Category: Learning curve

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

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. :)

What Was I Thinking?

Lynn

So, yesterday I tried a 5,000 in a day challenge, not even realizing until this morning, when I was thinking about making another attempt at that challenge, that I was taking a huge step backward in my thinking.

A words per day goal has no place  in my 2014 strategy.

In my better way of looking at the numbers post, I detail how the time I spend writing is a lot more important to manage than setting daily word count goals because if I spend the time, I’ll get the words. Averages, you know. They all work out in the end.

Yesterday, I was panicking a little, thinking about how slow my writing has been going and how I haven’t been hitting anywhere near the average I’ve been counting on. But see, this was a great opportunity for me to keep going anyway and let things settle into place, and instead I immediately set myself a word count goal.

I’m really glad I realized this while I was doing a few dishes this morning, because I can course-correct before I veer off into the bushes. :D

So, I’m still going to do another challenge today, but it’s definitely not going to be “5,000 In a Day Redux.”

Here’s a Dilemma

Lynn

Well. Here’s a dilemma. I have this nifty new schedule for 2014 (that I mostly really like) but today I had a lot of trouble with procrastination. So now I have to decide what’s more important. Stick to the schedule so I write when I’m supposed to and deal with some missing writing time here in the beginning as I get used to making myself write only during that time? Or stick to my time goal? What’s more important? Why’d I create the schedule?

As a guideline, not a straitjacket, that’s what. I need to remember that. Note to self: remember that!

I came up with the schedule as a part of a strategy to help me write more. So maybe this isn’t really that big a dilemma after all. I mean, I don’t want to fall into a habit of never doing my writing during my writing time, because then I just feel guilty when I take time out for living. But let’s face it, I have a love/hate relationship with schedules and there are probably going to be a lot of days like today. I’m not sure how trainable I am. I’ve already dumped the time tracking, because well, let’s be honest, time tracking is ridiculous. It reminds me of Phileas Fogg* and I don’t want to be a Phileas Fogg. :D

So, I guess tonight I’ll be writing again later.

Whew! Glad I got that all worked out in my head. :D

*Main fella in Around the World in Eighty Days. Love that guy, but I definitely do not want to be him.

Started 2014 Novella #1

Lynn

I’m writing 2014 novella #1 instead of 2014 novel #1 because I wanted to write something short but I couldn’t get into 2014 short story #1. :o Technically, I started this novella back in 2012, but only made it about 600 words in before I set it aside. I do that a lot, write one or two pages and then move on. I track the words, and some stories get picked up later and some get deleted when I finally decide I’m never going to write that one after all.

My pace could be better. I’ve spent the majority of the time I’ve been at the computer either goofing off, reading the previous stories in the novella’s series, or writing s.l.o.w.l.y and wishing I could write faster.

I’m really letting myself fall behind here on the one million words challenge, and I’m kind of sad about that. And mad. At myself. So tomorrow (because it’s always easiest to say tomorrow) I’m going to watch my time diligently* and do what needs to be done. I will aim to write at least 4,000 words tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be very dedicated (and lucky) and hit one of my rare 5,000 word days.

But for tonight, this is it, because I need to spend at least the rest of the time between now and sleepy time writing what I can. I already know the chance of me writing my full 2,750 words today is slim to none. I’d have to write six times my normal speed to get what I still needed in half an hour. But I might be able to hit 500 more before I crash.

I’ve averaged 1,096 words per day so far. I need to average 2,750.

*I installed a time tracking app on my phone, set it up, and started tracking my time into work (writing, learning, publishing) and personal (leisure, chores, personal) categories. This is ridiculous and I know it, but I’m willing to try anything if I think it will increase my chances of writing more! I plan to use this for at least a few days, maybe a week, and if it works, who knows? Maybe all year. :)

One Million Words Challenge One Week In

Lynn

I joined the One Million Words community on Google+. We’re a group of writers who are trying to write one million words in 2014. It’s a great place if you’re seriously trying to write a lot of words this year! Which is something I’m working on. The group is great. I love it. It’s very motivational to be around other writers striving for the same goal.

Current total: 10,837
Should be:  24,750 (actually 24,194 but I’m rounding to a daily average of 2,750)

So … I’m behind. But if I can stick to my schedule going forward most days, I should make it up by the end of the month assuming my 500 wph averages out and I do most of the hours I’m supposed to do between then and now.

Why am I already behind?

I published a book! And wow, did that take some serious time away from writing. It was the fastest I’ve ever published a novel length book, but my deadline hit and it had to be done. And wow again, but that was something I don’t ever want to repeat. The stress! The worry! The tossing and turning! Also, the weather forced schools to close, so my schedule’s been hit and miss this week—mostly miss. But that ends tomorrow, so we’ll see how I do getting back into the groove.

It’s completely obvious to me now that I need one place to write about writing and as long as I have that place, I’m a happy person. :-) I used to send long, meandering emails to a friend, but decided the time had come to cut that out. No sense piling up someone’s email like that when a blog would work just fine. And lo and behold, I happened to have a couple of them available for whatever I wanted to post. :D

Finally, I’m having trouble settling on my next project. There are a couple of novels I want to write before spring, but I also wanted to take a short break and write something short, but nothing is really working for me except one of the novels. So. Sigh. I’ll eventually figure it out. I hope. You know, before spring. :o

Finding the Right Schedule for 2014

Lynn2 Comments

So, after giving it a little more thought, but not wanting to veer too far from the plans I’ve already worked out for the one million words challenge, I’ve made myself a new schedule for 2014 that’s turned out to be a bit different than I expected. Better, I hope, but not quite what I laid out in the previous post about it. :D

7am–9:36am
11am–1:36pm
4pm–6:36pm

There’s a somewhat complicated reason for the odd numbers that I won’t bore you with, but I like it. I’ve tried it out today and it’s working really well for me. (Except that I’m getting about an hour and a half of a late start on the last session.)

On the weekends, I’m just going to eliminate the middle session and move the last session to 7pm (8pm when needed). That means most of my weekend days will be completely free from around 9:36am–7pm for getting out, reading, or taking up a new hobby if I want. :D And of course, if I have other plans, I’ll just pick the two most convenient session times for the day.

This is actually going to lead to more writing time in a day than I usually ever come close to, so it’s going to be interesting to see how much actual timed writing I get.

Theoretically, this schedule could allow me to average about 24,700 words a week. That means I could not write for eleven and a half weeks out of the year and still make the one million. So … breathing room! Which we all know is a definite necessity.

I am sincerely hoping this schedule will help me stay on track in 2014.

I’m making a commitment here and now to stick to this schedule in 2014—no rethinking, reconfiguring, recalculating—getting rid of all the baggage that comes with having to make decisions every single day* about how and when I’m going to get to my writing. This is a near perfect schedule for what’s going on in my life right now. I think this is going to be grand. :)

Still, I’m very afraid this goal is way too huge for me, and I’m not going to allow myself to feel like a failure if I only get partway there. :D But boy, I love this huge goal!

*I struggle with this kind of thing all the time. 2014 is the year I tackle this head on! I plan to come up with more rules for myself and my life this year to eliminate as much of this needless, repetitive decision-making as possible. I’m actually thinking of setting alarms on my phone to trigger me to do certain things at certain times—you know, train myself, lol. :D I’ve already set the alarms for the writing times. :)

End of the Year Thoughts

Lynn

Now that it’s only a little over a week until the new year, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve done in 2013 and how I want to improve in 2014.

Things I want to do

Write one million words in 2014 (and publish most of them).

Put out a new book every 6–8 weeks.

Find someone to re-cover all my novels.

Find a first reader for my books.

Find someone trustworthy to copy edit my books so I don’t have to worry so much about errors slipping through. (I can already tell you, I’ll still be doing the final read-through copy edit, because I’m just that kind of person. :D)

Stop writing so many plot holes into my books.

Make more writer friends.

Become a better writer/storyteller—the learning never stops.

Make a lot of money. :D

Difficulties I’ll face

To write one million words I’m doing to have to write for about 5 hours and 30 minutes every day.

That’s every day.

I still haven’t succeeded in writing four hours a day, most days.

I don’t see plot holes.

I’m a cheapskate when it comes to paying for services I think I can do myself. Handing over that money? It burns!

I don’t want to pay $350 for someone to read my book and mark up a few typos. (That’s a real quote.) See above comment about my cheapskatedness. (I claim dibs on that word!)

I don’t make friends easily. I’m honestly not sure how likable I am. :D

It’s hard work to make a lot of money. Sales are out of my control. I don’t market. I don’t discount. I don’t—never mind that one, I just added a mailing list. Yay for me. Sales are still out of my control though. :)

And that’s about it for now. This post took way too long to write, because I mostly wandered and then wandered away before coming back. If I think of anything else, I’ll update.

A Better Way of Looking at the Numbers

Lynn2 Comments

I read an interesting blog post by David Haywood Young a couple of days ago and saved it in Evernote to read again when I could, because I wanted to think about it for a while. It was a really great post about writing processes and goals that you can control. This morning, I reread the post.

While I’ve been sick with this cold, I’ve been mulling over how to discipline myself to write in a way that’s going to sustain my career. I’ve tried lots of stuff over the last year and a half, the most usual being variations of different word count goals. The one thing I haven’t stuck to is a daily time goal that takes word counts out of the equation. My problem is I like math. I like my spreadsheets, and word count goals have always seemed like the only real way to track productivity and production. And maybe they are.

But as David Haywood Young says:

…some days I could write 5000 words or more, and other days I wrote nothing at all (which generally involved a lot of pacing and cursing), and…I might as well say my goal is to “sell 1000 copies of my next novel in its first month without advertising”…that’s more of a dream than a goal.

Later, he says:

You know what I can control? Whether my butt’s in my chair.

His words really brought home to me that I’ve been chasing something out of my control.

Now, I know I generally average 500–600 words an hour and that this average is something I’ve calculated based on timed writing sessions over 338.85 hours. ;) I no longer track this because it was  dejecting to see that average never really budge. It is what it is and I’ve accepted that for the time being. After another 500,000 words I’m going to revisit that average, but I don’t see a lot of point until then.

Some days I just don’t write fast, maybe 200 words an hour if I’m lucky. My spreadsheet proves that. Some days I really get on a roll and write 1,000 words an hour and manage 3,000–4,000 or even 5,000 words in a day. And again, my spreadsheet has data that proves that.

Word count goals aren’t working well for me. I don’t meet them most of the time, for various reasons, not the least of which is that if I’m doing really well, I stop too soon because I’ve hit my goal. When I’m doing badly, I end up working long hours to try to meet that number. And although I know my average, I can’t really predict how much extra I should write on the days I’m doing well, to keep ahead of the curve.

So I always end up feeling like I’m behind—and frankly it’s because I usually am behind.

What it comes down to is that I keep going at this all wrong.

If I set a time goal, I’m going to end up with a fairly predictable word count over time. Maybe not on a day-to-day basis, but weekly, and definitely monthly.

So I did the math.

At four hours a day of writing (and nothing but writing during that time), I’ll end up with plenty of words to fill one of my average-sized novels, which is more than double what I’ve averaged in the last year.

So that’s my new goal. Write 4 hours every day.  I don’t see a need to worry about whether I do 30 minute sessions, or 25 minutes, or 1 hour blocks. It’s all irrelevant. The goal is to write 4 hours every day. Simple as that.

Thank you, David Haywood Young. I don’t know you, but your blog post was just the spark I needed. ;D

Book Design Basics? A Place to Get You Started

Lynn

I have read lots on book design over the last few months, but today I felt out of sorts and needed a refresher because I’m in the middle of formatting a book for print. When I typed in my search terms, I ended up at several different places, until I found this one and settled in. The site is full of good information on book design and typography, and I enjoyed reading it immensely.

Here’s the link again: http://theworldsgreatestbook.com/book-design-part-1/

I loved the articles I read, and I feel like I picked up a lot of good information.

Showing Up, Drive, and Doing the Work

Lynn

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZtQKhlI3hag#t=4885s

Oops, I realized I had an error in the link but it’s fixed now!

The link takes you to a very specific point in the YouTube edition of the Self Publishing Podcast. (Fun podcast. Watch out for vulgar language if that bothers you.)

I love this section. I’ve listened to it several times because they are so right about drive and having a work ethic—doing the work. It’s the thing I’ve been working on with myself, trying to improve my consistency and getting my butt into the chair and typing more.

The Reaching of an Elusive Goal; Cue Disaster Music

Lynn

Clarification: After putting a new post up where I talk about writing Novel #6, I skimmed my posts and came across this. This IS Novel #6, but that’s if you count one of the titles that I specifically exclude from the count in the newer post. So, to make this easier, let’s just say this is really Novel #5.

I’m thinking about writing up a series of posts about my books. Since I can’t give away anything about the book itself because it might lead to questions about my pseudonyms or genres I write in (which might also give away my pseudonyms) I’m just going to number the books and stories with a simple numbering system. If you look to the sidebar, you’ll see I have “Accomplishments” listed and I have the numbers of published books and stories I’ve done to date. (This is on the Progress page now.)

I’m currently writing novel #6. Now, the problem is that I got all the way to the end and then just hit a wall. I love the book. But I’m tired of the book. I want it to be done. I have a couple of thousand words left on it, tops, and I have spent the last week and a half working insanely hard to avoid writing those couple thousand words. (DONE! Yea, yea, yea!)

Novel 6 is a good story. I have a little tiny bit of fear related to the story that might be part of the problem but I find it hard to believe that’s the real issue because I’ve had that fear before. I still published my other books.

I’ve also realized perfectionism is messing with my head, but not about the things you might think. No book is ever going to be perfect, and I know that, but I don’t care. Me, writing on a perfect schedule, every day, hitting the goals I set for myself? That’s the problem. I keep searching for answers, and as a friend told me, I seem to be hoping to find someone who can tell me what the perfect system is, the perfect schedule. I’m looking for the best, most efficient way to work, and that search is doing me a whole lot more harm than good.

How that all relates to the writing of novel 6?

I reached my ideal of 1000 words an hour writing 2 days before I hit the wall. I hated it, hated the pressure and the rush, and the absolute certainty that I could do it but that I didn’t want to do it. So now I know that I write at about 600 words an hour because I want to, not because I can’t write faster.

I realized the next day I didn’t want to write. The thought of putting myself into a chair and trying to write 1000 an hour was too much work, felt too hard, too intense. I don’t like that kind of intensity. So now, even though I’ve given myself permission to forego that push for 1000 words an hour for the time being, I still don’t want to write. I stole all my joy and made myself think of writing as work, and I haven’t yet been able to let that thought go.

When I do, I’m sure I’ll be back at it, writing the couple thousand words I need to finish novel 6.

Until then, I’m going to make lunch and trim my fingernails. It’s a ritual. As long as my nails touch the keyboard, I can’t concentrate on anything else. Since I haven’t been able to stop thinking about my nails since I started typing, I know it’s time. :)

More than 1,000 words an hour? Longed for, reached, hated it

Lynn4 Comments

So, I spent a lot of time getting myself to the point of writing 1,000 words an hour. I longed for the days when I could easily associate 1 hour of writing time to 1,000 words. It makes math super easy when I’m trying to figure out how much longer I have on a book. I can guarantee 15–30 minutes downtime for every 1 hour I spend writing … so calculations are easy.

The problem is, the writing for those days read the same as my long-running 600 words an hour average, but the joy I got from writing the words decreased significantly. I felt an unaccountable level of pressure as I typed out every word, forcing myself to keep typing when I would have taken a break and let my fingers rest on the keys. I think the writing was the same, but the process was completely unnatural for me.

I write in bursts: I sit, think, my mind wanders, and then I type, type, type, and then I do the same thing all over again. Catch my wind, so to speak.

Was I just experiencing the natural phase of fatigue and pain as my metaphorical writing muscles stretch and burn before they strengthen? I have no idea. I’m not sure I want to find out. I actually found myself avoiding writing in the days following those 1,000 words an hour days, because I didn’t want to have to work that hard again.

Sigh. I think I need to push through though. I think of my family and friends working at their jobs and I imagine they’re not going to be that sympathetic to me not being able to keep my fingers moving at a rate of 16.6 words per minute. In fact, they might laugh at me.*

My typing speed is around 66–78 words a minute so if I were typing up a dictated report in a different kind of job, the 16.6 words per minute rate implies I’d be spending 13 minutes at my normal typing speed to write those 1000 words and do that 1 hour’s worth of work. Then I’d sit in the break room or surf the internet the other 47 minutes.

I definitely have to strengthen those muscles. It’s idiocy to settle for 600 words an hour. I just need more practice getting to 1,000 so it becomes as easy as the 600 has.**

*I’d laugh at me.

**Update: Failure with this goal has plagued me for most of the year! I wonder if I have what it takes to ever write more than 500–600 words an hour. :(