Year: 2017

I am not going to finish those paperbacks today

Lynn

Dang it. I’m not going to finish those paperbacks today. I got caught up with tweaking the look of the interior and spent too much time on the cover of one of them today (perfectionism is a trap), and here it is just about bedtime for me (oh, my tired eyes!) and I’ve submitted the files for only one paperback today.

So 2 down and 5 to go. Except I’ve realized that I still need to correct a book I found an error in a few weeks ago, so that means 6 to go. But that one doesn’t need a cover, just a few changes to the interior.

I’m very close to finishing a second tonight, and I think I’ll try to get it submitted before I call it a night. The other paperbacks are just going to have to wait. I want to do some writing tomorrow before I come back to them, maybe in the later afternoon. We’ll see.

I definitely want to wrap these up ASAP, because they’re one of the few things left that I need to do sooner rather than later, and when I’m done with them, I can truly focus for a while on just writing my books.

I’m going to finish those paperbacks today

Lynn

I’m going to finish those paperbacks today. All of them.

I’m not going to batch process them the way I’d planned either. I’m just going to start one and work it all the way to the end. Format the book, then make the wraparound cover.

Since I’m not worrying about creating the perfect paperback style set in Word, things are going much more smoothly now, and faster. I swear, that perfectionism bug is hard to get over. I’m going to quit looking for the perfect system (in anything I do) and just concentrate on finding one that works, something that makes my work easier, even if it’s not the easiest it could possibly be, because setting things up to be the easiest it can be is fraught with trouble. One little thing breaks and I’m right back where I started (example: the paperback style set for yesterday’s book).

What happened, you ask?Ah. Let me tell you. :)

Since I use a slightly different paperback interior look for every series, I had to create a generic set of styles and then modify the set for each series. So I ended up with six sets. It was a lot of work. And I’m not sure I finished it, because as I said yesterday, when I went to use the style sheet for the paperback I was creating, the set for that particular series didn’t work right. My copyright page styles were all messed up, my paragraphs indenting where they weren’t supposed to, things like that.

I’ve decided it just isn’t worth the trouble to maintain these style sheets. My ebook style set works great and I’ll just modify those styles on a per book basis going forward. It’s just easier that way. Sure I do a bit more hands on adjustments, but sometimes easier doesn’t turn out to be faster when you look at the entire picture.

So I’m moving on. I’ve got a system now that is working and I’m just going to keep doing it this way for the foreseeable future.

Paperbacks are taking longer than I had hoped

Lynn

I finished one paperback today.

Meaning I have 6 to go.

:o

Here’s what went wrong. My paperback style set didn’t work. I’m not sure if I didn’t finish it, or what, but when I applied it to the document, only a few basic styles changed and the rest just kind of … broke. I don’t really know of a better way to explain it.

So instead of getting frustrated and trying to create a new style set (which was my first inclination), I just made manual adjustments to the styles, got everything the way I wanted it, and then saved over the old style set with the new ones.

It’ll either work or it won’t, but I got one paperback done today and that’s all I care about.

While I was doing all that, I used OneNote to create step-by-step list of what I need to do to make sure I don’t forget anything during the formatting.

Now, I’m calling it a night. I got up way to early again today and I’m too tired to stay up. :)

Nope, one more day

Lynn

I got up too early this morning and I don’t want to write. I want to finish the project I sort of started yesterday but bailed on because it felt too damn tedious to continue. :D

Today I’m feeling much more up to finishing it, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Paperbacks, here I come.

I had planned to reduce the font size on my future paperbacks to 11.5 pt to make them less expensive, but I’m just not feeling it. I really think I’ll stick with the 12 pt. I like the 12 pt and I can’t imagine a reduced price of $1 is enough to make that much of a difference in sales.

I’d have to make some drastic adjustments to margins, leading, and font size to reduce the price more than that, or move to the larger 5.5 x 8.5 trim size, and I don’t like those ideas at all. In fact, I considered it a while back and decided I just didn’t want to change trim size. My pen name book has a 5.5 x 8.5 paperback that’s priced $3 less than my average for the books under my main pen name, and sales of it haven’t been notable at all.

The thing is, the paperbacks are a different market, but POD doesn’t compete well in that market anyway. So they’re mostly for people who like the books and want paper copies. Agonizing over formatting to get the lowest price at the sacrifice of what I want my books to look like just doesn’t feel like a good use of my time. :)

So I’m moving on, using the fonts, margins, leading, and trim sizes I like best, and not worrying about the price. Heck, half the time, Amazon reduces the price anyway. :D

One more day

Lynn

I’m delaying the resumption of my challenge one more day in favor of catching up some stuff I’ve been putting off for months. 

It’ll feel good to get that stuff off my back. 

Plus, I have two stories to choose from for my next project and I just haven’t decided which one to do. One’s a short story and one is a novel. I’d thought about going right to the novel, but decided to do the short story first as a break, but now I really don’t want to do either. After I catch up some stuff today, I’m going to read what I’ve written for both stories already and hope it helps me decide. If that doesn’t work I’ll give myself permission to work on multiple stories until something clicks with one. :D That should do it.

Eh. Scratch that last post

Lynn

I said last night I’d begin the challenge to reach 6000 words in a day again today, but I’ve decided to hold off one more day. I need to get rid of this headache I’ve got, so I think I’m just going to fiddle around with those paperbacks I never finished up. I’ll probably try to write something today at some point, but maybe later, and probably not much.

So, tomorrow, then. See you around. :)

Tomorrow I resume the challenge to reach 6000 words in a day

Lynn

Today I haven’t written any fiction. I have a daily writing streak I could keep alive by writing something now, but I don’t think I’m going to. I might, when I finish writing this post, go write a little something, but I might not. I’m tired and I’m not really seeing the need.

Tomorrow I resume the challenge to write 6000 words in a day. I was SO close a few days ago but I just couldn’t get those last 200 words. I’ve been staying up too late and when you’re falling asleep at the computer, it’s time to put the computer up. ;)

I’m just about there now.

There’s a caveat to the resumption of the challenge for tomorrow though. I have to start working my way back into good sleep habits. I’m paying for the lack of them in so many ways. Increased appetite, cravings for sweets, tired eyes, that kind of thing.

Anyway, the point is that I’m still very interested in reaching 6000 words in a day but I also want to not have to work so hard at it. :D

First thing: I need to make sure I’m in a place in my head where I can write freely. I just can’t do this without a better pace. 10 hours and 33 minutes is how long it took me to write the 5,816 words that broke my previous record of 5,758 words in a day. That’s just too much time.

I don’t want to have another 10 hour day anytime in the near future. Seriously, it was rough and I felt very much like all I did was get up Sunday, start writing, and write all day long until I gave up at about 10:30 that night. I know I had times when I was away from the computer, because I only clocked 10 hours and 33 minutes, but I sure can’t remember any of them. It was write, write, write, all day.

Anyway, enough of this ramble. The TL;DR for this is I’m still chasing 6000 words a day, but I’m setting some limits. :)

Goodnight!

Would you believe I’ve written almost 5000 words today?

Lynn

Believe it, because it’s true. I’ve written almost 5000 words today, on the first day that I’ve taken a break from my 6000-words-in-a-day challenge since I started it twelve days ago.

Oh, the irony.

ETA: Scratch that. I have written 5000 words today. 5,100 to be exact.

ETA2: And I came in at 5,816 words for the day which is a new record for me. I also created a personal record for time spent writing: 10 hours and 33 minutes.

Two-thirds of 6000 is 4000 (challenge update)

Lynn

I made it past 4000 words again. But I am done. More than nine hours of writing went into those words and I’m finally just pooped. I need to get on a better pace for this to happen. I’m taking a day off the challenge tomorrow and the next day, then I will try again.

I am still planning to write every day though so don’t go thinking I’ve given that up already. :p

Two-thirds of 6,000 is still not 6,000, especially when you have to delete (challenge update)

Lynn

Well, I’d made it less than two digits away from 4,000 words when it came time to delete some more random pieces of writing at the end of my document. I’m now back down to 3,575 words, after a possible record breaking 8 hours and 39 minutes of writing.

It’s possible I’ve spent that much time in a day writing before, but without records I can’t know for sure. I find it difficult to exceed 50% efficiency when it comes to actual writing time versus time in general and since a full day is 16 hours, more than 8 hours of writing time is actually pretty damn fantastic.

And I have definitely been writing all day, with Gleeo to prove it.

I lose little bits of time here and there to breaks and interruptions. Mostly because I actually can’t sit still for too long before I go stir crazy, and all those five, ten, and twenty minute breaks really add up.

I am not a person who can sit and start typing and look up three hours later and realize it’s been, hey, three hours since I moved.

Frankly, I don’t actually envy the people who can. Too damaging to a person’s health. I’ve managed to get through life writing without suffering any writing or typing related injuries at all. No back troubles, no finger pains, and no butt sores. Life is good. :D

Now, back to work for me. I’m not ready to give up on this today, even though reason tells me I should. :D

Challenge day eleven (some books do not write themselves)

Lynn

This has been a difficult book to write. I’m not sure why. At the moment my brain is trying to resolve a plotting issue that’s driving me crazy.

Time to get up and get started. If things continue as they have I need a good 14 hours of writing to reach 6000 words today.

Yeah. Hahahaha.

Let’s just try for 7.5 hours again but 800 words per hour this time, why don’t we?

Halfway there (challenge update)

Lynn

Before I crashed last night I made it past the halfway point, to just over 3000 words. It took over 7.5 hours of writing to do it. Or, you know, all freaking day in my time. :)

Not sure what the deal is but my pace on this book has been insanely slow.

Still, halfway there is an improvement!

(Seriously, considering how long it took to get 7.5 hours of writing done, I don’t even know if it’s possible for me to reach 10 hours of writing in a day. And if I did, at my current pace, I’d still be 2000 words short!)

Challenge day ten (double digits!)

Lynn

I’ve been writing today, a lot, except it doesn’t really feel that way, because of the afternoon hour and my word count for the day.

I really shouldn’t have gotten up so late.

Task

Start-Date

Start-Time

End-Date

End-Time

Duration

Decimal Duration

Writing

2/10/17

0:00

2/10/17

0:01

0:01

0.016667

Writing

2/10/17

10:00

2/10/17

11:25

1:25

1.416667

Writing

2/10/17

11:30

2/10/17

11:57

0:27

0.45

Writing

2/10/17

11:59

2/10/17

12:20

0:21

0.35

Writing

2/10/17

13:32

2/10/17

14:14

0:42

0.7

Totals

2:56

2.933333

My word count is 1,230.

Meaning my pace is off and it’s going to take a lot of hours today to reach 6,000 words.

I’d better get back to it quick then.

Challenge day nine (yes, I’m still trying)

Lynn

I got up ready to get started writing, but of course I was still having issues with the thing that stopped me last night. It took me hours to get past it this morning.

HOURS.

But I did. Finally.

It’s 7:10 pm and I’ve written 1,093 words today.

Here are my Gleeo time tracker entries. (Super easy to export from my phone to .csv and Dropbox so I can access the file quickly here on the computer, delete a few excess columns, and copy/paste it here.)

Task

Start-Date

Start-Time

End-Date

End-Time

Duration

Decimal Duration

Writing

2/9/17

11:45

2/9/17

12:26

0:41

0.683333

Writing

2/9/17

13:18

2/9/17

13:46

0:28

0.466667

Writing

2/9/17

17:29

2/9/17

18:15

0:46

0.766667

Writing

2/9/17

18:20

2/9/17

18:56

0:36

0.6

Total

2:31

2.516667

Not great, as you can see, but I’ve done worse.

Anyway, the day’s not over and I don’t have to get up early tomorrow, so I’m going to keep going for as long as I can tonight. :D

And as for the thing, well, I can say honestly that I am finally over it and the writing is going pretty well all things considered.

I’m not going to have to scrap the 4000+ words of material I was afraid I’d have to scrap if the pieces of the story didn’t join up where I’d gone back and taken things in a bit of a different direction. I just need to make a few changes to account for that change of direction for the parts that happen afterward that I had already written, and I think it’ll be okay. It’s shouldn’t require much adjustment, just a timing issue mostly.

If not, there’s always the delete key. I refuse to get bogged down at this late date in the story. ;)

Bang your head (challenge update)

Lynn

After a strong(ish) start this morning, the day has fizzled. Dentist visit went well, and I got home and decided to make an early supper so I could have a longer evening of writing, but that didn’t work out. Writing has turned out to be difficult because of a message I received just as I was finishing supper. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to obsess and sure enough I started obsessing. I haven’t been able to let go of the thoughts that message set into motion and that’s killed my ability to concentrate.

I took some time out to talk with one of my kids and watch Border Security on Netflix, because it’s wild and weird and I like it. But within moments of returning to the computer, the obsessive thoughts started again.

Googling (or Binging, is that a word?) “how to stop obsessive thoughts” didn’t turn out to be the answer, surprisingly.

All I can say is that this tendency is why I try never to read reviews, because this is exactly how I’ve felt afterward, obsessing over stuff that just does not matter.

So, I don’t know if this was the right thing to do, but I deleted some email addresses off my mobile devices, because that’s where I saw the message. Of course, I went ahead and deleted all related addresses from my devices (I have quite a few addresses) because it made sense in context. If my devices hadn’t been set up to check those addresses (pretty needlessly, I might add), I wouldn’t have seen the message at that time because WiFi was off on my computer. Then I wouldn’t have become distracted from writing by the obsessive thoughts. Maybe I would have turned on WiFi and checked my email client later, before I was finished writing, but at least I would have had the chance to restart and recover my momentum from this morning before I was derailed.

I feel lighter after doing that, although I admit it was an impulsive decision. Maybe having access to everything all the time just isn’t for me. Compartmentalization of the various parts of my life might be more my style.

Challenge day eight (seriously!)

Lynn

This could take all month! Yesterday, unfortunately, I really underestimated how long the taxes thing would take. I left at 11 am and returned at 4:30 pm. By the time I ate an early supper, it was 5:30 and I was so brain tired I had a difficult time even thinking about getting started again.

I came not even close to 6,000 words yesterday.

Today I am at it again. It’s 10:23 am, I’m about to go make my hot honey lemon water for a boost, and I’ve already spent 1 hour and 20 minutes writing.

Sadly, that’s added up to a very paltry 107 words! I am so off my pace I can’t even understand what’s going on. Last night, I had a 52 minute stretch where I averaged less than one word per minute when all was said and done. I know I wrote more than that, but it was write, delete, write, delete, write, delete until all I’d done was increase my word count by 50 words.

I just cannot figure out why my pace is so bad on this book. I’m dealing with SO MUCH hesitation with everything I write for it that I’m spending TONS of time editing/cycling through/rewriting as I go. I just can’t get a handle on it.

I have a dentist appointment today that’s really going to mess up my day, but I’m going to do my best to finish out the day with 7 more hours at 842 words per hour.

For that to happen, something’s really going to have to break loose soon, but I am ever hopeful.

Challenge day seven (today’s going to be the day)

Lynn

I failed on many levels yesterday. I have a headache this morning so maybe I’m getting sick, but I didn’t have one yesterday so it’s not a good excuse for yesterday’s failures. 

As for the headache, the sun is rising earlier, daybreak is already here at six in the morning and I’m waking with the sun again. Staying up, even until eleven thirty to midnight is obviously not working for me now that the morning light is getting stronger. I just can’t thrive on six hours of sleep anymore. Haven’t been able to do it in quite a few years, tbh. Tonight I will call it a night around nine thirty and try to be asleep by ten thirty. Just going to have to make myself do it.

Today I go help someone with taxes but I’m still going for 6000 words today because I think I can do it. 

Yesterday was a fluke, not a sign. I am going to break through to 6000 words and I’m not going to stop until I do. And then I’m going to do it again. (But maybe not too soon.)

I’m going for breakfast, and then it’s writing that I shall do.

Toodles peeps. :D

No update (challenge update)

Lynn

Basically, this isn’t an update.

Well, technically, it is an update, but it’s an update to say I don’t have anything to update. Despite my plans for the day, it’s 8:06 pm and I’ve written about a nib’s worth of words. I guess it’s gonna be a long night, because I’m not going to bed until I’ve at least kept my >1,000 words streak alive.

I can say with certainty that today will not be a 6000 word day.