Author: Lynn

I’m warming up

Lynn

It’s later than I’d like. Shortly after 8 am. I did get up early at 6:30 am, but somehow after breakfast and … whatever, it’s now over an hour and a half later. I’m taking the last few bites of my apple and then I’m going to start my 5 hour block and my 4 hour timer. Hopefully my breaks won’t use up the entire extra hour and I’ll finish closer to noon than 1 pm.

Won’t know til I try. :)

My goal’s a stretch but I’d rather have a stretch goal than settle. I have a tendency to pull up short no matter what my goals/expectations are. At least if the goal’s bigger and I pull up short, I still get closer to where I want to be. ;)

Goal: 4 hours, 3000 words, 750 wph
Actual: 1.23 hours, 810 words, 657 wph*

*At which point I switched how I was going forward with this, which I wrote a post about. :D

 

I haven’t gotten back to the story yet

Lynn

It’s 7:31 and I still have 1:59:37.9 left on my timer. After lunch I sat down with my computer and returned to my document (admittedly it was a longish lunch break since I finished 3 episodes of Castle, finally bringing me up to date with the series). I then promptly opened my web browser because… yeah, I’m still not sure about that. I just know that to reach and maintain a 2,000 word a day average, I actually have to write 2,000 words a day more or less, but I don’t want to finish my time tonight!

So, tomorrow’s game plan. Get started early, when I have plenty of energy, and do whatever it takes to finish my words in the 5 hour block.

Because I can already tell you now, I’m not going to finish this time tonight. I’m too close to just calling it a night and going to sleep. I don’t usually get so tired so early in the evening, even though I’m much more a morning person than a night owl these days, but tonight I’m just … exhausted. A lot of people I know are sick with a nasty cold that’s going around and I’ve been in contact with every last one of them in the last week. I’m seriously hoping I’m not fighting off the same thing. I’ve had sinus issues for weeks it feels like, but I’ve managed so far to avoid the overt symptoms of a cold and I’m hoping to keep it that way.

Anyway, extra sleep helps… Or at least it has since I started making myself get some every time I thought I might be coming down with something. ;) I started this back when I was completing that book I got done in August. The final weekend, I thought I was getting sick and I forced myself to stop early each night and go to bed instead of pushing through like I would have usually done (typically I’m one of those people who binge works when a deadline is looming).

Strangely enough, it’s been a bit of a miracle cure. Extra sleep and I feel better and people around me continue to get sick and I manage to avoid anything worse than just feeling a bit under the weather. There’s a trick to this though and that’s to not depend on sleeping in to catch the extra sleep. I wake up with the sun, generally speaking, and after that, I sleep in fits and starts until I can’t stay in bed any longer. To get extra restful sleep, I have to go to bed early. That’s the trick. It works. :D

Fingers crossed. And if I didn’t need the sleep, I might be up super early tomorrow and be done writing 3,000 words by noon! Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Oh, and by the way, that January novella that I finally got back to? just passed 40,000 words. Yep, it’s a novel now.

Conundrum

Lynn

Conundrum. Give up on the experiment or keep trying?

My experiment hasn’t had one successful moment yet. I see the beauty of the possible results, but so far, those results are as elusive as the perfect lipstick color.

Some days I cannot believe some of the stuff I write. This is one of those days. I keep reading this sentence in my current work in progress and laughing and I can’t decide if I’m laughing because it’s funny or because it’s so outrageous that I have no choice but to laugh or I’ll freak out about how stupid it is.

In light of my results so far, I’ve tweaked my experiment.

I set my timer for a full 4 hours. (Revised down from the 4.5 hours I would have been writing if you added up the six 45 minute sessions.) I also stuck with setting aside the same 5 hours as before.

If I don’t finish my timed session in the 5 hour block, I’ll schedule an extra block of time to finish later, but still as one single block (to keep the number of breaks down, since that’s kind of the whole point).

At the moment, I’m sitting at 1:59:37.9 left on the timer for today, with 1,155 words completed. Meaning my pace is approximately 578 wph.

I’m not going to finish my 4 hours of writing in my 5 hour block today. It was supposed to go from 9 am to 2 pm (and here I am writing this at 1:08 but I absolutely could not maintain my concentration for another moment) and as I said above, I have almost 2 hours left on my timer. I’ll be getting back to it in just a minute or two but this says I used up my 1 hour of built in time for breaks and then somehow also managed to use another hour. I have no idea how; I haven’t done anything time consuming except drink too much tea.

I admit I’ve had to pee a ridiculous number of times this morning, but that’s not that unusual. I have a bit of a bladder condition that makes this a regular thing. What makes this tough for me is how easily I’m distracted once I’m away from the computer.

I should resolve to drink less tea in the morning, but since I have a rule not to drink tea after 2 pm (or at least not my green tea because it does have a minor amount of caffeine in it), I hate to skip it. I like my green tea. Still, I think I’m going to have to cut back. I gave up coffee completely about a month ago and made the 2 pm tea rule. My sleep’s been better so I’m not going back on that rule because it’s clearly working.

I just wish I found it as easy to employ my willpower with my writing as I do with these other things.

I quit snacking between meals in late May 2014. I haven’t eaten anything outside of meal time since.

You’d think willpower like that would be easily adapted to work for other things, but nope. I can give up coffee. I can give up snacking. I can give up tea after 2. I can’t make myself write when I don’t want to or stick to a writing schedule to save my life.

Sigh.

Stats for Dec 21–27, 2014

Lynn

Sun, 12/21/14
Wrote 161 words

Mon, 12/22/14
Wrote 0 words

Tue, 12/23/14
Wrote 0 words

Wed, 12/24/14
Wrote 0 words

Thu, 12/25/14
Wrote 0 words

Fri, 12/26/14
Wrote 0 words

Sat, 12/27/14
Wrote 230 words
In 2.83 hours
Averaged 81 words per hour*

*Should I qualify this with an explanation? I only record a count for total new words on my spreadsheet, so if I write a lot of words but delete almost just as many, even if from parts I wrote days past, this is what happens.

Yeah. This week sucked. But it was a holiday so I’m going to let it pass without further comment.

Still, this needs to improve. I’m not going to make it to the next level of my career if I don’t stop the self-sabotage.

It’s tomorrow!

Lynn

Today I begin my schedule. Breakfast is over and I’ve sat down to write. I’ll be aiming for six 45 minute sessions, and I hope to reach about 500 words for each one. So yeah, I would like to start this with a 3,000 word day. I’ll be happy to fail to 2,000 though if that’s all I manage. :D

Last night, I read some interesting articles about ideal room temperature for productivity (yeah, I don’t know why, but hey, anything that helps, right?) and have decided to raise my room temperature by 2 degrees F. I tried it last night and to be honest, I couldn’t tell the room was any warmer so I don’t know if it’s going to be worth the extra energy usage, but I’m willing to give it a few days trial run same as I’m willing to try out the schedule. One thing I know is that as soon as my fingers get cold, my ability to focus takes a major hit.

Now, on to my writing before time gets away from me and it goes from 9:34 to 10 and I have nothing to show for it. :)

This spot reserved for actual results… See ya in 5 hours or so! ;)

And later—

Minutes Goal Actual
45 500 86  (414)
45 500 105  (809)
45 500 127  (1,182)

As you can see, that table isn’t complete. I had to stop about 3.5 hours into the block (which was about an hour more than it should have been for only 3 of my sessions to be complete). I started an hour late (messing around on the internet when I was absolutely not supposed to—tonight I’ll be shutting off the WIFI on my computer before I turn it off and won’t be turning it back on until time’s up).

Because I started an hour late and because my breaks ran long, I started getting really hungry and so I decided to finish the second half of my sessions after I have lunch. Tomorrow, I hope this won’t happen.

Also, I spent all of the 3 sessions I’ve already done reworking the last scene I wrote. I didn’t like it, and it didn’t feel true to the characters (or maybe I just wanted it to go somewhere else and I had to find what would send the characters that way while being true to themselves). ;) Either way… I’m just about done with that and maybe, hopefully, please God, I’ll be moving along quite a bit faster when I get back to it after lunch.

I really think this would have worked today if I’d gotten started when I was supposed to. But hunger drove away my will to continue! :D Meaning I better make sure I get started when I’m supposed to tomorrow if I don’t want a repeat of today.

And later still…

There’s a reason I wanted to start lumping my time together. That reason was in play here. :D Tomorrow is a new day. And I did end up working another 15 minutes, but I had a negative word count because I deleted some stuff. Still, I left off with the story waiting on me to write all new words tomorrow.

So, it definitely could have been a worse day.

Tomorrow I begin a schedule

Lynn

I know I said I was done with schedules. I was wrong. I feel a burning desire to give this another try as I start into the new year so instead of fighting the urge, I gave in.

I have a reason for this. I’ve decided that since I have so much trouble with not getting distracted once I start taking breaks that I should try lumping my writing into one big block of time. For that to work, I pretty much have to have a schedule. Without one, I don’t see any way to create that big block of time.

So starting tomorrow, I’m going to give this a test run.

As soon as I finish breakfast, I’m going to sit down and start writing in 45 minute blocks and write straight through for 5 hours (the breaks at 45 minutes are simply to make sure I get up and stretch my legs, nothing more). That should give me six 45 minute blocks and about 30 minutes for breaks. If I take short breaks the way I plan, I’ll be finished writing by lunch and if I don’t… I’ll probably put off lunch until I get that last session done.

My goal for each of these 45 minute sessions is 500 words. That’s a bit faster than my average pace, but just enough to stretch me a bit. And despite the math that says I could reach 3,000 words a day with this schedule, my goal is still to average 2,000 a day, which means I’m building in some extra words so slow days won’t be as likely to throw me off my average or demoralize me.

Demoralizing is bad. Extra words are good. :)

I’m not a holiday writer

Lynn

I had planned (hoped, really) to be able to just write right through the holidays, but … no, that’s not exactly working out. I can’t seem to concentrate, even though I have the time to write, and therefore I’m not getting much (anything, really) written.

The schedule crashed and burned almost immediately, and when I think of the writing I want to do, I just get really unhappy with myself and the holiday and I don’t want that. :) It’s a time of joy! of happiness! of Christmas wreaths and candy canes! There’s no room there for annoyance, unhappiness, and irritation.

So, I’m just going to let it go. I do wish I was the kind of person who could compartmentalize these things and still do the mind work necessary to write fiction no matter what else is going on in my life, but that’s just not me.

I’ve planned to get back to it on the 25th since the kids won’t be home this year, and I don’t really have any other plans and writing seems like a lot more fun than visiting people. :D

Maybe I’ll write enough on Christmas day to make up for the days before, but if not, I’ll be happy to restart my 2,000 a day goal before the new year.

My plan there is pretty simple: get a 2,000 a day average going on the 25th and keep it going.

I’ll just hope I slip in a bit of extra writing between now and then too. That’d be a nice holiday gift to myself.

How’s your holiday writing going?

Stats for Dec 14–20, 2014

Lynn

Sunday, December 14, 2014
Wrote 0 words

Monday, December 15, 2014
Wrote 1,207 words
In 4.50 hours
Averaged 268 words per hour

Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Wrote 2,745 words
In 5.07 hours
Averaged 542 words per hour

Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Wrote 1,232 words
In 3.25 hours
Averaged 379 words per hour

Thursday, December 18, 2014
Wrote 0 words

Friday, December 19, 2014
Wrote 0 words

Saturday, December 20, 2014
Wrote 151 words
In 0.75 hours
Averaged 201 words per hour

Well, I didn’t succeed in improving my weekly word count from last week. That’s a bummer. Also, I’m aiming for a 2,000 word a day average by the time the new year rolls around. I don’t have a lot of time left to get on top of that. :)

Routine Troubles ;)

Lynn

It’s official. School is out for the winter break and my routine (the one I’d just started to really get into) is now in tatters. I’m going to make an effort to get back on track tomorrow, but today is already a total wash, as has been the last several days.

Although I feel resistant, I’m going to try to just push through the next few days using a schedule, because if I don’t, I don’t believe I’ll get anything done—and as usual the holiday will rush up on me and I won’t even be able to enjoy that.

That said, I’m off to make this (very) (temporary) schedule (that I am doing only in a desperate attempt to be able to enjoy my holidays and still get some writing done, because I need to) and then try to recover some of this day. :)

My Current Writing Routine

Lynn

I’m currently writing in 1.5 hour blocks. The plan is 3 a day, starting at 7, 9, and 11. In actuality, that’s not what’s happening. I started today’s at 9, and I’ll be starting the next two at 11 and 2.

I’m more concerned with word counts than time, but I’m using this to help me gauge where I should be as the morning (or day) progresses. So far, my word counts per hour are worse than ever, but I’m not going to jump to conclusions since I’m working on that novella and my speed could very well be because of the project I’m working on.

At least the novella is moving along. It’s more like a short novel at this point, at a hair under 35,000 words and no end in sight. I’d say it’ll reach novel status before it’s over. Ah well. Can’t win them all. :)

But it’s time to get back to work now, so see ya!

The Stats Posts

Lynn

I kind of like the stats posts, but I think I might make them weekly. I’ll just keep a running draft until the end of the week and then post all 7 days at once. That’ll keep the blog from becoming overrun with them. :)

What’s the Purpose of This Blog?

Lynn

I’m not that sure most days. I do think I’m done with the blogging about my word counts and progress and the like, because I sometimes enjoy it but mostly I’m positive it’s boring to read. I can journal my writing day in private and be a lot more forthcoming about things that I’m struggling with or that I need to work out.

It’s just … I don’t see a lot of point to this blog. It doesn’t really help me write more fiction and it doesn’t always make me feel good or optimistic about my goals.

But if I stop writing about my word counts and the like, I doubt I’ll write about much of anything on this blog, and it will have no purpose at all.

So I guess that’s my answer. There is no purpose for this blog.

Update (7 days later, after coming to the realization that sometimes things don’t have to have a purpose other people understand)—

This is a purpose for this blog … whatever purpose I want it to have.

That Novella Is an Albatross Around My Neck

Lynn

I’m making progress today! How exciting. :) I had to (again) abandon the novella for the moment to do it, and it’s making me really wonder if that novella’s just not meant to be.

I made up a simple table to keep up with today’s writing. I wrote in 45 minute blocks this morning, and I figure this afternoon, I’ll do the same except for the last one which will probably be 30 minutes. I started a bit late this morning at 7:35, so I’m not surprised I came up short. I’m going to try not to do the same with the other sessions, and I’m hoping I’ll make up some time.

Goal Actual Minutes WPH
7 to 10 1,875 1,183 135 525.7778 (692)
2 to 4 1,250 492 90 328 (758)
8 to 9 625

I created my goals based on 625 WPH because of how many words I wanted to write today and how much time I scheduled to write them in, figuring a bit of a stretch from my current 531 average would be good for me.

I’ll update when I finish my next session. :)

Update (4:24 p.m.)—

Unfortunately I lost 30 minutes in my afternoon session (not sure how exactly because I can only account for about ten to fifteen of those minutes.) And I was writing really, really slowly. It’s mostly a case of just not knowing what’s happening and having to build it. I think I’ve said before that I often have to piece my stuff together.

I write linearly, but only in one sense, because I very much don’t write linearly on the paragraph/within-each-scene level. I write one scene at a time and move on to the next scene when I’m done, but putting the scene together is a strange piecemeal process that I really never noticed until recently. For some reason, I had never really noticed how much I jumped around within my sentences and paragraphs until one day I just… noticed. I write a lot of fragments that have to be filled in, because when something pops into my head, I move on even when I’m in the middle of something, then have to go back and complete the thought.

Also, I’m going to track this for a while, because I find it interesting that I did so much worse this afternoon than this morning. My speed took a nose dive and it had barely started to recover before I ran out of time.

Anyway, hoping to make up a few words this evening.

Writing Without a Plan Today

Lynn

I’m writing without a plan today. Well, mostly, because saying I’m writing without a plan is sort of a plan in itself. :D

My only goal is to enjoy a leisurely day of writing, to have fun with it and see where my stories take me. I’ll be using the timer when I write, because I’m still tracking my WPH for … whatever reason. I like it. I’ve deleted it from my spreadsheet several times, but each time, I ended up pulling the data off my backups and adding it back. This time it’s here to stay. I’m not deleting it again.

Anyway, I’m going to start writing here in a few minutes, probably after I finish my Lipton Orange Jasmine tea, and—

Okay, it’s now about an hour later, and I can tell you how that went… I looked up the actual title of the tea I drink (Lipton Orange Passionfruit Jasmine Green Tea), then decided I wanted to see the nutrition info and found out a cup has 35mg of caffeine in it. (My other favorite flavors have 22mg and 20mg so I might drink more of them going forward and less of the orange jasmine.) That led me to look up info on caffeine so I would know if 35mg was a lot or a little and that led me to click the bookmark for my pen name’s author site, which I then decided to update with a post about my upcoming book, which I then decided to also write something about the book I’m thinking about writing and I decided to post an excerpt for it for a show of interest…

And now I’m back. I actually caught this diversion of attention a little early! So, yay me! I did lose some time, but … getting that update on my author site isn’t really a waste of time so much as it was bad timing. I could’ve done that when I was tired and uninterested in writing.

But what’s done is done, so moving on!

I just clicked the “Strict Workflow” button on Chrome (which blocks a lot of tempting sites I added to the block list), and now I’m going to finish this post, get a new cup of tea, and start writing.

I discovered an interesting thing when I was updating my author site. I have no objectivity with my writing. When I wrote those pages, I thought they were awesome. A week or two later, I read back through them and though they were utterly stupid and that I would have to abandon the idea. Today, I read through them (it’s been about a month since I wrote them), and I loved them again.

:o

Now, off for tea and writing. :)

Update (4 days later)—

All I know is that I have a big fat zero on my daily word count log for this day.

Ouch.

What Am I Doing?

Lynn

I thought I was going to come home today, take a short nap, and then get started writing on one of my books. I haven’t, though, and I’m seriously thinking of reading a book instead. I spent about two hours at the library (online) and checked out eight books after deciding that I’m going to start reading more books every week. I had this moment where I thought maybe I just don’t read fiction enough these days and that’s why I’m not writing more. Now, of course, I’m wondering if this was just a super clever way for my brain to trick me into procrastinating because that’s always a possibility.

Why’d I go to the library instead of just read one of the many, many books I already have—books I’ve bought for ridiculous sums like the copy of Copper Beach I have that cost me $14.99 and which I still haven’t read 2 years later?

I do not know. Please don’t ask again.

Thanks. :D

It’s a Beautiful Day

Lynn

At 8:30 a.m. I’m going to start writing, aiming for my 1,667 word minimum, and then the rest of my life is going to interrupt me. Family tradition dictates that my evening will be busy—tomorrow is Thanksgiving after all.

Now, I want to spend a few more minutes perusing a book that has interested me and drinking my tea. I’ll be back when I have an update on my word count.

Update (sometime the next day…)—

I’m trying to remember what happened, but I can’t. I didn’t get started writing, because I read that book, or half of it anyway, then I started skimming because it went from interesting to blah to really? in less time than it took me to flip two pages. It was so full of filler and utter useless garbage that I almost gave it a 2 star review on Amazon, and the 2 stars would’ve been because the author gave me the book and I’d have felt bad giving it a 1 star. I stopped myself. (I try not to review books unless I have something good to say or the book is pricey, nonfiction, and doesn’t fulfill the promises it makes in the description—other readers need to know they’re not going to get what they’re thinking of paying for.) I need to remember that these time management/procrastination cure/this is the way to fix all your problems books are a gimmick. I don’t know why I fall for that every time, but I do. I am swearing off these kinds of books forever. I’ve learned my lesson this time! I have!

Okay, probably not, but maybe!

Then I did something else for about an hour and I don’t remember what that was. Then of course it was time for everything else I had to do and I got home sometime around 9 PM and no, I didn’t even attempt to make up the words I supposedly wanted to write yesterday morning.

New Day, New Routine

Lynn

Really it’s just an old routine, slightly modified. Write 1,667 words from 7 til 10 but keep going if I haven’t quite made it to my word count goal.

It’s almost winter, so getting up earlier is easier as long as I get to bed at a reasonable time and I started doing that two days ago. I woke up on my own at 6 a.m. this morning and I feel better than I did yesterday. I stopped the coffee again, because after two weeks of caffeine, I can say with certainty that it’s making no difference in how much I write: the first week on coffee again I wrote 10,251 words and the second week I wrote 21. Not a typo.

It’s 6:51 right now and I’m finishing breakfast quickly and making an effort to get back to a 7 a.m. start time. I usually have more energy first thing and then by 8 or 9 I’m sleepy again. If I’m already writing and into my stories, I can push that back. If I’m not, then I end up not writing until the afternoon usually, and then it becomes a struggle to get started at all. Such as with yesterday, when I wrote nothing but a blog post.

Today’s goals are simple. Finish 1,667 words before 10 a.m. if possible, definitely before lunch. Then write 1,333 words before bed. Also, work one hour on my paperback formatting. Now, it is 7 a.m. and it’s time to get to work.

Update (8:33 a.m.)—

I set up my timer with 3 hours on it. I’ve had to take 3 quick breaks so far (tea, phone, phone—school’s letting out early because of sewer problems, ack) so I’m sitting at 2 hours and 42 seconds left on my timer and that means I’m about half an hour behind. My word count at the half hour mark was a negative because I deleted some stuff, and now it’s at 57 words. But I feel like I’m gaining some momentum finally so maybe my next update will be a lot better. :)

Update (9:37 a.m.)—

I deleted more, meaning I ended up into negative numbers again, but now I’m almost caught back up. I don’t have anything else ahead of me that I can delete (there’s nothing but a blank page waiting for me!) so I’ll be moving forward from this point on. My timer’s sitting at 1 hour and 29 minutes but I forgot to restart it for almost half an hour after my 8:33 a.m. update so technically I’m not really behind this time other than the half hour I was already behind.) Still, since I was too busy deleting stuff instead of adding, I think I’m just going to go with the timer. No way I’m going to get caught up to 1,667 words in only one hour, but maybe, possibly, I can do it in the 1 hour and 29 minutes now that the sludge is cleared away and it’s all fresh writing ahead. We’ll see.

Update (10:59 a.m.)—

I’m down to 18 minutes on the timer and I’m up to 487 words. I’m also just about certain I just wrote a bunch of stuff that doesn’t need to be in this book but I think I’m just going to go with it for now. I’ve been working on that novella this morning and I’m just glad to be making progress. :) But now, I need another break before I finish those last 18 minutes. Be back soon.

Update (12:29 p.m.)—

I’m pleased with my progress. I didn’t make it anywhere close to 1,667 words but the novella’s story is moving along. I ended up with 3.75 hours and 591 words. And this is a great example of what I mean when I say I feel like I spend the entire morning working, focused and on task, and still end up with significantly less time writing than time spent.

I wrote from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. That’s 5.5 hours. And yet I wrote to a timer, logging 3 hours plus the time where I forgot to run the timer for about 30 minutes and then kept writing after the timer stopped for about 15 more. The difference between that 5.5 and 3.75 hours is 1 hour and 45 minutes of time lost to breaks that I can’t account for. My breaks felt significantly shorter than that, and sometimes I wonder if my ability to feel the passage of time is impaired.

Anyway, I’ll be back later today to work on those 1,333 words I’m hoping to get this afternoon (on the novel I started this month unless I have a great idea for the novella in the meantime).

Update (3:25 p.m.)—

This post has gotten very long and it’s about to get longer. I’m starting my afternoon session at 3:30 p.m. and the goal is to write 1,333 words before 6 p.m. if possible, but definitely before bedtime. Such as with this morning, I’m mostly going to stick to the 2.5 hours I have planned and hope that does it. If not I’ll try to go longer, but I don’t plan to go past 8:30 p.m. which is when I’m going to do that one hour of work on my paperback formatting.

Oh, and I watched an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which has shown up on Netflix. What a great show so far. I’m ready for episode #3 now. Quite a fun bunch of characters!

Time to get to it.

Update (5:07 p.m.)—

And I’ve had a few interruptions but nothing too time consuming. I’m at 1 hour and 25 minutes on the timer and 502 words, so I’ve been writing for just about an hour. I wish I weren’t behind at all, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes…

Update (6:29 p.m.)—

I’m not quite done. My timer is at 33 minutes left and that means I’m about an hour behind. I’ve had a lot of interruptions this last hour and a half, although an hour feels excessive when I try to recall them. The problem is that whether I can recall them or not, the time is the time and the timer doesn’t lie. At least not when I’ve remembered to start and stop it appropriately, which I’ve done. I’ve written for about 2 hours and I’m up to 815 words, with my total for the day coming in at 1,406.

I’m going to try to get to 1,667 for the day, since that’s the average I want to hit and hope that after a few days the writing will get easier so I can keep it up and maybe even make up some of the zero days since I started aiming at the 1,667 words a day average.

I just don’t understand why writing is so hard sometimes.

Update (9:37 p.m.)—

I just realized I’ve spent 3 hours watching YouTube videos. I’ve done this before, but rarely—like 5,000 words in a day rare. I have no idea why today had to be that day but I have just binge watched 3 hours of talent show clips. What. The. Hell. And now it’s past my bedtime and I haven’t even had supper yet. I cannot believe that was three hours. Seriously. Cannot believe it.

Wow. I guess I’m calling it a night at 1,406 words. I’m a little disappointed in myself but I can’t for the life of me figure out how I can stop this from happening again because I don’t know how it happened in the first place.(!!!!)

What Happened to My Momentum?

Lynn

I have no idea why last week fell apart.

I’m sitting here with the sun in my face, already ready to go back to sleep, wondering what happened to my momentum.

There are a couple of possibilities. One stands out more than the others.

And I just wrote multiple paragraphs addressing that particular possibility, but I don’t think dwelling on negativity is the way forward. So I deleted them. :D

Today is going to be better. That’s about all there is left to say.