Category: Learning curve

Posts in which I discuss things I’ve learned or need to learn about any of many topics.

Changing My Writing Week

Lynn

I keep an eye on my writing totals on a weekly basis—not that I log weekly totals in my daily word count log or anything. I just like to have a weekly goal, and now I’m trying to focus on that weekly goal even more.

I’ve been comfortable using a Saturday–Friday week, because I thought—irrationally?—that by putting the weekend days at the beginning of my week, I’d have fewer weekends where I try to work all weekend and catch up on my weekly writing word count goals.

Uh, no. Not even close to reality.

What’s been happening is that I’ve been telling myself it’s okay to slack off on the weekends, because they’re the first two days of the week, and I can catch up on Monday and Tuesday—which I never seem to do.

I’m still within the first two years of my writing career. I have to publish semi-regularly to make money, or I’ll go broke. So which problem seems more like a real problem here: writing too much on the weekends or not writing enough?

Yeah. I had that same thought, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. :D

I’m shifting it back to Monday—Sunday.

Just Another Routine Experiment

Lynn

I’ve created a new routine for myself to start tomorrow. It’s a schedule—but I’m calling it a routine. For reasons.

I’ve been having a bit of trouble with fatigue, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not as active as I should be or because of other reasons, but the new routine adds in some time for me to exercise daily. I’m going to do it, because if I don’t, I’m going to keep feeling too old for my age, and who wants that?

I’ve been mulling over the quote I found so inspiring the other day and a few other things besides, and I’ve managed to come up with what looks to be a nice little routine. It addresses my entire day, gives me plenty of time for family, reading, exercise, eating, writing, and publishing. It’s probably not going to get me to one million words, unless I miraculously start writing 1,000 WPH, but it’s a nice, livable routine that will make every day a joy to live and work. I can’t ask for more than that.

It’s an experiment, and failure’s always an option, so none of that neener neener crap if I crash and burn, okay? ;)

The routine

I’m highlighting writing related items, mentioning when I expect to exercise, and leaving the rest out.

8 to 12 : writing
exercise
2 to 4 : publishing (or extra writing time) (or extra reading time)
4 to 6 : reading

When I’m racing a deadline, I can convert both the publishing and reading time to writing time. But my real goal? To become so enmeshed in my daily routine that I never need to do that.

Four hours of writing every day will get me a book a month at the length I’m most fond of and at my current average 552 words per hour. Also, the more into the routine I get, my hope is that my hourly average will increase—more words, same amount of time.

Schedules

Lynn

I came across a great quote today, one that surprised and pleased me and seemed to come at just the right time since I’ve been mulling over the why and why nots of having a schedule and why it might be time for me to get back to mine.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.

This quote, from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, which I came across at Brain Pickings in “How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives: Annie Dillard on Presence Over Productivity,” resonated. I haven’t thought of a schedule in quite this way before, and I like the idea that a schedule isn’t so much a prison as it is a scaffolding and a haven.

I could use a haven; frankly, I could use some scaffolding.

I love the idea of looking back and seeing “a blurred and powerful pattern” in my days past.

I’m going to build my scaffolding from my old schedule, and following another piece of advice from someone else, I’m going to start the day with creative work first.

Failure is always an option, but I don’t mind. Gotta (re)start somewhere. :)

It’s Time to Start Writing Every Day

Lynn

Hmm. Time for some conclusions!

The word count issues I keep coming up against are just a symptom of a bigger issue. Time. Time is where I’m falling short and letting myself down.

I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that procrastination is still a problem—truly, a symptom of a different issue, or that I still have to work on motivating myself, blah, blah, blah, but worrying about word counts without worrying about the amount of time I’m devoting to my writing seems very short-sighted.

There’s a solution to my word count woes and it’s a simple one. Spend more time writing. :D

My focus should be on consistently putting in more time. Back in February 2012, I had a fantastic month—a month of the most consistent writing output I’ve ever had (truly, ever). I averaged over three hours of writing a day. That kind of consistency could do wonders for my writing and my income. More practice, more published stories, more money.

If I want to be sure I put in more time consistently, then I need structure.

It’s time to start writing every day.

WIFI is hard to resist ;)

Lynn

WIFI is hard to resist! Why else would I be online right now when I intended to try to write for another half hour?

Getting the WIFI turned off is the easy part—keeping it turned off is where I’m running into problems.

And once it’s on, there’s always just … one … more … little … thing … to … check. Just one more.

Writing Excuses Podcast

Lynn

The Writing Excuses podcast is one of my absolute favorite podcasts. I enjoy it most I think because it’s about 15 minutes long, and the hosts do a great job keeping it short and snappy.

I have time to listen regularly and I recommend you give it a listen if you haven’t. :D

It’s hosted by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler, all great writers who have a lot of experience to share.

http://www.writingexcuses.com/

My fiction writing is not a job

Lynn

“Lucky number 13, anyone? 6,000 words. That’s what I’m going for. I’ve decided if I’m going to break my record, I’m going to do it in 1,000 word increments.”

I was going to call this b-log “Break my daily word count record—attempt #13” but then I had a realization. And then, immediately on the heels of the first, I had another.

There’s more than one way to get to the same finish line. My finish line is, ideally, one million words of fiction in 2014. Things are going to have to change if I’m actually going to make that happen.

But back to the realizations.

As I was getting ready to write down my plans for another attempt at a word count record, I recalled that I’m supposed to be more concerned with consistency, because everyone knows that consistency will get you there faster. So why was I again chasing the ever-elusive too-high-to-repeat-regularly word counts?

And that was when I had my second realization. I haven’t actually thought through the comparison of consistency and irregular-but-awesome word counts, and I should. Before I assume one is better than the other, I need to do some math.

If I want to write one million words in 2014, I’ve got to write about 926,262 words more than I have right now, because yeah, I’m way behind. But let’s pretend it’s feasible that I’m gonna catch up. Here’s what I’d need to do that. :D

I would need about 25,730 words every week until the end of the year.

Now, if I were to concentrate on being consistent, I’d need about 3,676 words every day until the end of the year.

If I were to concentrate on hitting a few big days a week, I’d need 8,577 words three days a week. I wouldn’t have to write another word those other 4 days.

If I were to concentrate on being consistent but counting on a few big days each week, I could catch up with less than 2,800 words most days, with 2 big days of 6,000.

And, now that I’ve done the math, it occurs to me that I’m concentrating on THE WRONG THINGS, as usual. I enjoy writing and setting out to create these kinds of quotas is a sure-fire way to turn the writing process into a mindless job.

Hit a number, woo-hoo, you’re done for the day. Didn’t hit a number, boo-hoo, you didn’t do your job.

Every job I’ve ever had, I hated. I don’t hate writing. :D

I want writing to be important to me—to stay important, but I don’t want writing to be a job. I’m creating assets, and creating assets for myself is not a job, not for me, and I don’t want to treat it as if it were. I don’t write under someone else’s direction, and no one pays me for writing. I write what I want, when I want. I’m creating assets, for myself, to exploit. Exploiting those assets could certainly be a job, but the writing is not a job.

This distinction is important for me, because I don’t want a job. I don’t ever want another job if I can help it.

However, I love the idea of creating assets and then leveraging them, exploiting them, generating income with them. Makes me feel good. :D

An Actual Post

Lynn

Strangely enough, I’ve been blogging a lot lately, even if I haven’t been posting those posts (hereafter to be called b-logs). :D

I’ve been using Evernote (which I’m still doing for this one, tbh) and just writing the b-logs the same as I was doing on the site, and holding them with the intent of posting when I turned my WIFI back on. But it’s gotten kind of out of control, and I don’t feel a strong desire to post more than a dozen backdated b-logs.

It’s been a relatively good month. I’ve also had a few relatively bad days with my novella. I’m stuck on it, and I’ve had a hell of a time with it since January.

My current experiment

At the moment, I’m schedule free; the way I’ve been working has been working so well for me that I haven’t needed a schedule. :D Happy days…

A few weeks ago, I decided to try writing on multiple stories at once, every day, 800–1,000 words on each of 4 to 6 stories for 3,200–6,000 words.

I’ve increased the number of words I write daily, even if I haven’t been able to work on more than 3 stories most days, or get higher than 3,374 words in one day. But my daily average for April is currently my fifth highest out of twenty-one months of writing. I’ve also finished a novelette and made real progress on one of my bigger novels I need to finish in the next month or two.

I’ve been happy with this, and it’s kept me writing at a nice pace. It feels easy and I don’t know that I can ask for more than that with the lack of motivation to write I’d been feeling the last few months.

Here’s what I do (or try to do)

When I hit a wall with my concentration on one story, I switch to another. I try to do this instead of check email, forums, and blogs for a quick distraction that always ends up being a major time sink.

That’s pretty much the sum total of how I’m handling the different stories.

A lot of times, the writing feels easier when I go back to a story I was working on earlier than it did right before I switched, as if the switch loosened something up and I can now keep going without the same drag I was feeling when I hit the wall. And that’s it.

Week before last, I made it over 3,000 words on 3 days, and over 2,000 on 3 days. I ended that week with my highest 7-consecutive-day total to date of 18,049 words.

Last week wasn’t as good. I lost a big chunk of words when I decided to revisit my languishing novella and cut over 5,000 words from it. I’ve mentioned before that my spreadsheets immediately take deletions into account, and it knocked me back so that I ended last week with 4,523 words.

I had hoped this week would start off well, but it hasn’t. I got stuck on the novella and I haven’t been able to let it go. I’m dragging myself down as I agonize over that book.

I need to finish it; it’s a sequel I’ve already said I was writing; but I can’t seem to get unstuck on it. I’m even toying with the idea of deleting the whole thing and starting over, only I’m not sure how I’d do any better a job with it if I did that. This might be a case of just finishing it and putting it out there so I can get it off my mind.

All that aside, it’s time to get to work. I have stories to write. :D It’s raining today and I like writing to the sound of rain. I’m going to do a separate b-log with today’s summary of progress. Just easier that way! ;D

Revisiting Motivation

Lynn

I’ve been reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Daniel H. Pink), and although I’m not very far into the book, there’ve been a few lines that have stood out as particularly relevant to me.

“Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project.”

Of course, the first thing that happened when I read this was I had a strong desire to go make myself a cup of coffee. Then I pondered on the words and it only took me a few seconds to realize I see this happening in my life, a lot. I push aside intrinsic motivation in favor of extrinsic motivation all the time.

I’m already wondering what else this book is going to suggest about the carrot & stick approach to motivation. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s anything here to change how I try to motivate myself to write more.

I Need To Spend More Time Studying Book Cover Design

Lynn

I’ve been staring at book covers this morning, trying to decide what it is exactly that have made some of my covers okay versus great, passable versus attractive, and some of them just blah. My covers are all right, don’t get me wrong. No one’s said my covers suck and my books sell so they can’t be that awful.

My bestselling series has a set of covers that are based on setting and tone. No people, no icons, nothing that makes them blend into the books I seem to be selling alongside. But the thing is, my books aren’t quite like the books I’m selling alongside. So there’s that; they look a bit different because they are different. I haven’t decided if this is helpful or hurtful to sales. There’s a lot of action in my books, and these are strictly single viewpoint stories in a narrow genre rife with multiple viewpoint stories. All in all, I think the differences between my covers and the other covers aren’t hurting, but there’s really no way to tell without creating new covers for the series and … I don’t really want to do that. I like the style of covers I’ve created. I just wish they were better, as is. Book 1’s cover is the strongest, or I’ve always thought so, but book 3’s cover has been growing on me a lot and I’m starting to think it might be the strongest after all. The vibrant colors, and the tone just seem so right for the book. Book 2’s cover is weak. Very weak. I’ve never been happy with it and someday, even if I don’t do anything about the others, I do believe I’m going to have to revisit that cover.

My other series has covers that are more traditional. In fact, to my eye, when placed up against current covers, they look at bit dated. More like what I grew up with versus what’s hot now. I’m not sure how to fix that, other than just trying again. I’ll be writing the 4th book in that series this year, so maybe it’ll be time to try again with those covers. I don’t know. Seems like a pain in the ass I’m not ready for. :D

I do a decent job with the technical aspects of book cover design. I make them the right size and use the appropriate resolution. However, it takes me forever to get it set up right, but I do seem to get it done. In fact, I realized after my last cover that I was probably going overboard designing at 600 ppi with the largest stock photo art I could buy. I’ll still probably buy the big art because the incremental cost is tiny once you hit medium size and that’s usually the least you should buy anyway. Bigger art (and by that I mean higher resolution) gives me more options in the long run.

I have the most trouble setting up the covers for Createspace. They feel like torture.

My last cover took me 12 hours to put together and that was for the ebook only. I haven’t even attempted the Createspace version yet and I keep putting it off because I know it’s going to drive me insane getting it set up right. I keep trying to come up with a template, but it hasn’t worked yet.

I’ve collected a lot of links over time where I’ve studied book cover design to make sure I’m doing it right, but the truth is, I need serious help learning the actual art of book cover design. Art isn’t something I’m good with. I know what I like when I see it but I have no vision for it. And to tell the truth, my tastes also run contrary to a lot of what’s popular.

I could enjoy myself if I didn’t find the whole process so stressful and tedious. I’ve corrected and repaired photos before and did a great job of it in my opinion and didn’t find that stressful in the least. I was able to fix a huge tear in an 8×10 taken almost 38 years ago. The fixed version looks fabulous and you can’t even tell the tear was there. Doing that taught me how to use the cloning tools and coloring, and even how to do some minor drawing of my own when zoomed in to the full resolution. My 8×10 corrected copy looks great printed.

I guess I mention this because I want to say that I’m familiar with photo editing and Photoshop and I’ve even created some maps in Illustrator, although that was a long time ago and I use Gimp these days.

But I need a massive amount of additional education and YouTube is overwhelming when I visit with the intent of studying another bunch of tutorials—where to start?

I need to find a better place to study.

And practice more.

Maybe I should write more short stories so I can create more covers? Or allow myself to create more covers for one book, some wildly different concept designs, with the sole intent of just practicing more.

Practice. That’s really what it’s going to come down to, but I need something to base that practice on.

So, back to searching for design resources, I guess.

Love the New Schedule; Of Course There’s a Problem

Lynn

I’m still not getting started most mornings like I should and I’m consistently missing my 8–9 session.

High impulsiveness is a big part of this problem, I think. I always intend to get started right away in the mornings, but when it’s actually time, there’s just one more thing I need to finish up first before I can sit down and get to it.

I bailed on yesterday’s writing, and I skipped today deliberately. My kids were home from school again because of school admin days or some such thing, but I already know I can write with them around at least well enough to finish a book so I’m not sure why I took the time off. I shouldn’t have, but I did anyway.

It’s 8:41 pm and I’m writing this instead of writing fiction. Yeah. Not sure what I was thinking when I started this considering it was almost exactly 8 at the time. I can’t even believe it’s been 41 minutes and yet, objectively, I know it has been. Just how many paragraphs have I written and deleted to have only gotten a word count for this post of 189 in 41 minutes?!

Way too many!

I’m thinking of how I can mitigate these issues so I don’t start feeling like my schedule isn’t working for me. Just because I like it doesn’t mean it works and that would be a terrible shame considering exactly how much I do like it!

Tomorrow I need to make every effort to stick to the schedule and squeeze all the writing time out of it I can. It’ll be good for morale. ;) Maybe I can start a success spiral—and show some grit. Practice focusing.

Sounds like a plan!

Ghostery and Google Adsense Don’t Like Each Other

Lynn

So, I’ve had this problem for a couple of months where I can’t login to my adsense account and since I actually got a payment recently I thought it might be time to figure out what’s wrong.

I tried a couple of things that didn’t work and then had the idea that maybe I should try Firefox instead of Chrome, and it worked right away. I looked at Chrome and thought about what might be different, and noticed my Ghostery icon in the top bar. So I disabled the Google Analytics blocking and Adsense loaded right up on Chrome.

Problem solved. Now I just have to remember to unblock Google Analytics when I want to login to Adsense.

I Hate Schedules So Why Am I So Determined to Have One?

Lynn

So, I wrote this long post yesterday that I’m not going to post because it makes obvious my penchant for self delusion.

After wasting away my Sunday because I was tired (no explanation really but probably not enough vigorous exercise in my days!), I spent a lot of time reading about sleep patterns and decided I was obviously a night owl trapped in a morning person’s schedule. I made a new schedule for myself, and all these plans for the coming week, tried to stay up so I could start Monday off right by sleeping in … and then woke up with the sun at 6:20 am, bright eyed and completely ready to get out of bed. I looked up sunrise on Google. It came at 6:16 am.

So yeah. I’m not a night owl, no matter how easy I find it to stay awake when I’m doing something interesting. I’m a morning person through and through—with the caveat that the sun has to be up! I can’t get up without daylight, but I really don’t think that precludes me being a morning person. As soon as that sunshine comes through my window, my brain comes alive and it doesn’t seem to matter what time I went to bed. :D I’ve stayed up til 3 am and still had a really hard time sleeping past 7-ish, and I actually can’t remember the last time I slept past 8:30 am.

I guess one of the things that fooled me is that I have a spike of energy in the morning that wanes fast, usually gone by 9 and I’m ready to crash. Then I have another surge of energy sometime around late afternoon. And another around 7 or 8 pm. So I seem to have more energy in the afternoons and evenings. I never have trouble going to sleep (except for midday naps). As soon as I’ve decided I’m going to go to sleep (and put away whatever has my attention) I go to sleep. I often wake up in the middle of the night remembering that I have a thought I didn’t finish! :D

But I’ve decided I can add in a morning nap and forget waiting until the afternoon. Sleep when I want; that is definitely one of the perks of writing fiction as a job. :D

Why’d I Abandon Writing During My Morning Tea?

My morning tea session was working great except for one thing. I usually had my tea during or after breakfast, but because the tea session needed to be the first thing I did after my kids left, I got an upset stomach at least half the days I did it.

I really don’t like how I feel when I wait to have breakfast in the mornings. That was ultimately the thing that derailed the morning tea writing session. The morning tea was delaying my breakfast for a variety of reasons by as much as an hour and a half some days, making the stretch between my last night’s supper and my breakfast about 14–15 hours. That’s just too long for me.

So Yeah, I Made a New Schedule

Couldn’t resist! I honestly feel like if I can just settle into a schedule, I’ll noticeably improve my productivity. These last two months have probably been my worst since I started my publishing career.

So here it is.

7–9 am
12–4 pm
8–9 pm

That’s 7 hours, which is  a little short of my 7.8 I originally started with for 2014, but … no, not really, because I originally started with the intent to write for 4 hours every day, before I came up with my “better” 2014 schedule.

I love my 9–12 break and my 4–8 free time and my 9–10 down time. LOL. Yes, I named them all and I named them each something different, just to keep them straight in my head, so my day doesn’t become this one big mess of write, break, write, break, write, break. It’s a mind game, but if it works, who cares, right? ;)

9–12 is when I’m most often tired and don’t really have much energy, but up until 9, I usually have quite a bit of energy and I should capture that for writing.

12–4 is a high energy time for me, as long as I rest at some point during the 9–12 stretch and have a good meal. It’s a great time for writing! Plus, I love writing in the sunshine, and this is good for that too. :D One thing I didn’t like about my previous schedule was trying to nap so late in the day. I always felt like I was wasting good sunlight.

4–8 is when I most often need to do things related to living and having a life. Plus, I have kids and they need me a lot during this time.

8–9 is just a quiet time and so that’s great for one last session before I stop for the evening. It also puts me to thinking about my story before bed and that can only lead to good things! :)

So really, this is my rationale for the new schedule and I’m hopeful it will work out. If not, well, it was just another experiment, and I’m sure I’ll get something out of it—failure is always an option! ;)

Slip Ups and Technicalities; Big Goals

Lynn

Day 11 of my morning tea writing streak.

Yesterday, I had a successful day 10 but I’m only calling it a win because of a technicality. I’d explain but it would be a boring explanation that ends with me falling asleep on the couch yesterday morning while having my morning tea and getting up at 10:54 am for my second cup of morning tea.  But I did write for my 25 minutes while I had that cup of tea! Then I promptly frittered away the rest of the day.

Oops. I should be more dedicated to hard work.

Today I hope to get my minimum quota of 3,100 words so I don’t continue to fall behind, but last night I had a filling come out of a tooth and I’ll be hitting the road for a while today to get this tooth fixed. So … I’m not expecting big numbers, only hopeful  that I’ll eek out what I need.

I recalculated some goals last night so I could see what it’ll take to catch me up and the numbers look pretty stiff. I don’t even know if I can do it. I can do it. Easy peasy. :D What’s that they say about positive thinking? It’s not bullshit if it’s applesauce, right?* ;)

3,100 words per day for 1,000,000 by 12/31
3,642 adjusted wpd for 500,000 by 6/30
6,402 adjusted wpd for 250,000 by 3/31

Basically, it gives me three options, catch up by 3/31, 6/30, or 12/31. I prefer the idea of catching up by 3/31, but … well, you see the numbers! 5,000 a day is my dream goal. 6,402 a day would be like learning to fly overnight. But hey, if I’m going for a big goal, why not make it really, really big? Hard work is hard work, right?

*I totally made that up, and it makes no sense. Sorry!

Making Writing a Habit

Lynn

I’ve successfully completed seven days of my 25 minute morning writing session with tea. The impulse pairing has worked, and it seems like it might be a powerful way to build other habits. I haven’t hesitated once to start my writing session and I’m kind of surprised by that. I’m not known for my ability to form new habits. Of course, I won’t know the outcome for several months, probably, but it feels easy, so easy that it doesn’t even feel like a new habit* and maybe that right there is the key.

I’m brainstorming ways I can use impulse pairing to create other new habits I’d like to add to my days, but I haven’t come up with anything yet that might work. I also wish I had some other key habits* to attach writing to but when I try to think of any, I draw a blank.

If you have any thoughts on that, they’d be much appreciated. :D

*Keystone habits is something that’s talked about a lot in The Power of Habit. I liked the book when I read it, but I haven’t really thought about it much since. But then the idea of keystone habits rose to the surface as I was thinking about why the morning tea writing is going so well and why that new habit feels so effortless. So even though I didn’t recognize it at the time, it seems obvious now that my morning tea is one of my keystone habits.

My First Twenty-Five and Negative Numbers

Lynn

The trend continues. My morning tea writing streak’s now seven days long. Yay!

But … I’ve had negative progress on almost every one of those seven days. Today I ended the twenty-five minutes at -189. Yikes! I think this is just because of this specific book and the problems I’m having with it and not a sign that I’m too critical of my writing in the mornings so there’s that. No way I’m giving up this streak unless I’m too sick to climb out of bed and actually have my morning tea.

I’m giving it to the end of my first one and a half hour writing session this morning and if I haven’t gotten through this tough spot, I’m going to delete the 5,462 words between where I am and the end and start over.

That’s a lot of words to delete but if I can’t get some momentum going with what I have, I’m going to assume there’s a bigger problem that I just can’t see and wipe the slate. :D I can’t take another week of agonizing over it all.

I’m starting another post with some motivational numbers-posting today. I want this to be a great writing day! It’s beautiful here at my desk, with lots of warm sunlight spilling over my hands and face, and I watched entirely too much television last night instead of writing—and oh, The Americans held my attention for six whole episodes before I got bored! I like it—but it’s time to get busy. I’ve let this book derail me from my goal for long enough.

I have one million words to write this year and by georgie, I’m going to do my best to write them. :D

Missing Post, Morning Tea Pomodoro Streak, & Schedules

Lynn

I unpublished yesterday’s post. I added a lot to it last night and ended up with 1,300+ words. Then I looked at it and it seemed like a whole bunch of the same old thing so I put it back into draft rather than try to put it into any kind of order. :) Sorry about that! In case you want to know, I barely topped out at 3 hours of writing yesterday and my word count was dismal at 459 for the day. Procrastination wasn’t the problem as much as lost time.

It’s day 3 of writing with my morning tea. It’s going great! I love the ritual. I really see this working for me long term, even if my numbers are small that early in the day. (I’ve had most of my longed-for but rarely reached 1,000 words an hour sessions at around midday. I’m slow in the morning and less slow in the evening.)

I’ve come full circle back to my schedule, but with changes to reflect my attempt at some motivation hacking.

  • The single biggest issue I face with procrastination is impulsiveness.
  • Relying on willpower probably isn’t going to work. I know my weaknesses so I need to work around them.
  • When I rely on fixed time goals (schedule based) I lose the motivation to work efficiently because there’s no reward for getting done early.
  • When I rely on word count goals, I put off starting until it’s too late because I’m terrible at estimating how much time it takes me to do things.

So I made a new schedule that mixes time goals and word count goals.

I didn’t like the last schedule at all, but I think it goes back to the fixed time issue and lack of reward for efficiency. Also, two hours and thirty-six minutes is just too long for me to work without a break.* So the redone schedule puts me writing in chunks of 90 minutes. There’s even some interesting theory that says this is great length of time for a work session, so why not take advantage of that?

1.5 hours or 900 words
30 minute break
Repeat 3 times.

This should give me my 1,800 before lunch and 1,800 after lunch. Getting started at 8 am is the plan (I usually have my tea at 7), but if I sleep in, I can always start anytime after my tea and breakfast. But once I start, I really hope to be able to push through until I’ve done all 4 sessions. :D That’s the goal anyway!

*Just no way around it … my bladder doesn’t like long work sessions! And once I’m up and about, all bets are off when it comes to distractions.

Hacking My Motivation

Lynn

Well, it’s time to get into some nitty-gritty motivation hacking, because if I don’t, I’m very much afraid I’ll be finishing this last 10,000 words of my 2014 novella #1 sometime in, say, 2015.

Not what I want!

So … last night I spent a lot of time reading about motivation and procrastination and I found some good, actionable advice I plan to make use of.

What I Read

I’ve read a lot of stuff over the years about procrastination, but I’ve got to say, these particular posts and books really gave me some new stuff to think about. I loved being able to diagnose the reasons I procrastinate instead of having to slog through trite advice that I’ve heard so many times that I’ve just started ignoring it. There’s only so many times someone can say, “Just sit down and do it,” before I realize they really have no clue what I’m facing when I start down the path of procrastination. No clue whatsoever. If they did, they’d know I’D ALREADY BE DOING IT IF I COULD JUST MAKE MYSELF SIT DOWN AND DO IT.

Ah. Sorry about that. ;) This subject hits a nerve.

Anyway, I’ve come up with some small things that I think might just help me and I’m so excited to say that I’ve already had my first success!

I decided, after a conversation with a pal on a forum, that today was going to get off to a good start, with something small and completely doable that wouldn’t tax my brain or send me fleeing in fear of having to actually work this morning.

I implemented impulse pairing, where I added something I enjoy to the thing I keep procrastinating on. I enjoy my morning tea, a lot. I enjoy relaxing with it and drinking it slowly.

So … I got up and started a new routine: I had tea at my desk and did 1 Pomodoro’s worth of writing. 25 minutes, no pressure, just a way to enjoy my morning tea before breakfast. Since I have tea every morning, this isn’t a drastic change in my habits.

It felt fantastic! And even though I barely made it to 163 words in that 25 minutes, there was no expectation of a particular word count that I needed, so I didn’t mind. It just felt really good to get going with a minimum of fuss. I didn’t have to do anything before I got that first session in: no cooking breakfast, no reading forums, blogs, books, or email—nothing.

I’m very much planning to turn this little ritual into a firm habit by tracking this and turning it into a streak. :D

The only other thing I plan to attempt at the moment is a small change in how I think of my goals. Instead of thinking of my goals as daily, I’m going to go even smaller. For some people, saying they need to write 3,000 words a day might not be a big deal. But to me, knowing that I can write that many words in a day doesn’t negate the low expectancy of reaching that goal because I know I often don’t write that many words in a day, even when I set out to do just that. In a sense, I have a lot of learned helplessness associated with my writing that I’ve let creep in over the years and it’s hurting me.

I made notes as I read, and here’s what I came up with for myself when I got to the part about setting goals.

Set smaller goals. My daily word count goal is good, and so is my daily time writing goal. But I can break it down further. I could use my schedule and have goals for each session. Or I could have a simple goal of finishing 1,800 words before lunch, and finishing 1,800 words after lunch. The goal looks smaller (but isn’t) and that’s plenty of words for what I want.

1,800 seems so small in comparison to 3,000. And yet, 1,800 + 1,800 is actually 600 more words than the 3,000. Perception of the size of my goals is an important factor here. I have very few doubts that I can write 1,800 words before lunch, because I have a spreadsheet that shows I did just that for an entire month last February, with very few missed days. But 3,000? 3,000 is a big number, and I don’t often get 3,000 words in a day, so it just feels harder to reach.

This could also easily shift to fit time goals instead of word goals, but I’ve had to accept that time goals and writing don’t mix for me. Saying I need to get in 3 hours of writing before lunch still feels more difficult, and there’s no reward for being more efficient and getting done sooner, because the goal is a fixed time goal.

Finally, after thinking about it some more last night, I decided it might be even better to start out with a goal of getting in two 900 word writing sessions before lunch and two before supper. This way my goal appears even smaller and can be split up easily if I need to make time for something besides writing in my day. :D Or I can do it all at once if I’m on a roll.

And that’s it. I’ve rambled to the point that I don’t even remember half of what I’ve written here, so I’ll go.** I’ve really put off getting started with my 1,800 before lunch way too long! Might have to skip that one today. I got up quite late after staying up late last night and I’m already hungry for lunch and ready for a nap. Wet hair, cold weather, and too little sleep… Not my most productive combination. But hey, I’ve already done some writing today! Yay! :D

*My time was limited and I didn’t want to still be in the middle of reading these books instead of doing something, so I stuck to the samples.

**Plus it’s kind of depressing to see I’ve written over 1,000 words on a blog post but could barely eek out 163 words on my book. Someone save me from myself…

One Million Words—Month 1 Summary

Lynn

So, the end of month 1 in the One Million Words challenge for 2014 brought low numbers and sad faces all around. I ended January at 23,650.

Wed, 1/1/14 1,192 1,192
Thu, 1/2/14 5,194 4,002
Fri, 1/3/14 8,550 3,356
Sat, 1/4/14 8,720 170
Sun, 1/5/14 8,792 72
Mon, 1/6/14 9,233 441
Tue, 1/7/14 9,220 (13)
Wed, 1/8/14 10,655 1,435
Thu, 1/9/14 10,839 184
Fri, 1/10/14 11,787 948
Sat, 1/11/14 12,150 363
Sun, 1/12/14 14,847 2,697
Mon, 1/13/14 15,259 412
Tue, 1/14/14 18,011 2,752
Wed, 1/15/14 18,234 223
Thu, 1/16/14 19,603 1,369
Fri, 1/17/14 20,096 493
Sat, 1/18/14 20,461 365
Sun, 1/19/14 20,461 0
Mon, 1/20/14 20,461 0
Tue, 1/21/14 20,461 0
Wed, 1/22/14 20,461 0
Thu, 1/23/14 20,461 0
Fri, 1/24/14 20,461 0
Sat, 1/25/14 20,737 276
Sun, 1/26/14 23,650 2,913
Mon, 1/27/14 23,650 0
Tue, 1/28/14 23,650 0
Wed, 1/29/14 23,650 0
Thu, 1/30/14 23,650 0
Fri, 1/31/14 23,650 0

I’m in the middle of a post about hours vs. words that I haven’t finished. I abandoned it when I realized I was supposed to be doing something else and never got back to it, something that’s very typical for me. :D Anyway, it does a good job of summing up why the time goals aren’t working for me. And since I actually want to get a lot of books written this year and at least one million words of fiction, I can’t keep hoping things will turn around. Since I can’t make myself write to a time goal, I’m just going to have to go back to writing to a word count goal, regardless of my theories about time goals being better. I still think they are, but if they don’t motivate me to write, they’re useless.

I don’t know if I want to try to make up the 59,683 I’m behind all in one month (I’m not even sure that’s possible for me) or if I want to just adjust to the new daily goal of 2,950. I’m thinking it might be best for me to go for the 2,950 and try to get in some extra on a couple days a week. Maybe aim for at least two 4,000 word days every week.

Well, I’m back to tracking my time again, and my timer says I’ve been on the internet for 28 minutes. Time to go do some writing!

My “Ten Hours In a Day” Challenge

Lynn

I’m writing this on Saturday evening. I’ve been sitting here listening to some really great podcasts from Writing Excuses and I had the realization that I’ve just been using these great little fifteen minute podcasts to procrastinate again. :o *

So I’m setting a challenge for myself. I want to write for ten hours tomorrow. I’m not talking about setting aside ten hours and writing with breaks during that time. I’m talking about timed writing sessions that add up to ten hours. That’s a huge challenge for me because I don’t know that I’ve ever written for ten hours in a single day.

As far as I know, I’ve not written for more than seven hours in a single day. I go back and forth on tracking my time so I don’t have good records on this but my word count output and my usual habits would say anything over those seven hours is unlikely to have ever happened. The only real possibility I can think of is one weekend in August 2012 when I wrote so much that my forearms and hands hurt for a week afterward. That hasn’t happened since, and had never happened before, so it’s possible I wrote for more than seven hours a day that weekend. It’s also possible I just didn’t take a break when I should’ve. ;)

Anyway, that’s the challenge for tomorrow. I want to write for ten hours.

Why?

Because the end of January is coming up soon, and I really don’t want to end the month at nearly 60,000 words from where I should be in the One Millions Words in 2014 challenge and that’s about where I’m sitting right now.

Also, I need to train myself to write longer hours and resist distraction. I’m not sure this is the best way, but I doubt it’s the worst, so I’m doing it.

This is going to be fun. I can do this. I know I can. If I stall out on this 2014 Novella #1 I’m working on, I’ll just switch to one of the short stories or novels I have going (and need to finish ASAP). No one said I had to devote all ten hours to the one book (although I’ll love it if that’s what ends up happening!) :D

Now, gotta go write for a few hours before I call it a night because today has been a bust so far! Too many podcasts, youtube videos, and vlogs! :D

*That was totally fake shock, because I really don’t think any of us are shocked by the revelation that I’ve been procrastinating again. If you are, then welcome to my blog! This must be the first post you’ve read. :)