, I’m going to have to reevaluate this day’s goal. At this point, I just need to get started.***

5:30–7:00
7:30–9:00
9:30–11:00

*I should specify: on one book!

****Well, I just have no idea why I haven’t wanted to write today, but I’ve totally let myself get away with it, and I’m pretty unhappy with myself right now.****

I think, maybe, possibly, I’m going to have to commit to moving this deadline. It’s starting to mess with my head.

Word count post for Nov. 13, 2016

Lynn

3,113 words.

Daily average since 9/19: 965 words.

I’m 57,002 words down from 9/19 and a 2,000 word average. That sounds pretty bad, but doing the numbers made me realize I can recover from this in less than 90 days with just an additional 635 words a day. So although I’m not making the catch up for words a priority, it is nice to know it’s not some insurmountable goal. And it’s reachable with no change in plan at all, because my plan is to have more average and moderate word days than not and monitor my average to see how well I’m doing. As long as I don’t reset my start date (9/19, which I’m not planning to do), a 2,000 word average will mean I’ve recovered.