Deadline looms; I must make myself write

I’ll be frank. I haven’t been writing. I’m not sure what happened, but I started reading books and I just couldn’t quit. I read a lot of books this last week. As of last night, I’m in the middle of reading 3 books. I’m somewhere around chapter 6 in a contemporary romance I started last night, and 66% done with a historical romance I started yesterday morning, and 4% into another I started at lunch yesterday.

I read about the same way I write—all over the place.

Today I decided I wasn’t going to read anymore of anything until I finish my own book, the one with the looming deadline that just keeps getting closer and closer and driving me to avoid it at all costs.

That’s a pretty hefty cost, too, by the way.

So today I must write. Yes, I must. Excuses won’t get me closer to done and they won’t stop the holidays from coming. I can’t write during the holidays, just can’t do it, so while I do still have time to write, and no headache from the caffeine withdrawal I’m facing, I must write.

My challenge for this unscheduled day

11 sessions of 36 minutes each.

No word count goal, although 500 wph minimum would be nice. I have a lot of other things to fit in today too, so I’m going to have to avoid too many distractions.

Get a paperback book formatted at some point today before I go to bed.

I’ll post later with results. :)

Caffeine helped but it’s time to quit again

I’m facing caffeine withdrawal again, but this time I’m trying to wean myself off caffeine instead of just eliminating it altogether. I can’t face the headaches with the holidays so near and my deadlines looming.

I’m drinking water in a cup, hoping it will satisfy the need to have a cup of something nearby. It seemed to work yesterday and is working okay this morning too.

I waited yesterday until I had a headache before I drank any coffee and I only had 6 ounces then. It took about 45 minutes for the headache to completely go away after that, but it did go away. It’s not that I plan to wait for the headache every day, but I did need to know at about what time to expect it. That would be at about 4 pm. So today, I’ll have a cup of my favorite green tea (considerably less caffeine than equal amounts of coffee) after lunch and see if it can hold off the headache. I will admit, it’s only 10 a.m. and I’m already feeling twinges over my right eye, but I’m going to wait and see if it’s a full blown headache forming earlier today, or if it’s just this sinus thing I’ve got going on.

I want to do this because I’ve been having some side effects from the caffeine that I’m ready to get away from for a while. Dry skin (so dry that it’s like I’ve developed a coating of powered sugar on my arms, LOL), possibly a stomach ulcer (something I’ve never had before, but maybe it’s something else, who knows?), jitters, and a bad habit of staying up really late but not really getting anything extra done to make up for it.

I don’t mind staying up late if I can look back and see that I’ve accomplished something during that time, but that’s not what happening. I’m planning to go to bed early, then puttering around doing much of nothing but reading stuff that’s a waste (like forums and blogs with info I’ve read a hundred or thousand times before).

I feel like I’ve been sick more often lately, too, but that might also be unrelated. Then again, sleep and dehydration probably play a roll in illness, so…

Anyway, that’s the plan. Here’s hoping I make it! The holidays are a tough time to quit anything, IMO, so I know I’m going to have to watch out for stumbles.

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

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.

I want to write 6,000 words today

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.

I’ve let myself get behind—by a lot

I have a deadline coming up, very much a “can’t miss this date” deadline. It’s making me anxious.

I mean, technically, I could miss it. The date is still listed as tentative, but in my head, I know it’s not a deadline I need to miss. I don’t want to miss it. The fact is, though, that it’s really getting beyond my current capabilities to reach unless I have some kind of breakthrough in my writing.

So here I go trying to force that breakthrough.

I’ve found a schedule I don’t remember having tried before, and I’m going to try it today.

It pushes my pace a little bit, but nothing out of reach (~667 wph needed to stay on track). Where I’ll have the most trouble is just focusing on start and end times for my sessions and actually doing them when I’m supposed to do them. Five minutes late getting started is no big deal, but my history shows that I tend to get behind early, start every session late, until it’s snowballed and I’ve eliminated massive swaths of writing time just by letting five minutes here and there become twenty.

Here’s the plan.

1.5 hour writing sessions where the goal is 1,000 words each session. (Yes, I’ve tried this part before.)
.5 hour breaks between sessions (This is where it’s different. The writing sessions are all evenly spaced all day long.)

Here’s where I’ll update results.

12:00–1:30 – 1,296 wordsWoo hoo! Things are off to a good start.
2:00–3:30 – 977 wordsOnly 1.23 hours, because I’ve fallen pretty far behind. I’ll have to skip the next session to get back on track. I’m hoping I can get ahead with some better word counts for the next couple of sessions. I had just enough time before 6 to finish it off before I started that one. :)
4:00–5:30 – Skipped to catch up
6:00–7:30 – 840 wordsI’ve fallen behind again. It’s 8:17 and I have half an hour on this one to go. I’m going to keep going with it at this point.
8:00–9:30 – Skipped, because I was still working on the previous session.
10:00–11:30 – Skipped because I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed early so I can start off strong tomorrow.

If I get behind, I’ll cut a session or break short and move on to the next session.

If this goes well, I’m going to try it again tomorrow, starting earlier and taking a full hour between sessions (if I want—it certainly won’t be mandatory). The only reason I’m not doing that today is that I’m starting so much later than I planned when I came up with this idea last night.

Now, gotta go. I’m already 15 minutes behind. Yeah, I know. Not kidding. :o

**This might seem like it hasn’t gone well, but considering how badly I fail at this and how often, I’m actually really pleased with what I accomplished using this schedule. I’m definitely going to try the slightly modified version tomorrow, with the hour between sessions and see how that goes. I don’t yet know if the longer breaks will help or hinder my ability to stay on track.

One more attempt to have a 6,000 word day

The plan: Write in one hour blocks until I reach 6,000 words!

It’s almost 11 am this morning, and I’m starting so late because I had a really late night. On the other hand, I happen to know that one of my rare 5,000+ word days happened on a day when I started writing after 11 am, so that doesn’t have to stop me from doing this. Also, family will be clearing out shortly and my quietest time today is going to be this afternoon and evening, so it seems like a great day to work on setting a record for myself.

Time to get started. :)

**Nope. Came up very short. 1,178 words. I just couldn’t get started until late, and then when I did, my pace was pathetic at < 300 words per hour.

Can I write 6,000 words today?

No? Yes? Maybe?

The plan: three blocks of writing time that last three hours each, during which I need to write 2,000 words so I end up with 6,000 words total for the day.

8:30 to 11:30 – 1,162 words

12:30 to 2 – Make up time.

2 to 5 – Was 1 to 4 until I added make up time.

7 to 10

Yesterday’s writing challenge a bust—much like the election

As someone who voted Libertarian in this election, I’ll just say that the candidate representing me didn’t win. No surprise there.

The fact that I didn’t spend the day writing? Very much a surprise. I fully expected myself to be able to concentrate enough to write—but I just couldn’t get started.

Today I’d like to try again. The only problem is that it’s already 1:20 pm. I stayed up WAY too late into the early morning watching the election results. I had to make up that sleep time because I felt terrible when I tried to get up at 6:30 in the morning. I went back to sleep until about 8:30, but I still feel pretty bad, and I have a headache that comes from a rough, and late, night of sleep.

Anyway, I’m going to give it a try today despite the last start. Can’t win if you don’t play, as they say, and there’s always an available excuse for not playing.

All the points of the challenge remain the same, except for the timing of the three 3-hour blocks.

But three 3-hour blocks is still the plan.

See you back here at the end of block #1. I’ll update below!

Block #1
1.5 hours: 398 words

Need to get this next book moving

I need to get this next book moving, and I need to do it in a hurry. I’m already so far behind I’m not sure I can catch up.

Time for a challenge.

I plan to aim for my best word count in a day ever tomorrow: 6,000 words.

I have 3 blocks of 3 hours each scheduled. (And I’ll go vote during the break between block 1 and block 2.)

I need to write 2,000 words in each 3 hour block.

I need to write 667 words for each hour in each 3 hour block.

As in, I really need to keep my pace up. A big part of this challenge will be keeping my breaks as short as possible. My historical average pace isn’t that great—and 667 wph is already pushing it. The less time I actually write during each hour, the faster I need that pace to be.

really need to reach that 2,000 words during each block.

Side benefit of this challenge? Working this hard, it’ll be impossible to find time to worry over the election!

Now, off to bed to make sure I’m ready to get started when I need to start tomorrow. :)

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

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.

Trying to write 6,000 words in one day

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. :)

 

Panic! Panic! Panic!

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.

Self-discipline: a necessary evil–and possibly the key to my happiness

So… I’ve been thinking again. We all know I favor thinking over action as often as I can. ;)

I was writing my word count post yesterday when I realized that I really have become the kind of writer I don’t want to be: unreliable, undisciplined, and full of excuses for why my books are languishing unwritten.

Even knowing how badly I needed to produce words yesterday, I put it off and ended up wanting to pull my hair out over my own resistance to doing something I like to do (write). I ended up here, writing that post.

What I realized is that I’m going to have to change, whether I want to or not. I’m not going to be that kind of writer. Or person. Or whatever. :)

I have the ability to self-discipline. I just really don’t like doing it and I talk myself into the mindset that life shouldn’t be about schedules and discipline, especially if I’m doing something I like. But that’s just not true. Maybe it should be about discipline and schedules because it’s something I like.

Anyway, I’m here only to say that I’ve made a new schedule. It’s one I’m going to start following today, and it’s not a guideline this time, it’s a rule.

I’m going to adjust it as needed to make sure I meet my writing goals. What set this off yesterday wasn’t actually me realizing I was putting off what needed done, again, but a conversation I had with my sister about needing to lose more weight and what I was going to do about it. I told her I was going to go back to counting calories in a spreadsheet I have, because that’s what really works for me because I’m very numbers oriented.

That made me realize that for my writing, this probably explains why my spreadsheet is so motivating to me, and also made me realize I need to utilize that more. I had at one time included deadlines on the spreadsheet but decided they sucked the fun out of writing. But I’m not so sure about that. There’s definitely fun to be had figuring out how many words I need to write to meet that deadline.

I think the problem was thinking of those deadlines as set in stone while I kept underestimating the word counts for book length on most of my books. As long as I keep in mind that adjustments are perfectly okay and not a flaw in the system, I can see this working for me.

On the other hand, I really only want to do that for the books I’m behind on, so I can get them out ASAP, and then settle into my goal for more 2000+ word days. :)

This is not an experiment so much as it’s a challenge. I’ve told myself I can’t drop this plan or decide I don’t need to follow a schedule after all because it’s too restrictive—what silly nonsense. I made the schedule based on my own needs. No one is telling me what to do here; I’ve just figured out that these are the best times for me to do what I already want to do, for the benefit of both my future and current self. Being schedule-less just isn’t working out well for me and my sinking numbers for this year are yelling at me to make changes or risk losing the future I most want (continuing to write fiction for a living).

I’m going to do my best to follow the schedule. Some days, like today, I’ll have to make adjustments right off, but it’s a plan and I plan to keep on it.

7 to 12: writing, 3 sessions of 15 minutes, with a goal of 250 words per session (on publishing days I won’t be writing)
1 to 4: currently needed to catch up to where I need to be on several projects, writing some days, same as above, more likely doing publishing stuff, such as proofing chapters of whatever I’m working on

Because this is a 7 day a week schedule, the 1 to 4 won’t continue indefinitely. That’s 56 hours a week, and I don’t want to work that many hours every week unless a story is driving me to it. It’s just that right now I’m really behind on some stuff, so I need to work until 4 if I want to get this stuff done. By the middle of October, if I can stick to this, I’ll be in a much better place and will be able to adjust my schedule accordingly, for shorter hours. 5 hours x 7 days a week is a much more comfortable 35 hours a week, doing something I really like doing. And if I show that I can meet my goals and work fewer hours, I’ll take advantage of that.

However things end up, the plan is to have regular hours for my writing and publishing, so I can settle into a strong routine and actually start being productive in one way or another most days. I’m done ending every day feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything worthwhile.

Now, I’m late starting my work today, because of writing this post, so I’m going to call this post done.

15 minutes a day: day 1 results

Yesterday I managed to do really well not writing. I did, however, finally give in and sit down at my computer. I wrote a few words, deleted a few others, then decided I’d be better off just using the 15 minutes to make myself read what I’d already written, or at least the relevant parts of it.

So I did that instead. I timed it, too, so I didn’t try to cheat. I read on my Kindle, and I was obviously in a mood, because I highlighted massive sections for deletion and “fixing.” I put that in quotes, because it deserves to be in quotes. I don’t like editing my stories once I’ve moved on to other sections of the story*; it doesn’t often help strengthen anything and does quite often flatten everything, turning it dull and lifeless. (*I edit as I write. I don’t know if it can be called editing, but it’s an integral part of my writing process. I write from one scene to the next, in a very linear fashion, but I write scenes, paragraphs, and even sentences out of order, in a very non-linear fashion. Much the way I write my blog posts here.)

Hindsight tells me that if I would have deleted the last 2 to 4 thousand words, I could have written something else many times over in all the time I’ve wasted avoiding this book.

I just… don’t know where to go with this story. I’ve lost all enthusiasm for it.

I meant to read through what I’d written a while back and that never happened. I just haven’t gotten to it, but reading the story from the beginning and getting right to work on it afterward, with no wasted time between, is the only hope I have left for regaining any of that enthusiasm.

So using those 15 minutes last night to force the issue felt like the right move. I think it was. I’m thinking about the book again, and I’m ready to spend today’s 15 minutes going through those highlighted passages and making a decision about the direction of this book.

15 minutes a day

It’s late, but I’ve just ended another 0 word day. So I’m going to try something a little different tomorrow and thereafter. (I certainly have to try something!)

15 minutes.

No matter what else I do tomorrow and every day thereafter, I will spend 15 minutes trying to write something for my in-progress story.

I’ll set a timer and just make myself sit down for those 15 minutes and write. After that, who knows what will happen, but—15 minutes. I will learn to be more consistent, even if it’s 15 minutes at a time.

Today is day one, because yesterday wasn’t

I need to give this new plan of mine a short and spiffy name so I can come up with a short and cute acronym. In reality, I’ll probably call it something ordinary and boring, like “my new plan,” because it fits and doesn’t require any thought.

Yesterday should have been day 2 or 3, or, at the least, day 1 of the new plan.

It wasn’t.

So today is day 1, even if I end up with 0 words, which it kind of looks like I’m headed toward at the moment.

I don’t want today to be a 0 word day, but I’ve been thinking I might want to read the previous books in the series before I start digging into the writing again. Maybe it’ll fire me up with ideas and renew my enthusiasm for this story.

If reading the entire series helps, I’m going to make this a priority for future books (reading the previous books each time before I start on the next). If it doesn’t help, at least I’ll have my head full of the series details again so I don’t make a really big mistake (almost did that, yes I did, with a particular piece of tech I’d invented for the series).

I wonder if I can get through all four books by tomorrow afternoon? Ooh, sounds like a challenge! ;)

I am an object at rest

Three things

  1. I become an object at rest after I publish a book. (Current streak of 0 words proves it.)
  2. Procrastination is a habit.
  3. I’ve already forgotten the third thing.

If I want to get the law of inertia working in my favor, I need a plan. I’ve let some bad habits slip into my routine over the last several weeks. Time to stop them. I’ve let procrastination become a habit.

My challenge

  • No more visiting forums or blogs for a while—preferably until I’ve completed the four books I most need to finish.
  • No more reading articles about procrastination. :o
  • No more reading the “Trending” tab on my Kindle Fire* or my other Fire tablets. Worst use of my time ever. I don’t know why I have so much trouble resisting a look at it every time I open the browser.

The secret to this plan is to get boredom working in my favor.

If I find myself turning to fiction reading to relieve said boredom, at least then it’s somewhat productive, because any fiction writer should consider fiction reading a necessary part of the job. !

Plus, reading good fiction has a major tendency to make me want to write. So there’s that.

I know that as soon as I get back into one of my stories momentum will take over and save me from myself for at least a little while. :)

*My Kindle Fire is one of the 2nd generation devices. I won it in a drawing at a local restaurant, after eating there for the first time (and last time to be honest). I love it and I still prefer it over the newest generation Fire tablet I bought in December. It’s a much better device, to be honest, all around. Still doesn’t have a scratch on it.

Yesterday was a total bust; a challenge for today

Update: Nope. Didn’t work. I’m still struggling.

Too many distractions: the repairman didn’t leave until 7 PM. Well, one of them. The other left at 4:15. But I have A/C now! I’m loving it! I feel SO MUCH BETTER today. It’s really amazing.

Anyway, I also feel like I can accomplish anything I want right now and so I’m setting myself the goal of writing as much as I want today. :D

No interruptions expected other than comings and goings of family, and they’re on notice: I’m working on my books today!

A challenge for today

I’d like to finish this book I’ve been working on by Friday. That’s 3 days from now. At a minimum, I need 10,000 more words. I feel like the story might go long, so that might mean I need as many as 20,000 words. The longest book to date in this series is about 63,000 words, so maybe I’ll need 23,000 words, but I honestly do not want the book to go that long, and I don’t think it needs to.

Here’s the breakdown of what that all means if I want to finish this book in 3 days.

If I need… I need this many words per day
10,000 3,333
20,000 6,667
23,000 7,667

My plan is simple: Aim for my 5 hours—and 3,933 words—goal, and then try to get as many extra words as I can.

Hopefully, this will give me a finished book on Friday.

I will update my progress at the end of the day; I’m about to shut down my WIFI and I’m not going to turn it back on for a while.

Looks like I’m going to need some accountability

Update: It looks like accountability didn’t help. I did 0 words, 0 minutes, and I feel terribly guilty about it. Yet, despite the fact that I could probably spend the next half hour writing something before I go to bed, I’m sitting here writing this update instead. :o

I’m having a very hard time getting started. I’m hot and uncomfortable and sweaty, and all I really want to do it sprawl out on my couch under the ceiling fan with a wet rag over my forehead and do nothing. But I have a book to finish and I’ve set myself the challenge to finish by the end of the week. (And tomorrow could be questionable for me being able to concentrate because the repair crew will be here working on my A/C.

Screenshot 2016-06-13 16.38.07
Screenshot from weather.gov for my location. The high today is supposed to be 90! I feel like they’re letting me down here… :o

It’s 4:15 pm already and I really need to get some words down. So here’s the plan.

I’ve sent the doc to my Kindle. I’m going to alternate reading for typos and writing as a way to get me back into this story.

I don’t think it’s realistic to expect myself to start this late and get in my full five hours of writing today, so I’m just going to make this a “less time, more words” challenge.

I’m going to push for 3 solid hours of writing and try to get as many words* as I can during that time.

  • Read a chapter
  • Write for 60 minutes
  • Read a chapter
  • Write for 60 minutes
  • Read a chapter
  • Write for 60 minutes

If the 60 minutes feel too hard, I’ll switch to 30 minute sessions. Whatever it takes to get me working on this book again. :) Heck, maybe I’ll even switch to a different book for a bit.

*Here’s the deal. In case I’ve never mentioned this before, because I honestly can’t remember if I have, but when I push for high word counts it’s always with the assumption that they’re going to be words that make sense and that don’t make a mess for me to clean up later. I write clean, and I like it that way. I just don’t have a “get the words down and clean up the mess later” attitude, and I can’t imagine why I’d want it. Tried it many years ago when I was trying to figure out how to write, and I set it aside in favor of something actually productive for me. :)

 

Editing and proofreading continues, redux

I’m restarting yesterday’s challenge for today, because today is really do have to finish this editing and proofreading! I have another book to finish, and I need as few as 10k words to finish it (although it might go long, in which case, I’m really hoping I can do 20k in a week again, because a week is about all the time I have left for that one).

I’m starting at location 1997 of 4185 total locations this morning, so I have 52% of the book left to edit and proof. But really, I have a bit more, because I haven’t yet fixed the stuff I found to fix in my last reading session. So… Yeah. I really have to do a better job staying on task today and not letting my breaks eat up all my time.

Time to get to it.

The plan:

  1. Read in 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):

  • 7:18 am:
    • At location 1997 (48%)
    • Finished edits through this location at 11:03 am
      • Took much too long!!! But, to be honest, this edit encompassed the scene I mentioned in this post. I guess I’m lucky it didn’t take longer. :o Although I thought I was okay with that scene when I finished it, it still had more buggy spots left than I’d realized.
  • 2:15 pm:
    • At location 3084 (74%)
      • I forgot to set the timer so I just read until I needed a break.
      • I read for about 2 hours and made it through about 25% of the book.
      • Therefore I estimate 3–4 hours to go! (reading + edits)
      • I’ll be back to input these edits after a nap. :D Brain is toast. Concentrating so hard  for that long is tough on me!
  • 7:01 pm:
    • Still at location 3084 (74%) & about to start inputting edits!
      • Nap was too long, then it was time for the regular Friday balancing of my accounts, which inevitably took longer than I planned. It always does.
    • Finished the edits for this session and called it a night! Boo!