Impulsivity strikes again

I came close to deleting every post on this site this morning. I did delete most of the tags (not the first time I’ve done this) and deleted and renamed some categories.

The fact is, I have no idea how to categorize most of the posts on this blog, but I would like to group things together in a more useful way. Most of what I write is just about my writing woes of the moment, and I often don’t realize I’m revisiting a particular line of thought until I can’t remember when (or in what post) I mentioned it before.

So, today I’m organizing this blog. (Yes, it’s also procrastination. I should be working on my latest book.)

I am procrastinating, but I used the opportunity to make a decision

I’ve been looking for a good case for using sentence case instead of title case for my post titles, and I’ve finally found one.

I found Are you Team Title Case or Team sentence case? today, and although I should totally have been able to say to myself, “Self, it’s okay to use whatever case you want to use,” I haven’t found it to be as easy as all that. I have continued to waffle on the issue, as a look through my archives could prove. (This is a pattern in my life in so many ways, I tell you.)

My favorite reason from the post?

4. Sentence case mirrors human-to-human communication style

Human beings don’t send each other texts, social updates and emails written in title case – that’s the mark of a corporate voice, someone trying to sell us something or make an official proclamation to a mass audience.

It’s sentence case for my titles from now on.

Why am I still up?

Coffee. I shouldn’t have drank it and now… I’m still up at 1:00 am and I know better. Tomorrow is supposed to be me getting back to writing one of my books and working on hitting a word count record.

Holy crap. I’ve lost all self-control.

I hate caffeine.

New theme and yes, that’s my real desk

That’s it! I like this theme a lot! I saw it on a website I shouldn’t have been on because no, I haven’t finished my writing today and it’s not dinnertime.

That desk is where I sometimes work. (Update: pic is gone because it was a header pic and another theme change obliterated it.) I have moved it though. Now it’s at a right angle to that window and in the “command position” in that very small room. Oh, and I have a new chair. I wrote posts about both of those things but I can’t remember when. :D (Found them.)

The only thing I don’t like about this theme is how links aren’t underlined and the text color is almost a match for the link color. Hmm. I might have to tweak it! We’ll see, but absolutely not right now.* I must turn my attention to writing or I’m going to want to kick my own rear later tonight. :o

*Ta-da. I fixed the links anyway. Took about 5-10 minutes to install Child Theme Configurator, generate a child theme, find the link css in the original stylesheet, copy it, paste it in my new child theme, and save. I still shouldn’t have done it. :( Boo on me.

Jeeves and Wooster

I’ve been watching Jeeves & Wooster and boggling over a young Hugh Laurie of House fame. :) He was such a cute young man, and of course, Bertie Wooster is nothing like Dr. House so that just makes it all so much more unbelievably fun.

Jeeves & WoosterI would have never realized this show existed if I hadn’t been reading P. G. Wodehouse of late, and then at my latest visit to my favorite bookstore within 200 miles (McKay’s) I came across a set of DVDs for the show.

Jeeves & Wooster covers ground that several of the stories in the collections I’ve read so far covers, but I don’t mind. Now every time I read more in the Jeeves and Wooster series, I hear Hugh Laurie’s and Stephen Fry’s voices. It’s not a terrible hardship. :)

Bought a pretty journal (can’t bring myself to write in it)

Isn’t that ironic? I bought a lovely journal to write in, but now I can’t bring myself to write in it because it’s so pretty.

Persian Splendor JournalThis isn’t a surprise to me. I have lots of pretty journals that I haven’t been able to write in. When I get ready to write, I end up pulling out one of the hundred or so spiral notebooks I got for $0.10 apiece at Walmart about eight or nine years ago. I love writing in those things and I don’t know why. I guess it feels disposable. A hardback journal doesn’t and I worry about mistakes.

(I have a real soft spot for blues. Definitely my favorite color!)

I deleted all my tags

I wanted to do a clean up on them and it was taking too long. I admit I’m supposed to be writing right now, and deleting them seemed the quickest way to accomplish my goal of getting myself back to work. :) No tags = nothing to clean up!

I’ll probably bring some of them back later, when I can do it without wasting good writing time, because they do make it a bit easier to find related posts. :)

On to the next book

Okay, I stayed up until 4 am getting that publishing stuff done. But it’s done. :)

I really wish I’d been able to sleep later than 7:30 this morning, because yeah, that’s some serious sleep deficit there. I feel it. Surprisingly I’m not sleepy, but I am very tired. Thinking about taking a cool bath and falling asleep in the tub tonight. ;)

Tomorrow I won’t have any excuse to fail when it comes to my schedule, so my number one priority tonight is not to stay up too late!

My telephone cooperative is more responsive than I thought

My phone is fixed.

The repairman showed up at 9 am sharp when I was supposed to start writing so I’m getting a late start today. Apparently the lightning fried the filter that separates data from voice transmissions, which also explains why I still had internet service but no phone service. Once that was fixed, I discovered that my two downstairs phones had also been fried. I do have working phone service now though, using my old upstairs phone that’s probably 25 years old. I do miss my cordless! I’ll have to replace it ASAP, but I’m relieved that I won’t have to worry about this any longer.

Stressed (and frustrated)

I didn’t succeed in writing much today. I ended the day at 393 words. I spent a lot of my writing time reading sections of a previous book in the series for one of the books I’m starting next. For the moment, I’m working on two books, because I haven’t decided which one I want to dig into. I know which one I should dig into, but I rarely let that stop me from doing what I want instead. :)

A lightning strike this evening knocked out my phone service. It’s Friday night, so yippee. I have no idea how I still have internet, because it’s DSL (through my phone line) because I definitely don’t have phone service. I unplugged every phone in the house and tried each one all by its lonesome and still no service. Tomorrow I’ll unplug the modem and see if any of the phones work while it’s unplugged. That’s the one thing I forgot to try.

I now have a headache, because I hate stressful things like the phone thing. I won’t stop worrying about this until it’s fixed. Considering where I live and how small my local telephone cooperative is, I’ll probably be lucky to get it back on Monday.

I still haven’t finished the copy edit of my latest book because I can’t bring myself to sit down and read my book for more than half an hour at a time, followed by a 5 hour break! I have no idea why this is a problem.

I’m ready to just go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and start over.

Yep, that’s right. I’d like a do-over, please.

Tomorrow I make my adjusted schedule work for me.

Tired of this cold and tired of not having a better routine

It’s day 7 of the cold. I want to write more today than yesterday. I never got to it, although I did read two more of the series books that precede the book I’m working on now. I feel like I have a good handle on the story to date and I’m ready to write, except, well, I’m tired. Colds will do that to you I guess. I read on one of the health sites that they typically last one to two weeks. I’ve developed a bit of a cough that’s irritating my lungs and throat. I’m hopeful I’m on the downward slope here, but I think I’m going to try to doze for a bit before I start writing today.

I have a routine I want to settle into and this is really messing with it, but I want over this cold, the sooner the better, and honestly, I’m barely keeping my eyes open right now. I think I need the rest.

Here’s the routine.

Write from 7 to 2. This isn’t “sit down and write and do nothing else” time. I just want to start fitting my writing in between 7 and 2 so I can stop living in the moment all the time. I have a lot of trouble prioritizing when I’m in the moment. :) In fact, living in the moment is exactly the opposite of what I need to do more often because I do it all the time. I really think that the living in the moment philosophy was created for people with distinctly different personalities than the one I have.

Other stuff after 2 pm. Publishing stuff, life stuff, that kind of thing. Since the publishing stuff I need to do right now is to finish formatting those paperbacks I haven’t done yet, that’s really all I have to do right now other than personal stuff after 2. I do my folks’ taxes and that’s on my list these next couple of weeks, and my own taxes of course. If I can get ahead of my 2,000 a day average, I could take a whole day for the paperbacks, but until I get this next book finished, I’m not going to do that unless I do get ahead. There will definitely be some days where I take the whole day to do publishing stuff, such as after I actually finish a book, but during the writing of said books, I’d like to stick to this routine.

Read through the day’s writing from 7 to 8 pm. Or however long it takes. I doubt it’ll take an hour to read a couple of thousand words. I haven’t changed my overall desire to write an average of 2,000 words a day, although I did have to reset my expectations already when I noticed my expectations creeping up. That happens a lot apparently. I get really bogged down in the copy editing and stuff when I’m done with a story, and I get super nervous worrying that I might have missed something important, and I think this might help. I’ve stopped reading through the previous day’s writing as I’ve become more focused on my words per hour rate and more than just making that final read through more stressful, I also think it’s hurt my enjoyment of writing. This way I can make corrections as I go and when I do that final read through I might not worry so much that I’ve missed something—and maybe I’ll enjoy it a bit more too. ;)

Read fiction from 8:30 til bedtime. This way I can fit in all the reading I want to do this year!

That’s really it. I don’t consider this a schedule, although I’m sure it fits that definition for some folks. For me, it’s just the routine I’d like to find myself slipping into so that I can concentrate on getting all those books I’d like to write this year written.

Now, time for that rest. I’m sleepy and my chest is hurting and I can’t believe it’s just 8:38 am. Hopefully I’ll wake up all energized and ready to write. I’ll probably need to get started by 10 if I want a chance of reaching 2,000 today without writing past 2 o’clock.

Only talk when you have something to say

Hmm. I’m not sure who uttered those words first but I’d like to say… I do, thank you very much. I have quite a lot to say, and if you don’t particularly want to hear any of it, because it’s boring, or some such thing, well, then, you probably shouldn’t be here because I rarely don’t have something to say. ;)

Stats posts revisited

I’m not really seeing the point of these posts when I can just redo the accountability page I created last year and keep it updated once a week or so instead, so that’s what I’m going to do from here on out. That way I don’t have to keep remembering how I did the last stats post when I’m ready to update! :)

I haven’t gotten back to the story yet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Routine Troubles ;)

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

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

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

The Stats Posts

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