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. ;)

Word count post for Oct. 6–7, 2016

Lynn

Oct. 6: 2,360
Oct. 7: 1,736

Daily average since 9/19: 882

6 day average: 2,303

===Notes===

Well, I’ve been working much harder than it feels like I’ve should’ve had to work to reach these word counts, but I have noticed a pattern in that usually writing the end of a book is slower for me than the beginning and the middle.

The beginning tends to be where I do my fastest writing, and the end seems to be where I pay for all the liberties I’ve taken early on in the story and have to make it all work. :D

Schedule update: times are almost right, sessions keep changing

Lynn

Since I started following a writing schedule again, I’ve found that some adjustments have had to be made. A few things just weren’t working out how I’d like.

I added an extra half hour for the midday break. I also stopped an hour earlier for lunch and moved that hour to after lunch.

Scheduled times

7 to 12 became 7 to 11, while 1 to 4 became 12:30 to 4:30.

I’ve only tried this for one day, and not successfully, let me add, but possibly because it’s fall break for the schools here and I keep messing up my 7 am start time. Still, the lunch hour wasn’t working. I’ve had to adjust it every day, so building that into the schedule makes more sense than not.

Session times

First it was 50 minute sessions, then 15 minutes, then 25 minutes. They each worked at different times this week, but I’m moving permanently back to 50 minute sessions for planning writing output because of how well they work within the framework I’ve constructed. It’s very easy to account for how many sessions I should have completed in any number of hour long blocks if I assume 50 minutes writing time to 10 minutes break time.

One change I’ve made is that I’m not longer stressing over whether or not I can complete the entire 50 minutes without a break. (Too much tea, I know. I can’t help it. I feel compelled to have something to drink while I write.) I just plan to write for 50 minutes, pause the timer when necessary, and aim to complete the 50 minute session within the one hour block. Now this? This is something that’s actually had a much bigger impact on how I feel about these long sessions than I would have thought. The new perspective is working great. No more resentment for long sessions, or hesitation to start one, because it’s perfectly okay to pause the session. In fact, I expect it. There’s also a bit of pressure to get back to it quickly that’s helpful (because the timer is paused). It’s working out much better than the break between sessions. That’s where I’m still having a lot of trouble with distractions. :)

Session goals

One thing I realized right away was that I wasn’t just pushing for higher word counts per hour with the sessions. I was also demotivating myself a bit. Not much, just enough that I really started to notice it yesterday. The problem is that I use my number of sessions times my word count goal to estimate what goal I should have for a day’s writing. The numbers made me feel too optimistic about the chances I’d have of reaching really (really) high word counts, despite what I know of my historical performance.

So I scaled back. I might want to write 250 per 15 minute session, or 325 per 25 minutes, or 600 or 800 per 50 minute session, but that’s just not that likely, and it’s no way to plan. I can still hold all those numbers in my head as goals, but they’re really no good for planning.

I’ve settled on a 550 word goal for each 50 minute session for planning purposes. That’s 660 words per hour. My average the last time I checked was about 641 wph, and my all time average was about 541 wph, so it’s a bit of a push, but not an overwhelming one.

I know how many words I need to finish several of the books I’ve got going, I just needed estimates of sessions and words to get me to a daily plan to make it happen by the deadlines I’ve set myself (publicly this time). The book lengths are estimates, of course, but I don’t mind adjusting how much writing I need to do each day if I see that a book is going longer than I planned. It happens more often than not, to be honest, and that’s another reason overly optimistic word count expectations are a problem for me.

My former session goals led me to create deadlines that were just too tight. I gave myself some much needed breathing room. :)

Word count post for Oct. 4–5, 2016

Lynn

Oct. 4: 2,968
Oct. 5: 2,225

Daily average since 9/19: 752 words.

===Notes===

I’m still working on getting better about sticking to my scheduled writing times. I find myself distracted during the blocks of time, and instead of having time for four 50 minute sessions in a four hour period, I’m coming up with two or three, if I’m lucky. :o

This morning I haven’t been that lucky.

For example, this morning: 9 to 1 – I planned for four 50 minute sessions in that period.  I managed two. So I reached half the word count I wanted. But no, not even that, because I averaged 100 words less (or thereabouts) per session than I planned.

This is a huge problem, because what ends up being a few hours of writing takes all day. And because I’m not really on break or relaxing during the time I’m not writing, I exhaust my writing energy. (I manage to make almost all this unproductive time feel like work, don’t ask me how.)

So, priority goal: find some way to stop getting sidetracked during the blocks of time I’ve set aside in my schedule!

Word count post for Oct. 3, 2016

Lynn

1,470 words.

Not as many words as I hoped. (See below.)

Daily average since 9/19: 522 words.

At least it’s still rising, right?

===Notes===

One thing I’ve decided today is that I have to get serious about starting on time in the mornings.

Starting late seems to have a major effect on how well I’m able to stick to the schedule the rest of the day. It also sets me up for a slow start and a low word count.

That’s not what I want.

Today was an excellent example of what starting late does to my day.

What I was aiming for

625 by 8 am
1250 by 9 am
1875 by 10 am
2500 by 11 am
3125 by 1 pm
3750 by 2 pm
4375 by 3 pm
5000 by 4 pm

What actually happened

Session Time in Hours Session Words WPH
0.8333 496 595
0.8333 391 469
0.8333 409 491
0.45 174 387

There’s really only one way to solve this, and that’s to get to bed on time, then get to writing before I let any distractions get in the way.

Of course, my word counts weren’t up to speed either, but that’s likely something I’ll have to address after I get settled into a better routine.

Writing update post for Sept. 30, 2016

Lynn

Yesterday was a total failure in terms of words written. The more elaborate the plans, the more likely I’ll spend all my time on the plans and not on the doing of the plans.

Today’s plan was simple. I set aside some time for writing only (using my calendar and schedule) and I wrote during that time. Finally, a day of (mostly) success!

The last several months constitute the worst string of months for my word counts that I’ve had since I started this gig in 2012. I felt a strong need to end today feeling like I’m finally getting back on track.

9:30 to 2:30

The goal was 200 words x 3 sessions of 15 minutes each hour x 5 hours = 3,000 words.

I wrote 1,766 words. I came up short 7 sessions. Not sure how I got so far off track, but I did have a lot of coffee and tea this morning and had to take very frequent breaks.

2:30 to 4:30

I wanted to get started proofing this book, so I planned to proof 4 chapters. I proofed half a chapter, short of my goal by 3.5 chapters. I was just not feeling it when I was reading this book this afternoon.

5:00 to 8:00

Became 5:30 to 8:30. Then 6:45 to 9:45. Then 7:30 to 10:30. Unfortunately, I had a really hard time getting started with this one. My bad night’s sleep last night caught up to me.

The goal was 200 words x 3 sessions of 15 minutes each hour x 3 hours = 1,800 words.

I didn’t do any writing at all during this time (except for this post) and finally just decided to spend the time with family instead.

 

Word count post for Sept. 28, 2016

Lynn

1,101 words.

So. 1,101 words is a far cry from the 6,000 I wanted to reach yesterday. Was 6,000 a realistic goal after such a long dry spell? No. But I don’t really care that much about realistic goals. I’m always just interested in finding a way to overcome the natural tendency I have toward a lack of action. I like writing. I like doing things. But I have a really hard time with the getting started part of just about everything. Unrealistic goals sometimes helps, as long as I don’t let my failures get me down. Sometimes they do, and when that happens, I usually step back, drop the goals, and start over.

Daily average since 9/19: 185 words.

It’ll take a while for my daily average to recover even writing lots of words every day. :D I’ll suffer through it. I’m not resetting the start date for this.

Writing in progress post for Sept. 28, 2016

Lynn

So, what to call this kind of post? I’ve decided on “writing in progress post” because it seems to fit.

Yes, I really do hope my stories come across as more creative than my blog titles. ;)

I’ve done plenty of these kinds of posts before, but I want them to be easier to pick out when I’m skimming the list so they’re getting their own special name, just like the word count posts I’ve started posting.

Now, on to today’s writing.

The plan and my session updates

3 × 15 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of 250 words a session

HOWEVER, if I haven’t reached 750 by the end of the hour, I’m going to consider that hour not finished. An hour must reach 750 words before I can move on to the next hour. I’m hoping this will only actually take 8 hours of writing, but… wishes and horses, you know? ;)

Spreadsheet tracking my sessions

Updating at the end of each hour… or so. :D

End of hour goal
1 750 38 218 433 530 719 774
2 1500 835 915 1101
3 2250
4 3000
5 3750
6 4500
7 5250
8 6000

It’s very, very obvious that I’m not up to speed. I’m not actually at new words yet because I started with the chapter I left off at when my progress stalled. It’s okay. I’ll be past it soon and on to all new stuff. I just have to figure out what the heck is supposed to happen next (which is possibly part of the reason I’ve been avoiding this book)!

Halfway through hour 2, I had to change how this table was set up. It wasn’t working at all easily with my word count spreadsheet.

Something that’s really bothering me today (and it could just be a today issue) is that the 15 minutes isn’t giving me enough time to get into the zone. I’m taking advantage of too many breaks, and they’re taking too much time away from the writing. I should have finished significantly more sessions by now than I have. Possibly time to reevaluate.

Alrighty. I did some reevaluating. For the moment, the 15 minute sessions just aren’t working. I don’t know why, exactly, but I have thoughts on it. So, for the moment, and maybe for more than the moment, I’m going to switch the 3 15 minute sessions an hour to a 45 minute session. That’s the only adjustment I’m making right now. Since the whole point is the scheduled writing time, my session lengths are the least important part of the plan and I’m not the least bit put off that I’ve already needed to make changes to that. It’s all about the trade off between how long I need to get into the zone and how long I can stay focused and keep my writing pace high enough to get me better word counts. :)

It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t seem to stay on schedule today enough to get in all the hours I wanted. All I can assume (because I wasn’t tracking it precisely) is that the breaks were just significantly longer than they needed to be and that it added up to a huge chunk of wasted time. Not feeling well for the last couple of days has also made me drag a bit, so I understand some of that. Anyway, on to tomorrow. I have high hopes I’m picking up some momentum. Now all I need to do is get a better night’s sleep.

Word count post(s) for Sept. 21–25, 2016

Lynn

0 words.

164 words.

(12) words.

0 words.

778 words.

And that sums that up. This hasn’t been the restart I’ve been hoping for, but last night I seem to have finally started to get somewhere. That 778 words falls in the low word count day* range, but it’s still a massive improvement over zero. :)

Daily average since 9/19: 116 words.

I have a ways to go to reach my new goal of fewer low word count days, but I’m not restarting this one and I’m not giving up on it.

*Scale:
1,000 = low word count day
2,000 = average word count day
3,000 = moderate word count day
4,000 = high word count day
5,000 = record breaking word count day (always, because 5k is such a push for me)

Now, despite today’s late start (jury duty and a lot of other interruptions today), I’m aiming for a moderate word count today.

Current goal: plan to read entire series from beginning

Lynn

I’m still struggling to get moving on this book I need to finish, so I’ve decided to put writing new material on the back burner until I’ve read the entire series from the beginning. I’m going to let myself count the reading toward my 15 minutes of writing today, simply because I think reading the series is the best thing I can do for myself right now; I just do not think I’m going to be able to start writing on this book again until I read those other books.

Here’s the plan.

Tonight: Read for about an hour, get 1/2 through book 1.

Finish reading book 1 by 10 AM tomorrow.

Read book 2 by 2 PM tomorrow.

Read book 3 by 6 PM tomorrow.

Read book 4 by 10 PM tomorrow.

Saturday: Read what’s written of book 5 by 12 noon. Commit to keeping or deleting the last few scenes.

I’m going to track how I do with this and update this post accordingly. :D

Updates

Uh oh. The reading is going slower than I hoped it would. At 11:22 I’m at the 18% mark in book 1. :o

Still, it’s working. I’m getting excited about this world again! I’ll continue to update with my progress throughout the day today. I’m hoping I’ll be able to catch up on the reading. :)

2nd update: I haven’t done well with the reading today. I’m going to try pushing for a little more self-discipline tomorrow and stay offline until I’ve read at least 2 books. Tonight, I hope to be able to stay awake long enough finish reading book 1. I’m afraid that’s going be difficult. I’m already very sleepy.

Saturday updates

Yep, I’m a day behind now. The goal is still to finish this read through as quickly as I can, preferably today with a bit of time left for writing. What I don’t want is to finish reading and not have time to write something right away.

10:05 book 1 38% read

12:17 book 1 56% read (I’m having serious trouble concentrating.)

10:44 book 1 67% read

Sunday updates

Too much time away and too many interruptions yesterday, plus a serious problem with concentration led to very little reading.

8:40 book 1 67% read (today’s starting point)

I’m going to try to stay on schedule today with my original plan.

9:58 book 1 80% read

10:58 book 1 100% read!

12:17 book 2 8% read (Again, I’m having trouble concentrating, but of note is how flat my stories feel to me right now. I’m trying to remember the last time I was truly excited about a book while I was reading it, and I can’t really remember. I know it wasn’t the last one; I gave up on that one about 200 pages from the end of the book’s 680ish pages. On the other hand, I feel better about the new book—if this is as good as it gets, the new book will fit right in.)

12:04 (AM) book 2 9% read

Monday updates

9:15 book 2 12% read

Tuesday updates

8:51 (PM) book 2 23% read

Thursday updates

9:29 (PM) book 2 44% read

Finally, the eldest is off to college. It’s been a stressful few days–weeks even–but I’m hoping things are about to settle down a bit. Too little sleep last night put me into a stupor today, but tomorrow I’m going to finish this.

Saturday updates

“Tomorrow” came and went yesterday, with very little reading.

I’m starting from the last update on progress I have listed above.

Sunday updates

This is it. I’m going to finish the reading today and start writing again before the day is done. It’s mind boggling how long this has taken, but the time for excuses has passed.

10:22 book 2 57% read

Dealt with a few interruptions, but it’s back to reading now.

3:03 book 2 67% read

4:02 book 2 71% read (I’m not enjoying these books the way I used to enjoy them. I read something else yesterday, hoping to perk up my interest in reading, but all that did was make me feel worse about my writing in these books, and I’m already feeling pretty bad about it. I honestly don’t know if it’s as bad as it feels as I’m reading, or if it’s just me. If I didn’t need to do this reading for continuity with the new book, I think I would abandon this effort. It’s really making me feel terrible about my skill as a writer!)

Aside: I’m either going to have to stay up very, very late, or I’m about to start skimming!

Monday updates

Okay, so I didn’t finish yesterday, but I’m making good progress this morning, and I’ve committed to making today the last day for this.

8:55 book 2 77% read

9:51 book 2 100% done!

Having a much easier time concentrating today and the numbers prove it. No, none of that was skim reading. I just found it easier to stay focused on the story and got through 23% of the book in a less than an hour. I’m taking a break for food and then I’m going to dig into book 3 and hope this improved ability to concentrate sticks around.

12:10 book 3 20% read

2:12 book 3 24% read

2:45 book 3 31% read

By the way, book 3 is twice as long as book 1. :)

4:55 book 3 33% read

6:33 book 3 36% read

9:30 book 3 41% read

It’s obvious to me that I’m not going to finish this tonight unless I stay up much later than I can possibly stay up.

Tomorrow it is then. But I do believe I can still finish this book tonight, now that it’s quiet again.

Tuesday updates

Unfortunately, I’m not yet reading book 4 this morning, because I conked out last night not long after I made the update above. Fell asleep with my phone in my hand and the book in face.

But what’s done is done. I’m very confident today will actually be the last day of this, and I’m somewhat confident today will be the day I get back to writing.

9:34 book 3 49% read

5:37 book 3 62% read

7:11 book 3 73% read

8:01 book 3 81% read

8:58 book 3 100% done!

9:17 book 4 9% read

Calling it a night. I will finish this tomorrow. The goal is to finish book 4 by 11 and what’s written of book 5 by 3. Then I’ll spend some time writing.

Wednesday updates

Last day, I know it. Really!

It’s 9 AM sharp and I’m ready to read. I’m starting just where I left off last night. I have 2 hours to read this book if I want to stay on track with my plan so I may do some skimming. I have read this book more recently than I had read the previous books so skimming may be adequate. :)

2:12 book 4 27% read

I’m still planning to finish this today but I am not where I wanted to be. It really looks like I’m going to just have to force myself to skim read. Skimming does not come naturally to me. I actually have a very hard time doing it, and that’s probably one reason why I ditch books so quickly when I get bored with them.

Which brings me to this: I am bored with these books. I’m hoping that’s one reason the first 3 books of the series annoyed me so much with their inferiority. (As in, I’m praying really hard that they’re not as bad as they felt as I was reading them.)

The book I’m reading now, though, book 4, is just as good, if not better, than I remember. Maybe I haven’t yet read it too many times. :o

2:56 book 4 34% read

6:45 book 4 37% read

9:12 book 4 45% read

Monday updates (Or 18 days later!)

Let me just say that I didn’t intend for it to take anywhere near this long to finish this little project of reading my series from the start. It was supposed to be a quick detour to help me get back into this series so I can finish this last book, which only needs (guessing here) about ten to twenty thousand words to complete it.

My perception of time is warped, I know, but this failure can’t be blamed only on that. Thursday I read a book, then started several others that I couldn’t quite bring myself to finish. By the way, Dead City is a good book, not one you want to think too hard about, but one that keeps up a nice pace and is fun reading. Plague Year, one that I started reading Thursday but haven’t finished, has slower pacing, but drew a much more visceral reaction from me. I’m going to get back to it, but first I want to finish reading my own book, get into a steady rhythm with my daily writing again, and read the sequel to The Last Policeman, which I read a week and a half ago and loved.

Funny how I just move on to reading other stuff when I forbid myself a book because I should be doing something else instead. :o I told myself I couldn’t read Countdown City until I finished reading my book and got back to writing. Instead, I spent time reading stuff I wanted to read much less than Countdown City and didn’t make progress on anything.

The weekend turned out to be time off, and that leaves me here. I started this morning at the 45% mark in book 4 (still) and have made some progress.

Goals today include (1) finish reading this book, (2) read/edit 18 chapters of book 5, and (3) write chapter 19 of book 5. (I’m giving something different a trail run, and I’ll post my draft on that topic as soon as I get to call this post DONE.)

11:23 (AM) book 4 62% read

Sometime in the afternoon book 4 87% read

Wednesday updates

Well, I got sick. I’m doing this update because I promised myself I’d update my word count spreadsheet every day, especially when I’m not writing, to help me stay aware of the passage of time.

Friday updates

It’s Friday, I feel better, and I’m going to finish this thing today, twenty-two days from the day I started this project. Yes I am. :)

Tuesday updates

DONE. Done, done, done, done, done!

Now on to the next phase. :o

Let’s not discuss the fact that this is many days after the day I was absolutely certain would be my last day at this.

Not a strong start today

Lynn

I’ve yet to do the edits I talked about in my previous post. I’m disappointed that I’ve been at the computer most of the afternoon and have nothing to show for it other than… well, this post.

Oh, and a journal entry, because I’ve been doing those again. I have a notebook for that, and I’ve taken to handwriting my thoughts again, because of the supposed benefit that you remember more if you hand write things.

I need all the help I can get remembering this stuff. I’ve gone back and forth with writing down my thoughts into the note keeping software I use, but when I go back through my notes, I’m always amazed that I’ve had this thought and that thought and that I should really remember those thoughts but haven’t.

On that note, I think it’s time I make an effort to put in my 15 minutes before I regret letting more of the day slip away on me. Maybe it’ll lead to some real writing today!

All I can do is hope, anyway. This creative dry spell has to end sometime.

15 minutes a day: day 1 results

Lynn

Yesterday I managed to do really well not writing. I did, however, finally give in and sit down at my computer. I wrote a few words, deleted a few others, then decided I’d be better off just using the 15 minutes to make myself read what I’d already written, or at least the relevant parts of it.

So I did that instead. I timed it, too, so I didn’t try to cheat. I read on my Kindle, and I was obviously in a mood, because I highlighted massive sections for deletion and “fixing.” I put that in quotes, because it deserves to be in quotes. I don’t like editing my stories once I’ve moved on to other sections of the story*; it doesn’t often help strengthen anything and does quite often flatten everything, turning it dull and lifeless. (*I edit as I write. I don’t know if it can be called editing, but it’s an integral part of my writing process. I write from one scene to the next, in a very linear fashion, but I write scenes, paragraphs, and even sentences out of order, in a very non-linear fashion. Much the way I write my blog posts here.)

Hindsight tells me that if I would have deleted the last 2 to 4 thousand words, I could have written something else many times over in all the time I’ve wasted avoiding this book.

I just… don’t know where to go with this story. I’ve lost all enthusiasm for it.

I meant to read through what I’d written a while back and that never happened. I just haven’t gotten to it, but reading the story from the beginning and getting right to work on it afterward, with no wasted time between, is the only hope I have left for regaining any of that enthusiasm.

So using those 15 minutes last night to force the issue felt like the right move. I think it was. I’m thinking about the book again, and I’m ready to spend today’s 15 minutes going through those highlighted passages and making a decision about the direction of this book.

15 minutes a day

Lynn

It’s late, but I’ve just ended another 0 word day. So I’m going to try something a little different tomorrow and thereafter. (I certainly have to try something!)

15 minutes.

No matter what else I do tomorrow and every day thereafter, I will spend 15 minutes trying to write something for my in-progress story.

I’ll set a timer and just make myself sit down for those 15 minutes and write. After that, who knows what will happen, but—15 minutes. I will learn to be more consistent, even if it’s 15 minutes at a time.