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. ;)

Two-thirds of 6,000 is still not 6,000, especially when you have to delete (challenge update)

Lynn

Well, I’d made it less than two digits away from 4,000 words when it came time to delete some more random pieces of writing at the end of my document. I’m now back down to 3,575 words, after a possible record breaking 8 hours and 39 minutes of writing.

It’s possible I’ve spent that much time in a day writing before, but without records I can’t know for sure. I find it difficult to exceed 50% efficiency when it comes to actual writing time versus time in general and since a full day is 16 hours, more than 8 hours of writing time is actually pretty damn fantastic.

And I have definitely been writing all day, with Gleeo to prove it.

I lose little bits of time here and there to breaks and interruptions. Mostly because I actually can’t sit still for too long before I go stir crazy, and all those five, ten, and twenty minute breaks really add up.

I am not a person who can sit and start typing and look up three hours later and realize it’s been, hey, three hours since I moved.

Frankly, I don’t actually envy the people who can. Too damaging to a person’s health. I’ve managed to get through life writing without suffering any writing or typing related injuries at all. No back troubles, no finger pains, and no butt sores. Life is good. :D

Now, back to work for me. I’m not ready to give up on this today, even though reason tells me I should. :D

Halfway there (challenge update)

Lynn

Before I crashed last night I made it past the halfway point, to just over 3000 words. It took over 7.5 hours of writing to do it. Or, you know, all freaking day in my time. :)

Not sure what the deal is but my pace on this book has been insanely slow.

Still, halfway there is an improvement!

(Seriously, considering how long it took to get 7.5 hours of writing done, I don’t even know if it’s possible for me to reach 10 hours of writing in a day. And if I did, at my current pace, I’d still be 2000 words short!)

Challenge day ten (double digits!)

Lynn

I’ve been writing today, a lot, except it doesn’t really feel that way, because of the afternoon hour and my word count for the day.

I really shouldn’t have gotten up so late.

Task

Start-Date

Start-Time

End-Date

End-Time

Duration

Decimal Duration

Writing

2/10/17

0:00

2/10/17

0:01

0:01

0.016667

Writing

2/10/17

10:00

2/10/17

11:25

1:25

1.416667

Writing

2/10/17

11:30

2/10/17

11:57

0:27

0.45

Writing

2/10/17

11:59

2/10/17

12:20

0:21

0.35

Writing

2/10/17

13:32

2/10/17

14:14

0:42

0.7

Totals

2:56

2.933333

My word count is 1,230.

Meaning my pace is off and it’s going to take a lot of hours today to reach 6,000 words.

I’d better get back to it quick then.

Challenge day nine (yes, I’m still trying)

Lynn

I got up ready to get started writing, but of course I was still having issues with the thing that stopped me last night. It took me hours to get past it this morning.

HOURS.

But I did. Finally.

It’s 7:10 pm and I’ve written 1,093 words today.

Here are my Gleeo time tracker entries. (Super easy to export from my phone to .csv and Dropbox so I can access the file quickly here on the computer, delete a few excess columns, and copy/paste it here.)

Task

Start-Date

Start-Time

End-Date

End-Time

Duration

Decimal Duration

Writing

2/9/17

11:45

2/9/17

12:26

0:41

0.683333

Writing

2/9/17

13:18

2/9/17

13:46

0:28

0.466667

Writing

2/9/17

17:29

2/9/17

18:15

0:46

0.766667

Writing

2/9/17

18:20

2/9/17

18:56

0:36

0.6

Total

2:31

2.516667

Not great, as you can see, but I’ve done worse.

Anyway, the day’s not over and I don’t have to get up early tomorrow, so I’m going to keep going for as long as I can tonight. :D

And as for the thing, well, I can say honestly that I am finally over it and the writing is going pretty well all things considered.

I’m not going to have to scrap the 4000+ words of material I was afraid I’d have to scrap if the pieces of the story didn’t join up where I’d gone back and taken things in a bit of a different direction. I just need to make a few changes to account for that change of direction for the parts that happen afterward that I had already written, and I think it’ll be okay. It’s shouldn’t require much adjustment, just a timing issue mostly.

If not, there’s always the delete key. I refuse to get bogged down at this late date in the story. ;)

Bang your head (challenge update)

Lynn

After a strong(ish) start this morning, the day has fizzled. Dentist visit went well, and I got home and decided to make an early supper so I could have a longer evening of writing, but that didn’t work out. Writing has turned out to be difficult because of a message I received just as I was finishing supper. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to obsess and sure enough I started obsessing. I haven’t been able to let go of the thoughts that message set into motion and that’s killed my ability to concentrate.

I took some time out to talk with one of my kids and watch Border Security on Netflix, because it’s wild and weird and I like it. But within moments of returning to the computer, the obsessive thoughts started again.

Googling (or Binging, is that a word?) “how to stop obsessive thoughts” didn’t turn out to be the answer, surprisingly.

All I can say is that this tendency is why I try never to read reviews, because this is exactly how I’ve felt afterward, obsessing over stuff that just does not matter.

So, I don’t know if this was the right thing to do, but I deleted some email addresses off my mobile devices, because that’s where I saw the message. Of course, I went ahead and deleted all related addresses from my devices (I have quite a few addresses) because it made sense in context. If my devices hadn’t been set up to check those addresses (pretty needlessly, I might add), I wouldn’t have seen the message at that time because WiFi was off on my computer. Then I wouldn’t have become distracted from writing by the obsessive thoughts. Maybe I would have turned on WiFi and checked my email client later, before I was finished writing, but at least I would have had the chance to restart and recover my momentum from this morning before I was derailed.

I feel lighter after doing that, although I admit it was an impulsive decision. Maybe having access to everything all the time just isn’t for me. Compartmentalization of the various parts of my life might be more my style.

Challenge day eight (seriously!)

Lynn

This could take all month! Yesterday, unfortunately, I really underestimated how long the taxes thing would take. I left at 11 am and returned at 4:30 pm. By the time I ate an early supper, it was 5:30 and I was so brain tired I had a difficult time even thinking about getting started again.

I came not even close to 6,000 words yesterday.

Today I am at it again. It’s 10:23 am, I’m about to go make my hot honey lemon water for a boost, and I’ve already spent 1 hour and 20 minutes writing.

Sadly, that’s added up to a very paltry 107 words! I am so off my pace I can’t even understand what’s going on. Last night, I had a 52 minute stretch where I averaged less than one word per minute when all was said and done. I know I wrote more than that, but it was write, delete, write, delete, write, delete until all I’d done was increase my word count by 50 words.

I just cannot figure out why my pace is so bad on this book. I’m dealing with SO MUCH hesitation with everything I write for it that I’m spending TONS of time editing/cycling through/rewriting as I go. I just can’t get a handle on it.

I have a dentist appointment today that’s really going to mess up my day, but I’m going to do my best to finish out the day with 7 more hours at 842 words per hour.

For that to happen, something’s really going to have to break loose soon, but I am ever hopeful.

No update (challenge update)

Lynn

Basically, this isn’t an update.

Well, technically, it is an update, but it’s an update to say I don’t have anything to update. Despite my plans for the day, it’s 8:06 pm and I’ve written about a nib’s worth of words. I guess it’s gonna be a long night, because I’m not going to bed until I’ve at least kept my >1,000 words streak alive.

I can say with certainty that today will not be a 6000 word day.

Going too far afield (challenge update)

Lynn

I’m afraid I’m going to lose some words today. The current material is going too far afield of the scenes I’ve already written. I had hoped they would join up but now it’s not looking good for that possibility.

I’m at 965 words for the morning and I’m still trying to reach 2000 before lunch. That’s with 2 hours and 5 minutes of writing. I’ve been careful of breaks but obviously I’m still losing time somewhere. I got started at 8:36 and it’s 11:15 now.

Back to the book. Too much to do to tinker.

At least I’ve been consistent (challenge update)

Lynn

I’ve faced a lot of procrastination today. My pace has been marginally better, but not significantly so. As it stands, I’ve written 1,841 words in 3 hours and 40 minutes. So truly, I’ve maintained my average pace today.  What I haven’t done is spend enough hours writing to get anywhere near to meeting this challenge at that pace.

But I can certainly claim consistency over the last four days, with word counts of 1495, 1905, 1575, and 1841, respectively. My daily average is 1707.

Yes, tomorrow I will be trying one more time to meet this challenge.

As for tonight, I am winding down. My energry levels have reached a point of no return; I’m almost to the point of dozing at the computer.

Which is funny given the hours I’ve logged writing today. Despite that, I’ve spent most of the day at the computer and I’m feeling it.

Until tomorrow.

Challenge day four

Lynn

I didn’t even bother with a post this morning because I got right to writing after breakfast. Unfortunately, I’m online now and that’s a really bad sign for things to come. I’m getting off as soon as I post this post though, so maybe I’ll recover.

I’m at 947 words and it took me 1 hour and 43 minutes to get there, not counting the several times I forgot to restart Gleeo after a break.

This morning started off well, and but I stopped writing at 10:09, when I had a family interruption. With the kids older now, and busy, one at college and one on the way there, as long as school is in there fewer than ever reasons to accept excuses from myself about family distractions. However, that means when they are around, it’s harder to put them off in favor of writing.

I had lunch, made a few backups and copied some files to OneDrive and Dropbox (which never have my only copies of anything important, EVER). Then I checked out some library books, because I had some holds come through. I have a few weeks to read them, so I’m not going to start that now, but I didn’t want to forget about them. I’ve also moved some OneNote notebooks to my computer and back, because I can’t make up my mind about “everywhere” access.

It’s 2:35 pm and I have to get back to writing now or I’m just not going to have a chance. I let myself lose over 4 hours of writing time this morning and early afternoon, but perseverance matters and this day is far from over.

Too much second guessing (challenge update)

Lynn

It’s obvious to me that one big problem for me when it comes to speed is the speed at which I second guess my choices.

Today’s attempt to cross that 6,000 word barrier has been hampered at every turn by my tendency to write something, then write something else, then delete something, then delete something else, then rewrite the first something I wrote, before deleting it and starting the whole process over again.

That’s not the way to gather speed and momentum.

It’s 7:53 pm and I’ve let myself turn on WiFi on my computer so I can write this update. I knew it would be much faster than trying to do it on my phone and even though I have only written 1,225 words today, I’m still hopeful of more.

However, 6,000 words is probably shooting for the moon when I have no rocket.

For today.

For tomorrow, well, tomorrow hasn’t started yet. We’ll have to see about that.

For now, I’m signing off. I have more words to write, even if meeting the 6,000 word challenge is beyond me tonight. I’ll start this thing again in the morning and see how it goes.

First priority? Stop second guessing everything I put on the page.

Too little momentum (challenge update)

Lynn

I’m just shy of 2,000 words and it’s taken me just over five hours to get there.

I’m doing better than yesterday, but nowhere near good enough to reach 6,000 words by my bedtime today unless something changes significantly.

I do expect to finish today with a much better word count than yesterday though.

One thing I’m sure has hurt me is that I came up about 2 hours short on sleep last night. I’m already feeling run down. Then I started writing almost an hour later today than yesterday.

Slow going (challenge update)

Lynn

By 9:51 this morning I had spent 1 hour and 12 minutes writing and reached 424 words after starting with a 145 word deficit from a last minute deletion last night.

I’m not unhappy with that, really, but it wasn’t really what I was hoping for either so, since I was dragging a bit, I went ahead and took an early lunch.

I’m back now and ready to try again. 

Ten hours is a lot and I really need to avoid any extra breaks today to reach it, but I’m definitely hoping ten hours might not be necessary to reach 6,000 words. :)

Giving up on the dream—but only for today (challenge update)

Lynn

I’ll have to try again tomorrow to break through the 6,000 word ceiling I seem to have. Although admittedly, it felt more like a 1,000 word ceiling today!

I logged about 7 solid hours of writing (sans interruptions, breaks, etc) and still have only managed to reach 1,495 words for the day. I’ll continue writing up until I’m ready to go to sleep, but there’s no way I’m meeting the 6,000 words challenge by then. I want to get up early again tomorrow, and that means getting to bed soon enough. I might write another 30 minutes, all told, before I call it a night.

I have to say, the writing wasn’t difficult despite the challenge I had with speed. I’ve been trying to find my way. Sometimes that’s slow going. I’ve been having difficulties with this scene and the ones that follow (some are written, as I mentioned in another post, and I’m just hoping they’ll join up when the time comes) and because of that I’ve put off working my way through it when I should have just tried to keep going even if it meant slow days.

That’s a problem with chasing speed. On days when things just can’t go fast, it becomes easier to do nothing than to face what feels like failure.

I feel like today was a mix of success and failure. Failure to reach 6,000, obviously, but success in getting back in the groove of all day writing and actually enjoying it.

It was a fun day.

And I’ll see you again tomorrow as I try this thing one more time.

Remaining hopeful despite bleak numbers (challenge update)

Lynn

I’m remaining hopeful despite the  bleak numbers because I have at least made it to almost 1000 words today. The fact that it has taken me over 4 hours to get there is irrelevant. (4 hours of writing, not just 4 hours ununfortunately.)

I will carry on until the end because sometimes writing is slow and sometimes it isn’t. A couple of good hours could really turn things around.

 

Uh oh! (challenge update)

Lynn

Here is my first challenge update.

I’m way behind already.

After 1 hour and 49 minutes, I’m only up by 149 words.

Getting through the last of the material I wrote a few weeks ago is taking too long. Perfectionism? Probably. I’m going to try to get through the rest of it faster.

As of right now I still have the computer WIFI off. I’m writing this on my phone. It’s easier to do all new posts on my phone than edit a really long one so I expect all updates to this challenge will be separate posts today.

Be back later. :)

Hopefully with better numbers!

Challenge morning

Lynn

So I’m typing this out on my Kindle Fire because I decided last night that I would turn off my computer WIFI and start the day without it. I plan to stick to that.

I’m up early. It’s 7:05, and I have a bowl of cereal next to me to finish, then it’s on to writing. Wish me luck. I’m going to need it. :)

Feeling the need for some accountability tonight

Lynn

I’ve managed to make it until 8:28 pm without writing a word and I’m not even sure how. But no, that’s not really true. I know how, but I don’t understand how what I’ve done today added up to about 10 hours of distracted time.

I started messing around with my email set up this morning and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Not going to waste time going down that rabbit hole. Just typing that out distracted me and sent me off to fix something else and it’s now 9:50 pm. >:(

Holy crap! I did it again. Now it’s 10:29 pm! And unfortunately I’m in the middle of moving a bunch of email to a different account so I’m not actually done enough to be able to close Thunderbird and move on!

I have literally not even managed to finish this post and publish it.

Anyway, I’m going to finish this email thing ASAP and I AM going to work on my book before I go to sleep tonight.

I’ll be updating this post before I shut off the computer tonight, one way or another.

Okay, I did it! Streak is still alive.

Now, tomorrow, I absolutely need to stay away from every distraction I can imagine!