Category: Learning curve

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

Thinking out loud helps me think better

Lynn

I started wondering at the purpose of this blog again this morning, just as I was about to write another “I’m not meeting my goals at the moment, but I’m going to do better” post and discovered it would be post number 721, and I actually came up with a couple of interesting (to me) answers today.

It comes down to this: I think better when I’m talking or writing. Or I shouldn’t say “think” better, more like, I think in a more organized way—writing things down, or talking them out, is a way for me to unravel the thoughts that knot up in my head. Because that happens a lot. I can get caught up in circular thinking and I lose track of what I’m thinking about even. Since I don’t always have people around to talk to—or I just don’t want to bother those people—I choose to write the thoughts down instead.

I like writing things down. I have lots of journals and notepads and Evernote, and when I get antsy, I start writing it out. I write down so much stuff that I often look back at it and wonder what’s the point, but I do it anyway, again and again. I cannot resist the urge to write stuff down. I don’t really want to resist that urge, tbh.

That still leaves unanswered the question of why I choose to blog those thoughts instead of just leave them in Evernote or in a tablet somewhere (where, tbh, tons and tons of those thoughts still end up despite me having the blog!). I don’t actually know the answer to that. I’ve tried to figure it out a dozen times or twenty, but I never seem to come up with an answer that satisfies me. I’ve tried several times to just limit myself to writing about my writing in Evernote or a journal, and yet, I always end up back here, ready to make all this stuff public.

Maybe it’s a form of accountability that I can’t get anywhere else and I just don’t know where to draw the line about what I share and what I don’t share in the effort to be accountable.

Could be. Could also be—simply—that I like imagining someone reading this stuff and commiserating with me and being hopeful that I’ll eventually reach one of my crazy-big goals. :D

Can’t do that with a private blog in Evernote. No one but me will ever read those things and I’m not enough of a narcissist to think they will. After I die, my journals and computers and files all will end up in the trash or a box in someone’s attic to molder and fade and become obsolete and unusable.

TBH, I don’t mind that. People get on with their lives even after someone dear to them dies and that’s just natural. But while I’m here, I’d prefer to write here, on the blog, and hope that maybe someone will get something—even just a moment’s entertainment—out of my words.

That feels real to me and I think I finally understand why I can’t just keep this all to myself in Evernote.

Sorry, but post number 722 is coming soon. :D

Getting started when I have other things to do today

Lynn

Today, I have a lunch date to keep. I find that when I have things to do, I usually have a lot more trouble focusing. I’m also getting started late, because I spent two hours on a thing that I was sure would take me no more than half an hour to do.

Also, I’ve had a bit of a change in thinking. I think because of the why of the how I write, it might be smart to stop focusing on my words per hour completely. The reason is that I have to do a lot of organizing of my thoughts as I write, because of how disorganized they often are—it’s not often that stuff comes out in the order it needs to be in or that even makes sense, and pushing against that limit could be entirely futile because it’s how I think. It’s something I really haven’t thought too much about, but there’s probably an upper limit to my writing speed (WPH) because of that.

Trying to change how I think—not my thoughts, but actually how I think—might be a huge waste of time. And even if I could change that—and who knows how possible that is?—why try to shore up weaknesses when I can focus on my strengths? I have a decent amount of willpower when I can see the sense in using it. A more effective plan to reach my goals might be to put 100% of my focus and effort on time.

(NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. Can’t do this right now. I really have to stick with my current plan. If I try to change things up right now, I’ll never get to 22,630 words each week. I have to have something to strive for besides just forcing myself to reach a certain number of hours of writing each day.)

It’s funny how I end up in places I’ve already visited, but maybe knowing why I keep ending up there will help me make it stick this time. :)

The fact is, every day is a new day. I can change my mind if it turns out I’ve made a mistake. (YES. I can. And I just changed it.)

I’m still not convinced a schedule should be anything more than a suggestion, but I am thinking a daily time quota should be.

Anyway, it’s 10:20 now and I’m NOT going to let myself keep screwing up today’s start. I have a lot to do, and waiting until tonight to write my first words of the day is not the right plan—it never is, tbh.

So, let’s see how much writing I can get done before I have to stop this morning. Onward!

 

The insidiousness of perfectionism

Lynn

For days my thoughts have been centered on figuring out what categories and tags to create to best organize the posts on this blog. Without admitting it to myself until now, I have very much been looking for the perfect categories and tags, so I can have a perfectly organized blog.

Perfectionism is insidious.

It’s hard to recognize perfectionism for what it is sometimes. I see it now though.

I’ll leave my categories as they are, and I’ll stick with the tags I have now.

I’ll keep the number of general tags I have low. If that means renaming a tag in the future so that more posts fit into it, I’ll do that.

I’ll still allow myself to create specific tags for challenges and things like that to make finding related posts easier. I might cull them every year or so, just to eliminate excess over time; then again, I might not.

Perfectionism is hard to get over. The important thing for me to do is to recognize it when it strikes so I can take measures to mitigate the damage. :)

Revisiting time as a measure of productivity

Lynn

I’ve had some thoughts about time spent writing versus word count quotas that I’m thinking might help me break out of this no-writing funk I’m stuck in.

A while back—more than two years ago, actually—I tried to improve my daily word count by setting myself a daily writing time quota. Although it didn’t work out in the long-run, it did work for a little while. I’m thinking it might be time to revisit “time” as a measuring stick for my dedication to my craft.

I think it might work out better now, and the reason is that I’ve been developing a different attitude about the value of work.

The biggest problem I’ve identified with having a word count quota still exists.

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.

But…

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.

This particular problem no longer resonates with me, and I believe that’s because of the attitude change which has given me a different perspective.

There is no good version of perfectionism

Lynn

I’ve decided: there is no good version of perfectionism. I used to think differently. I used to believe that some level of perfectionism was okay, or good even. I don’t think that way anymore. Perfectionism is an “ism” because it’s a problem.

Perfectionism isn’t about doing your best. It’s about the fantasy of being perfect. Doing your best is exactly what it sounds like: doing your best. That’s not perfectionism. Conflating the two is dangerous, because you can never win; you’ll never reach perfection even if you do your best every single time.

From there, it’s only a short step to never being good enough. Doing your best won’t matter, because you’ll still feel like you failed.

Perfectionism isn’t about striving to be better, it’s about striving to be perfect. I can easily imagine someone objecting to my rejection of perfectionism with the excuse that it’s okay to try to be better, but that’s the thing. Striving to be better, striving to improve is about improving, not about perfection. Taking it to the place where you need to be perfect isn’t going to do you any favors for the very reason I talked about above: if perfect is your goal, you’ll never get there.

That’s why I no longer believe there’s any good version of perfectionism. None. Perfectionism is a problem that I need to get out of my life in every possible way I can.

Perfection will hold you back. It definitely holds me back. It slows me down when I write and it steals the fun from writing. It often keeps me from enjoying what I do.

There is no good version of perfectionism.

Caffeine Withdrawal—Again

Lynn

Last night I decided I had to give up coffee again. I started slipping up about a month or two ago, having a home-brewed cup every so often. Then I gave up grinding beans and using my coffee press in favor of single-serving bags as a way to drink just a bit without the hassle. Just a bit turned into morning coffee 6 days in a row and afternoon coffee once. And yesterday, I had an episode of irritability that really reminded me of one of the benefits of quitting caffeine/coffee for me: mood stability.

So here I am, going through withdrawal—again—and struggling with a headache when I’m supposed to be writing.

I hope this is the last time. It might not be, but I have so many reasons to stay away from caffeine, if I can only remember them (and think them as important!) in the moment.

Typing Improvement

Lynn

Another thing I’ve challenged myself to this year is to improve the accuracy of my typing. I’m a touch typist, something I learned in high school, and I can type about 60 words a minute. My accuracy is terrible and I expend a lot of effort backspacing and correcting errors. I can’t go on if I know an error is there. So the first thing I need to improve about my typing is my accuracy.

I did a few typing tests and some exercises. My speed is just over 60 wpm (not slower unless I’m trying to type numbers and special symbols), and a bit closer to 70 wpm if I’m typing plain text.

I think I’ll do some self-study on this for a while instead of using online tools and practice stroking the keys I’m most likely to confuse or miss until I can hit them every time without thinking about it.

 

100 Design Tutorials Challenge: Soft Light Photo Effects

Lynn

I decided not to do a cover design challenge just yet. I definitely feel like I need to learn more before I start pushing myself in that direction. Instead, I came up with something I think is more in line with what I need right now: I’m going to watch or read 100 design tutorials that will help me understand more about design, what I can do, and how to do it. I’ll also practice what I learn, but that’s not something I’m going to make part of this challenge.

Today I watched this tutorial.

https://youtu.be/6vVKC7yweFo

My plan is to keep up a log here of the tutorials I’ve watched or read as an easy way to keep track of my progress with the challenge.

This particular tutorial taught me that it’s a fairly straightforward and simple process to swap out similar backgrounds in a photo. Also, playing with color and light can make a huge difference in how warm a photo looks. Adding shadows gives depth. The final image shown here would make a really nice cover for a romantic YA story, whereas the original seems much too harsh for a successful cover.

I’m definitely going to practice some of the stuff I saw in this video.

An early beginning for the new year

Lynn

I’m hoping for a successful return to work today. This isn’t January 1, but it’s the beginning of the new year to me, and I want to start off strong. My plan is to aim for 4,558 words on every day that I’m supposed to be writing. That’s most days.

Here’s my schedule of days off for the next 12 months.

Holidays – 4 days a year
Unexpected – 12 (sick days mostly)
Vacation – 14
Occasional weekend – 48 (that’s 4 days a month)

Total days off – 78
Total working days – 287

Publishing days – 36 (3 days each month I won’t be writing)
Writing days – 251 (21 approx writing days each month)

Some months will have more, some months should have less, because of the fall of holidays, sickness, vacation time, and weekend days, but overall, I’m aiming for 95,333 words each month, and that’s what I’ll push for each month.

This works for me because I don’t have a lot of leisure activities I like as much as I like writing, and I cannot stand telling myself I can’t write because someone else thinks I should be doing something besides “working” (yet I have a history of taking way too much time away, but that’s another issue!). And seriously, 21+3=24 work days a month on average, and that’s just a bit more than a regular work week, but not when you take into consideration that I almost never get in 8 hours of work time a day.

I’d say this schedule is very average for number of hours of work each month. The only time I’m really pushing myself is during publishing weeks, and that I have to admit usually has me working 16 hour days. On the other hand, recently, that’s only happened about 4 times a year (definitely happened more when I was just starting out because I spent so much time learning). Going forward, I’ll be trying to cut those days down into more reasonable chunks.

I have never written that many (fiction) words in one month (95,333), but I want January to be the first month I do it. The month has very few holidays (none for which I plan to take time away from writing), and it’s a long month. I’m feeling good about it right now.

So, time to get started. I will post about today’s progress at the end of the day today. My aim is to have 4,558 words finished as early in the day as possible today. I’d aim for a record but I can’t. I have some important things to do, so when I hit 4,558 words, I’m stopping until all those other things are done.

Cover design frustrates me, but I do it anyway

Lynn

Have I mentioned before that designing covers for my books frustrates me? Yes? I thought so.

I’ve been trying to learn more about all of it, but I still can’t visualize what I want and then translate that into something that makes sense. I usually have to have a really good piece of stock art to get what I want quickly. Doesn’t usually happen. I’m not good at picking stock art, because I’m not good at visualizing what I can do with it once I have it. I seem to buy licenses for all the wrong stuff and then have to try again. And again. ;)

Today, I seem to have come up with an okay design for my next release, although something’s still off about it. Still, it will be a record-breaking achievement if I only make a few tweaks to this and consider it done.* It came together so much quicker than I’m used to stuff coming together. Or maybe it just feels that way because my new “publishing days” workflow gives me an entire day for cover design and nothing else! That my dear has turned out to be a genius move for me. I feel a distinct lack of stress about this cover. Also, I have finally accepted that covers just have to be good enough not to suck and they’ll get the job done; I’m sure that attitude is helping too.**

Finally, I do want to devote some more time to tutorials, but I’ve been so focused on increasing my daily word counts that I just haven’t had the energy left for it. Nor to spend on practicing cover design.

I have no interest in doing nothing but writing; I like having hobbies, and designing my own covers would be a great one to have. But I’ve had to focus on priorities right now, which is learning how to get more words written each day without it taking me all day to do it. :D I’ll get there, and then I’ll turn my attention to become a better cover designer for myself.

I want to redo a lot of my covers, and tbh, I would like to hire it out, but every time I consider it, I think about how that will bottleneck my publishing workflow and I really can’t stand the idea. If I had unlimited money where I could get anyone at any price to do the work on my timetable and do it exactly the way I wanted, then I think it would be easier to let go. But there’s also the fact that I want to be a good cover designer. Because of these things, I always keep coming back to the idea that I just need to suck it up and keep trying. If I don’t give up, eventually I’ll learn how to design great covers myself.

*I redid the cover and then redid it again and then again. In the end, I spent three entire days on this particular cover. :o

**Apparently that attitude didn’t help after all. See note * above. :D

Addendum: I tried hiring it out and I learned a valuable lesson: hiring out doesn’t work for me, at all.

Jealous of another’s success? Change your perspective

Lynn

Honestly, it’s hard to admit sometimes that I’ve been jealous of other authors’ successes, but lying about it doesn’t really help, so I admit freely that there have been days where I just didn’t understand why some writers were more successful than me. It didn’t feel fair, and boy did those feelings hurt.

I’ve always been uncomfortable with those kinds of feelings. I don’t think jealousy is healthy and although I think it’s a normal feeling, I don’t like it and I’ve never wanted to be the kind of person who is okay with feeling that way.

Then one day, I had one of those moments of clarity where I realized something about my view of the world and how that was contributing to those feelings and it wasn’t because I was spending time in the wrong places, reading the wrong kinds of success stories, or anything like that.

Let me start with this: I don’t buy lottery tickets.

It actually does play into what this epiphany was about.

I’ve never thought I was a lucky person. Yet I’ve always believed luck plays a huge role in how a person’s life goes.

What it came down to was that if I believed luck had such a big role in whether or not I became as successful as some other author having great success, and I believed that I was an unlucky person, that meant I had pretty much already given up hope that I could ever reach the levels of success I want to reach.

Let me add this: I’ve always thought a person can learn just about anything if the person is driven enough to learn it.

I don’t necessarily believe anybody can do anything, because there are real world limitations, but there’s always hope that those limitations won’t stop them from learning something about what they want to learn, or even that they’ll find a way around that limitation and learn something in a whole new way.

I’ve also always believed that there’s always somebody out there who can do anything I and you and everyone else can do and do it better. Always.

All this came together in that moment while I was washing dishes (a favorite thinking spot for me) and made me realize that a change to my perspective could overcome every struggle I’ve ever had with these feelings of jealousy and envy, take away the unhappiness they were always causing me, and give me back my optimism.

All I had to do was admit that the authors doing better than me are more skilled writers than me. This kind of change in perspective probably only works for people like me, but for me, it has been a life-changing epiphany.

I mean, as long as I’m alive, I can keep learning, improving my skills, and becoming better at what I do. Even when I’m seventy-five years old, there’s the possibility that I’ll have a break through and become the kind of writer I’ve always wanted to be before I reach eighty!

And I don’t mind imagining that every successful writer is just better at writing than me. I don’t mind at all, because I can accept that there’s always somebody better. And I’ve never been one to be jealous of another person’s skills, simply because I believe that skills can be learned.

Hope is really the answer to most feelings of jealousy and envy, but it can be difficult to see that sometimes. I didn’t even realize a lot of these feelings were coming about because of an unacknowledged lack of hope. I mean, I didn’t sit around telling myself I was unlucky and that I had almost no chance of reaching the levels of success that some of my fellow authors have reached, because so much of success is dependent on luck and I had none.

But that’s exactly what I think I was doing.

And a change in perspective was all it took to give myself hope.

If you have feelings of jealousy and envy you can’t seem to get past, stop and think about how you see the world. Do you believe success is dependent on luck or skill? Then change your perspective and see if that helps you overcome those feelings.

 

What is a reasonable daily word count goal?

Lynn

I had to spend some time researching this, because the fact is, I have no idea how to set reasonable goals for myself. In the end, I didn’t find much helpful information out there and that’s probably because the answer depends on who’s asking the question.

In trying to nail down a reasonable goal for myself, I’m looking at a few different things.

  1. How many hours I have available to write. (Lots.)
  2. How much of my time is lost to breaks. (So, so much. Too much.)
  3. How much I can reasonably write in that time. (Not so much if past is a predictor of future performance—but does it have to be?)

I’ve decided that studying the past and looking at averages isn’t a good idea for me. I mean, the whole purpose of this is to give me a number I can aim for each day, but a number that’s not out of my reach. Something that I can legitimately expect from myself, not a number that is a hoped for but not often attained goal. I want this reasonable number to be something that will force me to face facts. Am I putting enough effort into my daily writing?

So, if I answer with as much honesty as I can squeeze out of myself, this is what I come up with.

  1. I have to explain this answer. Writing is both a work and leisure activity for me. What that means is that I’m just as happy doing it as any other leisure activity, as a general rule. Not to say there aren’t times when I’d rather be doing something else, but it’s at least as important to me as anything else I relax with. So, when I take out sleep time, personal hygiene activities, and chores (the least I can possibly get away with because life is short and I hate chores and I’m actually fairly efficient at getting them done quickly) I end up with about 14 hours.
    24 − 8.25 − 1 − .5 = 14.25
    It’s too much to expect myself to spend all this time writing, but it’s a place to start.
  2. I take a lot of breaks. I have reasons for some of those breaks because I like my tea and I have a particular bladder condition that means my days are filled with a lot of pee breaks. If this is TMI for you, you might not want to read my blog because I don’t have a lot of respect for the TMI rule. :D Let’s say I can learn to limit these (change is hard but not impossible). ;) Let’s say I can cut down to 25% of my time lost to breaks. Right now I swear sometimes it’s closer to 50%, but that’s because I’m terribly bad at letting myself start things during my breaks that almost always take longer than I expect. Let’s say I can stop that. So, 25% of writing time is not going to be used for writing.
  3. My overall WPH average is currently 524 words. More recently, that average has gone up to 641 words per hour. I’m going to use 641, just because I want to.
    14.25 × 75% × 641 = 6,850
    But answer #1 says I can’t use 14.25 hours. It’s just not realistic. I mean, when am I going to cook, eat, yell at my kids :D, and all the other stuff that inevitably needs to be done every day? So I did a few more calculations. Say it’s reasonable to write during only 50% of that 14.25 hours.
    7.125 × 75% × 641 = 3,425
    On the other hand, say it’s reasonable to write during 66% of that 14.25 hours, still leaving almost 5 hours for stuff besides those allowances I’ve already made.
    9.405 × 75% × 641 = 4,521
    I can cut this last one back to a very conservative 525 WPH pace, and I still come up with 3,703 words. That’s a good check figure. It falls somewhere in between my two main results and shows that even if I have a day where my pace slows down, I should still expect something that falls within the range I’ve calculated. Of course, I could keep tweaking these numbers and pretty much make them spit out any result I want. I’m not going to do that. This calculation uses reasonable assumptions and I’m sticking with it.

And there you have it. I should be expecting myself to reach at least something approaching these numbers every day that I write. Just looking at that makes me feel like a complete and total slacker, because I’m nowhere near those numbers on a regular basis.

All that said, I have no intention of using these calculations to create another schedule for myself or set a time-based writing goal. All I wanted to know was what a reasonable daily word count is for me, as a full time writer. It’s a lot more than I thought it would be.

It’s also a little bit inspiring. ;) I can do this.

Maybe, maybe, maybe!

Lynn

I want to start sticking to my plans more often. It might help if I made more reasonable plans, but I don’t seem to know how to do that, or to know what reasonable for me is.

The problem with reasonable, and me, is that some days 3,000 words as a goal is reasonable. Some days, it’s impossible.

I don’t even know why.

I’ve been trying to use averages, but averages aren’t working well. My averages are based on numbers that vary wildly. If those daily numbers more often ranged toward the average, it would be easier to say that I should aim for my average.

Maybe my mistake is not aiming for my highest word counts every day but being accepting of the days where it just doesn’t happen. That’s about the only way at the moment that I see myself ever reaching and maintaining a higher daily average word count.

But that kind of daily goal generates a lot of pressure and it’s too easy for me to forget that it’s okay if I don’t make it there every day. I have a faulty memory when it comes to that kind of thing.

Still, it’s about the only option I haven’t tried recently and nothing else is working.

I want that higher word count.

Maybe I should abandon the use of averages altogether. Maybe I should start aiming for a weekly or monthly number of words and my daily goal is a multiple of that. Then if I don’t reach my daily goals, at the end of the month, I still have a real chance of reaching those numbers despite falling short on a day to day basis.

Maybe, maybe, maybe!

All these maybes are starting to make me crazy.

 

New plan

Lynn

This year has turned out to be my lowest word count year since I started publishing in 2012. I’m not happy about that. I want to turn that around and I still have time.

I am a natural procrastinator. I tend to have to work with my rhythms or I crash and burn. I’ve had to admit my schedule has not been working. I mean, it’s kept my monthly word count a little more consistent, but my overall word count is down. By a lot. I have really counted on those few high intensity work days to kind of make up for the low times and the schedule put a stop to those 16 hr days. Sounds more balanced but it’s been really bad for my word count!

On that note, here’s the plan for the rest of the year: Use timers to try to get enough writing done each day to reach and maintain a daily average of 2,995 words. That’s really the sum total of my plan. :)

Challenges for the win

Lynn

I wrote “the year of the schedule is sputtering to an end” and immediately thought about my “no more zero word days” challenge and how it’s still pushing me to write something every day even when I really, really don’t want to.

Last night was absolutely painful getting the words down. I was tired after spending more than 5 hours rearranging my living room furniture. I still wasn’t happy at the end of the night. This morning I worked out the kinks and I’ve got something I can live with for a while, I think. I didn’t have anything to add to my current scene. In fact, I came close for the second (or third) time this week to deleting the last 2000 words. I do, in fact, think that’s what I’m going to do today. It’s time to admit the story is stalled because I went somewhere with it that I don’t like and that just isn’t working for me. It’s time to get rid of that and start over.

And yet, I continue to write something each day on one of my books in progress so I can keep my streak alive.

It’s definitely something to work with.

The year of the schedule is sputtering to an end

Lynn

At what point do I just admit the schedule isn’t working and give it up? I don’t know if I’m there yet but I’m getting close.

Ah. Maybe it’s already time.

The schedule really isn’t working anymore.

In all honesty, I can’t say if it ever worked past those first few good weeks. Even then, my progress was scattered. It’s probable that the boost in productivity came about because of a random surge in creativity or with the excitement of trying something new. I like newness.

I have books to write and the schedule isn’t getting them written. Today, facing this, I am sad.

I’m back!

Lynn

Didn’t think I was going to show up again for a while, did you? Me neither! but I did it. Three consecutive days of >1,000 words.

3,189
2,740
1,116
1,075

I did those words not on one story but on five. I’ve got six novels and a short story I want to finish by the end of the year and I can do it if I start averaging closer to 3000 words a day as long as I stick to working only on those projects.

I’m nowhere near that right now, but all it’s going to take is training. Already 3000 words is starting to feel a whole lot more doable each day. It just doesn’t have that hugeness to it that it used to have.

The No More Zero Word Days restart has given me a lot of words I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Also, I’ve had two nights where I couldn’t stand to stop before I reached that 1000 word goal. Writing every day is good for me. Letting myself work on whatever has my interest at the moment also seems to be good for me.

Writing crazy long blog posts? Not so good for me.

So, I’m banning writing here until I’ve had 3 days in a row of >2,000 words. Fingers crossed I’ll be back in 3 days!

Refocusing on my schedule

Lynn

I can’t really explain why I didn’t end up writing much yesterday. I did get a few words in at the end of the day, enough to make me comfortable saying that I am restarting my “no more zero word days” challenge. From yesterday forward, no more zero word days. The more days I can string together, the greater my victory. Failure just means I have another opportunity to create an even longer string of days.

Funnily enough, after writing yesterday that it’s been five months since I started trying to follow my current schedule, I have decided that following the schedule alone is not going to be enough to keep me writing on a regular basis.

I’ve crunched some numbers and discovered that some of my best daily word count averages were stretched over times when I kept myself accountable for how much time I spent writing, not how much time I had set aside to write. It didn’t seem to matter how I held myself accountable, whether it was timed writing or simply timing my writing (counting down versus counting up), only that I was accountable for what time I did spend writing.

That probably explains why the schedule worked so well to start with but no longer seems to make a difference. In the beginning, I did treat those times much more like timed writing sessions, whereas now, I seem to treat the schedule more as time set aside during which I should be writing. I don’t even feel that guilty when I don’t write during that time! This post proves it. It’s 10:34, and I should be writing right this minute.

I’m not ready to give up the current schedule (because I really like it and I do feel that of all the schedules I’ve ever tried, it’s the one that suits me best), but there’s not a lot of room for doubt about how I should be thinking of my writing time and it’s not the way I’m currently thinking of it.

I’m going to continue to try to find ways to push myself to write during my scheduled times, using whatever tricks are necessary. I meant it when I said this was the year of the schedule. The year isn’t over yet and I’m sticking it out.

Here’s a short quote from what I wrote in that post. It’s why I’m not giving up on the schedule, even after five months of mostly failure. I did take a quick look and I was wrong about the three weeks of success. It was closer to six. Six weeks of success out of five months isn’t that bad.

So here’s the challenge. I’m going to make a schedule. Every day will be a challenge to stick to it. I’ll probably fail more often than I succeed. Maybe if I’m lucky some good habits will develop around the times I’m supposed to be writing that will make it work over the long-term even if I have a lot of short-term failures. If not, well, how’s it any worse than what I’ve already got going on?

No more searching for the best system, no more word count quotas or goal-setting, no more excuses. It’s time to move on from all that and settle in. The remainder of 2015 is going to be the year of the schedule.

As for today, I’m still thrilling over how fun writing was on Wednesday when I was working through my list of stories, trying to write 50 words on each one and then moving on, so even though I had trouble getting started yesterday, I don’t think I’m going to have trouble getting started today because it’s not the writing that’s the issue. It’s my lack of respect for my writing time. Which I’m about to fix right this minute.

First step in practicing writing faster is going to have me keeping up with how much time I spend writing these blogs posts.

Started: 10:07 am
Finished: 10:55 am

An experiment with my next cover, GIMP, and Photoshop

Lynn

Okay, so in only a little over a week or so, I really have to begin work on a cover image for an upcoming book. I thought I would run an experiment. I’m going to try to create the same cover in both GIMP and Photoshop and see which one I work best in. Despite being almost certain Photoshop is going to win, I’m not ready to commit to the subscription service if I don’t actually find it easier to create a cover in Photoshop. The proof will be in the real world application and not in that place in my head where I think I know something is true without having put it into practice.

I’m only as good a cover designer as I’ve needed to be, so this should be fun! :)

GIMP versus Photoshop

Lynn

I’ve been a GIMP user for several years now. I’ve thought it was an adequate substitute for my outdated version of Photoshop, and it was. Not so for the newer versions of Photoshop, which I now know for certain. I started using the trial of the newest Photoshop a few days ago, and I’m tickled at how much easier it is to do some things that I had a lot of trouble doing in GIMP.

It’s making me excited to spend more time learning more cover design stuff. Honestly, Gimp had begun to frustrate me. The latest update broke the interface a bit and it was annoying. I use a laptop with a smallish screen most of the time, and I love the more compact icons of Photoshop compared to Gimp. Also, right off, I noticed some significant differences in file sizes when I exported my cover in progress.

Gimp: My 1625 x 2600 JPG saved at 100% quality came in at 4,211 KB
I exported the Gimp file as a PSD and opened it in Photoshop, checked the layers and made sure everything looked good, then exported the JPG at 100% quality. Photoshop: My 1625 x 2600 JPG saved at 100% quality came in at 1,078 KB

Both were set at 300 PPI and the image properties show that Photoshop didn’t change that, so that’s not the difference.

Unless there’s something I’m missing, this seems to me like something of note. Now I can upload the same file to NookPress that I upload elsewhere (NookPress has a 2 MB limit) and I can stop saving multiple versions of cover images because of file size issues.

The PSD files are also a bit smaller than the XCF files. I backup to many places, but three of those places are Drive, Dropbox, and a 16 G memory card, all of which have limited storage. Some of my XCF files are over 500,000 KB, not leaving me much room to have duplicates for backup in the main directories (which I prefer to do for safety when I’m making changes).

All in all, I’m pretty happy right now with the change. I’m definitely going to subscribe to Adobe CC. The only decision left is whether or not I’m just going to go for the photography plan at $9.99/month, or if I’m going for the entire Creative Cloud deal at $49.99/month.

I’m just about decided to go with the whole shebang even though I hate subscriptions. I might even give InDesign another shot. ;)