Category: Writing

Posts about writing. Writing is my work but since I work better when I pretend work isn’t work, I mostly call it fun—even when it isn’t. ;)

Funnily enough I feel good about writing today

Lynn

After last night’s contemplative mood, I’m surprised by how well I feel today, about writing, about the future, about everything.

Well, except for the spider infestation I seem to be dealing with. Not so happy about that! But they’re little spiders, with feathery legs, and those kind don’t trigger my phobia the way most other spiders do.

Still, not that happy that one landed on my bed last night and started trucking it right up beside my leg. I couldn’t find any sign of where it came from, but I’ll be vacuuming my bedroom ceiling today regardless. Then of course I came down to find one tucked up in the corner over the breakfast room window and another in the corner of the hallway that leads to the garage. I vacuumed those ceilings just a couple of days ago. Let me just say, as a five foot one person with nine foot high ceilings, this has been a chore and a half! My bedroom has a tray ceiling and the middle section is ten foot high. That’s going to be fun.

So, on that note, I’d like to finish my writing before I have to go up and start vacuuming ceilings again. I figure when I’m done, all I’m going to want to do is crash on the couch and read a book!

Okay, on to today’s plan. I’m going to go with 45 minute blocks, because they divide evenly into 3 hours. I’m planning four of them.

I decided last night after some vague contemplation (I wasn’t forcing these thoughts) that 3 hours a day even if I reach 1,557 words earlier isn’t a bad expectation. I see no reason why I wouldn’t want to write for at least that long most days. So although I haven’t decided it’s a rule or anything, I think aiming for a complete 3 hours each day of writing isn’t asking too much of myself. Preferably I’ll do this in the mornings, but on days when I don’t, I’ll try not to stretch out my day to the point that I’m finishing an hour of writing at bedtime. Some authors do well writing late at night. I don’t. I give up much too easily when I’m tired. So I have to stop putting myself in that position.

Write early, write more later if I want.

Now to go write.

I don’t know

Lynn

I let my streak of writing every day end yesterday. Technically, I did sit at the computer and write, but it was of such a small amount that it didn’t overcome a few minor deletions and left me with a net word count of -40 for the day.

So why am I not counting it?

I asked myself that last night when I consciously decided I just wasn’t going to write any more and I wasn’t going to count what I’d done. The streak was dead. I read a book yesterday, finished it even (not one I’d recommend so I’ll just leave it there), and I was tired. Not too tired to write at least a few hundred words. But a hundred or two words felt like a token number just so I could count it for the streak, and I had a moment where I just thought, that’s ridiculous. And it really felt ridiculous. Even now, it feels kind of ridiculous. So I let it die.

I’ve always had a lot of difficulty figuring out exactly what I want of myself when it comes to writing, because there are so many things I want and not all of them make sense when taken together. I want to be prolific and write every day and finish books unusually fast. I want to sit down in the mornings and write until I’m tired of writing and then get on with my day. I want to split up my writing throughout the day so I don’t feel trapped in a routine. I only want to write when I want to write, but I want that to be every day.

What I do know:

Writing every day isn’t as important as writing most days. (Is this self-justification for last night’s choice?)

Writing 1,557 words every day isn’t as important as averaging 1,557 words a day. (We all know every day just isn’t going to happen in the real world. Not with something that’s going to take over an hour even on the absolute best of days.)

Still, 1,557 words a day is a nice number. A magic number, if you will, because I always feel like I can write that number of words in a very short amount of time, even if that hasn’t proven to be true, yet, with this particular book.

Knowing how other people self-publish and market doesn’t interest me. I’ll do things my way until my way doesn’t work anymore. Then I’ll worry about figuring out how to do things some other way.

I write fiction for a reason that has more to do with lifestyle than money.

What I need to do is stop thinking so much about the why and how and when, and just write.

Routines bore me. But I’m constantly fighting the feeling that I need a routine. I want one. I daydream about having one, how my life would be so calm and awesome and I’d sit down in the mornings with a cup of tea or coffee (which I no longer drink) and I’d write my words, and then I’d get up and go for a walk, then sit down with a good book, have lunch, go out, and go to bed feeling accomplished and satisfied, then I’d get up the next day and do it all over again.

It’s a very detailed daydream. ;)

The only problem is that I have no idea how to make it a reality because every time I try to get a routine going, I bail on it. I can’t take it after a while. I feel like I’m suffocating. It’s horrible. I hate it. I get bored so easily and that routine, the one I daydream about, would kill me after about three weeks.

So what do you do when the life you imagine you want isn’t the life that actually fits your personality?

I don’t know.

So here I am. It’s 8:41 pm and I haven’t written any fiction today. I did read every article I had waiting for me in Pocket—quite a few actually. They’d been building up. I talked to my mother. I watched a few episodes of television.

Now I’m feeling contemplative, but I need to start writing.

I guess I’ll do that.

Oh, and here’s an essay I read this afternoon that I can recommend and it ties in nicely to my previous post: “Avoid News: Towards a Healthy News Diet” by Rolf Dobelli. Yes, I did seek out a few articles in support of my decision to cut out news and a few of them applied quite perfectly well to forums too. I was surprised by how closely the essay mirrored some of my own thoughts.

Still working on those words

Lynn

As the title says, I’m still working on those 1,557 words today.

The good news? I had a speed breakthrough—now that I’m not stressing over speed, of course.

The bad news? It’s 7:59 and yes, it took me that long to get another 25 minutes of writing, and no, I haven’t been able to stay away from the internet AT ALL.

Still, I’m pretty psyched that my spreadsheet says I need only another 0.774038462 hours to finish my words at my current speed.

I switched from a 45 minute session (that I ended up doing in a 29 minute and 16 minute block many hours apart) to 25 minute sessions, as you can see in the table below.

Mins. Words WPH WPM
29 346 716 11.9
16 156 585 9.8
25 434 1,042 17.4

Now, it’s back to writing for me. I do not want to end today without those words.

And the next day… I wrote 1,334 words. At midnight, I gave up. My pace dropped to 552 wph average because of a few bad sessions so it took a lot longer to get there than I wanted it to.

It’s well past noon and I have not finished my words today

Lynn

That title says it all: it’s past noon and I still haven’t reached 1,557 words.

What happened? I couldn’t stay focused and on task today.  At ALL.

It’s 4:16 in fact and here’s what I’ve done: I have 16 minutes left on my first 45 minute timer and I’ve written 346 words. That’s actually pretty good, because eyeballing that, it means I was writing at about 700 wph.

I was really into my scene too. But I started to get anxious and I had to take a break. Sometimes that happens when I’m thinking too hard or something. I get so excited that I have to jump up and move around or I feel like my brain is going to explode. It doesn’t really make sense but it can really derail what’s shaping up to be a great work session.

Well, it derailed my session, and although I’ve had multiple hours since all to myself and perfect for writing, it’s like I’m afraid to start again.

But it’s time. I really want to reach that minimum and I’m not going to do it by avoiding that timer!

Oh, and no more forums today until after I write those words! I am officially banning myself from all other internet uses until my spreadsheet shows 1,557 words for today’s count. >:{

Start trying to reach minimum by noon

Lynn

The title is brought to you by my plan. :) Starting today (It’s only 9:05 a.m.!) I want to try to finish my minimum by noon each day. By finishing early, I’ll take a lot of the pressure off and be able to enjoy writing in the afternoons when I do it, read fiction and craft books, watch and work through design tutorials, and actually maybe get some of the stuff that I’ve had on the back burner done.

Writing is an important part of my life, but I really don’t want to let it become the be-all and end-all of what I do. I am a publisher too, and I do want to have and maintain hobbies that aren’t also writing (writing fan fiction is a hobby which I really miss some days, but it’s still writing).

On that note, I don’t want to spend all morning writing this post and then wondering why I didn’t have enough time to write 1,557 words before noon.

I’ll post once I reach 1,557 words with my end time and time to completion and all the other usual stats. :)

I’m estimating (pushing for) 623 wph and 2.5 hours of timed writing. :D

If you’re a writer, have a good day of writing! If you’re not, read something today and enjoy it. :)

A challenge for this second day of August to perk me up

Lynn

Since I did so poorly yesterday, only 123 words and 15 minutes!, I’ve decided a challenge might perk me up today.

It’s a simple challenge. Finish my 1,557 word minimum before I stop for lunch. :) I’ve finished breakfast and there’s nothing standing between me and lunch but time to fill. :D

I’m going to fill it with writing.

I’m just going to do 50 minute sessions until I get there.

Updates will follow below. :)

Well! That was unexpected.

I got in one 50 minute session then had to run off to a dentist appointment I’d forgotten about! So that blew this challenge. I was gone nearly 4 hours. I’ve found it difficult to get started again, mostly because it’s now so late in the day. Maybe I’ll try later, but at the moment, I’m thinking of taking the rest of the day off. There’s a movie I want to watch and I don’t like the idea of making up work time in the little bit of leisure time I’ve planned for myself in a while.

I’ve let the air out of this balloon

Lynn

Last night was the last day of Camp Nano. I was behind and had been trying to catch up for a week. The pressure has been a little too much, and I knew it coming into these last several days, but I wanted to try to catch up anyway.

Of course, this morning that pressure was gone, and boy, could I tell! I felt so much better just knowing I could switch my focus back to day-by-day writing, trying only to reach that 1,557 word minimum I set a while back.

Unfortunately, I stayed up too late last night and I’ve been dragging all day.

And the release of pressure must have gone too far, because I just haven’t been motivated to write today at all. I tried writing for just a few minutes, thinking if I could just get started, I’d be able to keep going, but getting started didn’t turn out to be the problem. I quit almost immediately.

So it feels a bit like I’ve let the air out of a balloon but forgot that I meant to only let out a little and instead let it all out. Now I’m flat and I can’t air myself back up. :o It looks like I might not even make my minimum today.

And no, I didn’t actually finish the number of words I’d set as a goal for Camp Nano. I wrote 1,641 words yesterday in 3 hours of timed writing. I needed considerably more to pull of a win.

Sigh. I’m going to start my timer now and do one hour of writing. If I don’t feel like continuing after that, I’m going to let myself quit. I need to get in bed early tonight and catch up on some sleep. I don’t want tomorrow to be a repeat of today.

Forget speed

Lynn

Here’s a thing I’m becoming convinced is real: I can’t write faster when I’m thinking about writing faster. I think for some people, it definitely works. I think for me, it definitely doesn’t.

On that note, today I’ll be focusing on writing and getting my sessions and leave the worry about speed in the dust. Have a feeling it’ll at least make writing more fun today. :)

Drafted a few posts, deleted a few drafts

Lynn

I’ve written several posts over the last few days and ended up deleting all of them while still in the draft stage. They were really just a way to get out some feelings I’ve been having about writing and I don’t want them cluttering up my view when I look back through what I’ve posted. ;)

All that needs to be said is that I’ve been giving some thought to my writing speed and a few other aspects of my writing and I’ve concluded that I am firmly stuck with a critic on my shoulder and a lack of confidence in my ability to tell an interesting story. Which is interesting, because I really didn’t think that was true until now.

The sad fact is that I thought I’d improve after having these realizations. That hasn’t been the case. :(

Today’s word counts fall in line with the word counts of the day before and the day before that. Here’s my words per hour numbers for the last 19 days.

618
379
367
419
484
117
375
431
459
489
475
462
613
402
394
337
339
199
427

Sigh. Sometimes knowing something isn’t enough. Now I have to figure out how to fix it.

Every book is different; I hate this book (not really) (maybe) (who knows?)

Lynn

The last day I updated was the 23rd, so here’s a short update of word counts since then.

7/23 – 7/27

  • 1,073
  • 201
  • 788
  • 1,181
  • 961

It’s sad that I haven’t been reaching my minimum, but I’m still trying. I’m really hoping to turn my words per hour rate around because it’s been a huge part of my problem with not getting enough words every day this week. My highest was 402 wph and all the other averages are in the 300 range. NOT good at all and a sure sign that perfectionism is dogging me like a bloodhound on a scent.

I’d say I was being overly critical of everything I write, but mostly it’s that nothing feels right. Like I haven’t got a good feel for the story and I don’t know where to take it, so I spend a lot of time writing then deleting so I can go in a different direction as I try to work it out. But I still think it’s perfectionism, because I’m not trusting myself.

Also, I might need to spend a little time thinking about what this story is really about. That’s not something I usually do, but every book is different and maybe this one needs me to give it some thought. Don’t want to get set in my ways—especially if those ways aren’t doing me any favors. :)

Okay, okay, okay, enough of that

Lynn

Thinking is not doing and doing is the only way to get words onto the page, so time to start writing.

Starting within the next five minutes, I’m going to write 1,557 words as fast as I possibly can and still have it be coherent. In fact, I’m practicing that kind of fast writing right here right now. I am trying not to stop and just let the words flow out of my brain as fast as my short little fingers can type them out.

We’ll see how well that translates to fiction here is just a few short minutes.

Time to go so I can make this happen. :D See you shortly. I think I’ll do 45 minute sessions. I have a scene in my head (that nap really helped!) and I need to get it out while it’s fresh.

Update #1

That’s didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. You know how your speed is your speed is your speed? I’ve got that going.

Last 13 days average WPH:

618
379
367
419
484
117
375
431
459
489
475
462
415 – Today’s, after one 45 minute session of writing

Update the end:

1,073 words and at midnight I just didn’t feel close enough to fudge it and keep going. This midnight cutoff is really helping me not go too far with staying up and sabotaging the next day’s writing, but I’m not doing a great job of seeing it as the limit it’s meant to be.

The sad part of this is that I spent nearly an hour with this story in the morning, bits and pieces floating in my head until I have what I think is a pretty good idea of what’s happening next (that doesn’t happen to me often) and I still bogged down in the writing.

I do think perfectionism is messing with my speed right now. I’m going to have to figure out how to get rid of it for at least a little while so I can get out of this slump!

And since I’m writing this a couple of days later, in fact, I can tell you I didn’t have any luck with it yesterday (the next day) either! I wrote 201 words. So two more days where I didn’t finish my minimum.

I really don’t want to do that again so morning writing is going to have to be a priority.

Not enough sleep means I’m struggling today

Lynn

I have a stray cat hanging around (mentioned that before, I think) and last night something came up on my deck and scared the cat, or attacked her, I’m really not sure (I’ve seen both a racoon and a possum there within the last two weeks), and I was awakened at 2 a.m. by hissing and things on my deck banging across the wood. Let’s just say I was jolted awake, and by the time I flew down the stairs and made it to the back door, the animals had taken their fight elsewhere but I was wide awake.

This morning she was back at the door crying for me to put food out for her, so whatever it was that happened didn’t leave a lasting impression. I should stop feeding her, but I can’t stand the idea of letting her starve and I won’t do it. But no, I won’t have animals indoors, and no one I know wants a new cat.

Anyway, I’m tired today because I didn’t get back to sleep right away and as usual woke up much too early.

In fact, I feel like I feel when I’ve had about four hours of sleep. Not good.

As a consequence, I’ve been at my computer off and on (mostly on) for more than five hours now and I’ve written nothing. Haven’t even started the first session of the day yet.

And those 1,557 words aren’t going to write themselves, that’s for sure. So this post is really just me trying to warm up enough to get started.

Or maybe I’ll just take a nap.

Yeah. That sounds better.

That’s funny

Lynn

So far today I’ve written 664 words in 1.75 hours. That’s 379 words an hour. Considering I deleted a nice little chunk of words in my second session this afternoon, I’m not too disappointed.

Words left to write today = 893

Hours needed to write them @ 379 wph = 2.353539157

I’d like to do those words at 600 wph or better, because then I can move on to catching up a few days’ word counts where I didn’t reach my minimum. Of course, here it is 3:57 pm and I’m just now reaching 1.75 hours completed, so that could be a problem. Anyway, onward and upward one hopes. :D

Today’s title courtesy of the fact that I forgot to title the post and that was the first phrase that popped into my head.

Update: I finished off the day with 1,616 words and it took me 3.5 hours of timed writing to write them. Not great, but not my worst effort to be sure. :D

Revisiting yesterday’s plan—but not

Lynn

I’m going to keep an open mind with today’s writing, because it’s possible I might want to try again for a record setting day, despite the fact that I have the AC guy coming to repair my unit. (Which is now working again, but which I just know will quit the moment I cancel him, so I’m just going to let him come and do maintenance on the thing. It seems to need it every year, and if anyone ever asked me, I’d say yes, my geothermal unit has save me a lot on my electric bill but most definitely not on my nerves or my home maintenance costs.)

The reason I say open mind is that I’m just not sure actually planning the thing isn’t partially to blame for me not writing yesterday.

I’ve found success with the 1,557 word daily minimum. Jumping right into higher word count challenges might be self-sabotaging behavior—or at the least, seriously counterproductive!

So today I will write my minimum and go from there. Once I do today’s minimum, I might finish off yesterday’s minimum. Once I do that, I might go back to the next day where I didn’t finish my minimum and do that one too. And if at the end of the day, that leads me to a record setting word count, I might celebrate.

Sounds like a good plan for the day to me.

Hmm. Anything else? Oh, yes.

I’ll be sticking with 15 minute sessions today so I can keep an eye on my speed. I’ll be trying to reach 250 words at least once today during those sessions. 250 is a big number for me, and I know I can hit it but I don’t do it often. So, yeah, it’s a challenge, but a tiny one. :D

Update: It’s down to the wire. I have 30 minutes to finish 440 words, unfortunately. Might be a problem because my last several sessions have been in the 200–300 wph range. I don’t even know why I’m taking time to write this except that I had a compulsion to do it. Anyway, getting back to it so I can get those 440 words asap.

Update two: I wrote until just a little later than midnight because I was so close that I couldn’t let my day end without reaching that 1,557 words. I did! I came in at 1,661 and 3.5 hours of timed writing. I just can’t believe how difficult I find it to accumulate those hours of writing time over the course of a day. This is something that’s bugged me for years. I just can’t figure it out.

Update three: Ha! You thought I forgot about the challenge, huh? I did. Sorry. The fact is I didn’t make it to 250 words in any of my sessions. My closest came in at 179, I think. (I deleted the log before I remembered I was supposed to be keeping up.)

Grrrr!

Lynn

So remember last year? No, I didn’t think you would, but here you go, a reminder.

Yes, my AC is out. Again. Not only that but somehow, someway, I’ve reset my timer 3 times on my first 45 minute session when I meant only to pause it. Probably not a bad thing, because I took a look at the numbers and I had barely cracked 100 words during those 3 aborted sessions.

On top of all that, I’ve found myself procrastinating an incredible amount today and I don’t know why.

I’m calling today’s big plans a bust. Instead, I’ll just concentrate on getting to my minimum word count, and then maybe—maybe—if I’m not just ready to give up, I’ll work on making up yesterday’s shortfall. I’ll go from there.

Update: And… the day’s total came in at 367 words in 45 minutes (three 15 minute sessions) making my pace 489 words an hour. Interesting side note: my cumulative word count since July 2012 is 1,155,620 words.

Also, for a second day in a row, I have not written my non-negotiable minimum number of words. >:(

I do not plan to let that stretch to three.

Big plans for today

Lynn

Okay, I haven’t taken the opportunity to push for a record day in a while, so I want to do that today. It’s a perfect day for it. The house is empty and I have no one here to distract me, only myself (who is, let’s be honest, the biggest problem), but I’m going to overcome that by turning off WIFI for at least a few hours.

My best word count for one day is 5,816. So today I’m going to take aim at 6,000 again and see if I can get there.

My plan is simple if tough, because I don’t focus well for long periods of time.

I’m going to do 45 minute sessions and I’m hoping for an average of 800 wph for each of them. I know! My average on this book hasn’t been anywhere near that, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. And I have done 800 wph plenty of times (just not many lately) so I know it’s not out of my range.

After 2 sessions, I’ll evaluate whether or not I’m going forward with this plan today. I’m not going to set myself up for a frustrating day of failure, so at that point I might scale it back if things look dire. I’ll know within a couple of sessions if I’m able to write fast enough today to make this possible.

Now, off for breakfast, so I can get started with this as soon as possible. I’ve somehow managed to spend all morning doing spreadsheet calculations and thought experiments. Time for some action!

Had a plan; how about this summary instead?

Lynn

On Tuesday the 11th, I decided to set a daily minimum word count and start writing 1,557 words every day. I began following that rule on the 12th. Overall, this is one experiment that seems to be working out well.

Here are my word counts for the last 7 days, beginning with July 12.

1,667
935
1,628
1,969
405
1,562
1,615

That’s an 80% completion rate, which is pretty damn good in my book.

The reason for today’s title is this: today’s word count sits at 402 words and it’s 10:15 pm. I had a plan for today, but I didn’t follow through. I don’t have a good reason for that, but I’m sitting here thinking I might still have time to finish today’s minimum word count if I start now. In truth, this is probably a perfect example of the thinking I talked about in yesterday’s morning post.

But I really think I could possibly still make it. So of course I’m going to have to try now or I’ll regret it. And if I don’t, well, at least I can be somewhat certain I’ll end up with more words than I started with.

(And I ended with 688 words. Although I didn’t make it to my minimum before 12, I’m glad I tried.)

Doing 15 minute sessions back-to-back

Lynn

Today’s plan is to do 15 minute sessions back-to-back and only take a break when I have to. Knowing me, I’ll probably have to much too often, but at least now that I’m writing in the dining room again, I seem to be able to get back to it pretty quickly when no one else is around (and no one else is around today). :D

I’m thinking 12 sessions would be a good number, since that’d put me at 3 hours, which is probably what I’ll need to get my 1,557 words today, because I’ve needed at least that long the last 4 days. So onward! I’ll update this post as I go. :D

I ended up with just over 1600 words for the day, although I can’t say exactly how many because I’m writing this update on my phone from my bed. :D I forgot to update last night and wanted to do it before I got busy with today’s writing. The exact number doesn’t matter anyway. It was another win and it feels fantastic. ;)

That experiment didn’t last long

Lynn

I like writing posts here while I write. I don’t know if it helps keep me focused in on writing or not, but I like it. So I’ve decided to end this latest experiment of mine early. I’d rather write less fiction than have to restrain the exuberance I feel and ignore the compulsion to talk about it. :D So—I’m back!

I’ve done pretty well with my other big writing experiment though. The non-negotiable 1,557 words a day is working for me. It helps that it’s a number I can look at and imagine myself completing in a little over an hour. Now, I don’t usually complete that many words in an hour, not by far, which makes the whole thing funny in a sad sort of way, because it exemplifies my problem with grandiose thinking. BUT, I’ve finally found a way to make that work for me, it seems, because 1,557 words a day feels so easy when I think about doing it, that I don’t find myself hampered by resistance at all.

It’s kind of an amazing feeling, really.

I’ve already told everyone who’ll listen to me not to ever let me set a huge goal for myself again. :D

One reason I think this is different than previous attempts? I usually say one thing but mean another. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually accepted that maybe this is the upper limit for me and that it’s okay. I don’t have to write more than this because I can make a good living (barring catastrophe) and my books might come slower, but consistency will get me there much faster than my usual patterns.

In fact, 1,557 words a day is actually more than 2x my current all time daily average of 618 words. See what all that inconsistency has gotten me, chasing after ever growing goals I never seem able to reach? I can double the number of novels I put out in a year just by writing a small number of words every day.

I’ve known this for a long time, but I think, now, finally, I’m ready to embrace it.

Now, to figure out how to kill perfectionism once and for all…