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. ;)

June 27 writing schedule update

Lynn

As you’ve probably already guessed, the schedule hasn’t helped in any way to get me started writing again. I haven’t even come close to getting started on time a single time since I came up with it, because for some reason beyond me, I’ve gone from going to bed at a reasonable hour to staying up until midnight. Needless to say, I haven’t been getting up at 6 AM and I haven’t been getting started by 7 AM.

I’ve revised the schedule for tomorrow and tried to set up another for today so I don’t end the day having written nothing again. But I have a feeling I have deeper issues to worry over.

Allowing myself to work on multiple books at once without making any kind of commitment to finish any one before another was working great for me.

I screwed that up. I’ve cost myself loads of time that I am CERTAIN I wouldn’t have lost if I’d just stuck to that. I bet I’d be finished with at least one of my almost finished books by now.

Instead I changed my focus, and now I’m in a terrible position of REALLY needing to finish a certain book before the others, making me feel overwhelmed and stressed and setting off a wave of procrastination and avoidance that I knew would happen—but thought, foolishly, that maybe this time it wouldn’t.

I don’t know if I can get out of this without missing my deadline—a deadline I put on myself but that I mentioned in several places in a way that makes it feel like an honest-to-God obligation.

I suspect I’m going to miss it and I suspect there’s nothing I can do about that.

I don’t like failing in situations like these, when I know it’s all my fault—I totally set myself up for failure in this instance.

Okay, deep breath. I’m moving on to another post, one where I set out my plan to get out of this mess I’ve created for myself.

Also, this is not in any way related, but I’ve decided my categories and tags on this site are pretty useless for finding things. Expect changes.

June 24 session log

Lynn

At 11:30 am:

Hours Words Session WPH
0.7 374 374 534.286
0.9 725 351 390

I didn’t plan for a late start, but that’s what happened. Then I had several interruptions that interfered with me finishing sessions on time. Finally, I stopped for a bit of reading and lunch and I’m going to finish the 4 hours just as soon as I finish reading this book and possibly take a quick nap (thunderstorms last night and a barking dog meant I had a rough night of sleep). I have less than 20 pages of the book left, and I know I’ll concentrate better having it finished. It’s at the big finale.

All right. It’s 2:31 pm and I’m back. My hands are out of practice with the typing! Which matters, because I need approximately 1,045 words an hour for the next 2.4 hours to reach my goal in the total 4 hours I planned for today. :o

I’d better get to it.

When something isn’t working, it’s time to change something

Lynn

I still believe that writing on multiple stories is the way to a better word count for me. So this isn’t about that. What it’s about is the fact that I just cannot seem to get moving again on ANY of my books. I am stuck.

So if what I’m doing isn’t working—and nothing I’ve tried of late has worked to get me started again—it’s time to try something different.

Something different doesn’t mean something new

I’m going back to a schedule. I know I have a terrible history with schedules, but for the moment, I think it will help. I don’t know how long I’ll need it, but starting tomorrow I’m going to make it very important that I sit down and write EVERY DAY during my scheduled writing time.

I’m dropping back to my 3,233 daily goal (which is 1,180,000 / 365) from my more recent attempt to write 3,933 daily (1,180,000 / 12 / 25). This means I need only 4 hours of timed writing if I can reach an average pace of 808 words per hour—a stretch, but definitely possible with my increased speeds of late.

At this lower daily word count, I will have to write every day to reach my goal, so I’m setting aside the idea that I can’t write on publish days, if only because I blame the days I took off this past month for my current inertia. I need my daily writing to become habitual.

The schedule

The schedule is a morning schedule, because I wake up early whether I want to or not, and trying to mess with that never works out well for me. The fact is, I’ve been getting up early for several months now, and I don’t expect that to change until the sun stops coming up before 6 AM.

  • 7:00 to 8:00
  • 8:10 to 9:10
  • 9:20 to 10:20
  • 10:30 to 11:30

I’m going to make a big deal about upsetting my schedule or changing my routine. Writing daily is important. At 4 hours a day, that’s only 28 hours a week of writing time. There’s just no reason for these hours not to be treated as the critical hours they are. I’m hardly asking too much of myself even after you factor in break times and the time I need for publishing related activities.

And that’s really all I have to say in this post. The plan is not all that different from many other plans I’ve made over the years, but it’s different at this moment from what I’ve been doing. Schedules have worked for me in the past, even if only for a while, and I’ll take that if that’s all I get. I just need something to get me focused on writing again. Wish me luck. :)

I’m accepting no excuses for tomorrow. At 11:30 am tomorrow, I’ll post my first results (accountability) post for this new schedule.

June 21 no sessions

Lynn

Not much to report, other than the fact that I didn’t write today. I meant to. I just didn’t.

In light of that, I’ve decided to plan out tomorrow.

  • 7 to 8
  • 8:15 to 9:15
  • 9:30 to 10:30
  • 10:45 to 11:45
  • 3:30 to 4:30
  • 6 to 7
  • 7:15 to 8:15

I’m interested to see how closely I can adhere to this. I don’t plan to return to scheduled writing—not at all—but tomorrow is a bit special, and I think I could use the focus.

I’m most interested in working on one particular story tomorrow, although I do plan to allow myself to switch to something else if the words just aren’t coming.

So there it is, all laid out. Wish me luck. :)

I am an object at rest

Lynn

Three things

  1. I become an object at rest after I publish a book. (Current streak of 0 words proves it.)
  2. Procrastination is a habit.
  3. I’ve already forgotten the third thing.

If I want to get the law of inertia working in my favor, I need a plan. I’ve let some bad habits slip into my routine over the last several weeks. Time to stop them. I’ve let procrastination become a habit.

My challenge

  • No more visiting forums or blogs for a while—preferably until I’ve completed the four books I most need to finish.
  • No more reading articles about procrastination. :o
  • No more reading the “Trending” tab on my Kindle Fire* or my other Fire tablets. Worst use of my time ever. I don’t know why I have so much trouble resisting a look at it every time I open the browser.

The secret to this plan is to get boredom working in my favor.

If I find myself turning to fiction reading to relieve said boredom, at least then it’s somewhat productive, because any fiction writer should consider fiction reading a necessary part of the job. !

Plus, reading good fiction has a major tendency to make me want to write. So there’s that.

I know that as soon as I get back into one of my stories momentum will take over and save me from myself for at least a little while. :)

*My Kindle Fire is one of the 2nd generation devices. I won it in a drawing at a local restaurant, after eating there for the first time (and last time to be honest). I love it and I still prefer it over the newest generation Fire tablet I bought in December. It’s a much better device, to be honest, all around. Still doesn’t have a scratch on it.

June 19 no sessions

Lynn

I just didn’t do any writing today. I’d hoped I would, but I didn’t, and now I’m tired and I think I’m going to bed early. One of my kids is sick, and I’m a bit worried I might be showing symptoms of what she’s got. Considering how badly I need to finish this book, I’ll be in trouble if I do. :o

But tomorrow? No question. I MUST start making progress on my writing.

June 18 session log

Lynn

What is this? It’s my new session log! :) I’ve decided I don’t like challenges. Well, the word “challenge,” anyway. For some reason, every time I say I’m challenging myself, I immediately start resisting getting started on said challenge. It’s a thing, a very real thing.

And tomorrow I’m going to have to actually use my session log to record something besides: 0.

It’s obvious, isn’t it?

Lynn

I’ve messed up by pushing myself to write on a specific book instead of letting my interest guide me. But I’m now at a point where I HAVE to finish this book I’ve been working on. Really, I have to finish it. ASAP.

But trying to force myself to work on only one story is killing my word counts and my momentum.

I’m going to have to back off and just write, something, until I’m past the resistance that’s keeping me from getting started again. History tells me that I’ll find my way back to my book and finish it sooner than I would otherwise. It worked for my last book; I bet it’ll work for this one.

All I know for sure is that a streak of zeros certainly isn’t helping me reach my goals. At least if I’d written something, I’d have more books closer to done.

So, today, I’m going to focus my time on whichever book I’m most interested in working on, in one hour sessions.

Goal = 3,933 words

(Why do I even bother with that? My goal is always 3,933 words except on publishing days. I’ve got to come up with a better way to use this blog for a bit of accountability. What I’m doing sure isn’t working.)

Yesterday was a total bust; a challenge for today

Lynn

Update: Nope. Didn’t work. I’m still struggling.

Too many distractions: the repairman didn’t leave until 7 PM. Well, one of them. The other left at 4:15. But I have A/C now! I’m loving it! I feel SO MUCH BETTER today. It’s really amazing.

Anyway, I also feel like I can accomplish anything I want right now and so I’m setting myself the goal of writing as much as I want today. :D

No interruptions expected other than comings and goings of family, and they’re on notice: I’m working on my books today!

A challenge for today

I’d like to finish this book I’ve been working on by Friday. That’s 3 days from now. At a minimum, I need 10,000 more words. I feel like the story might go long, so that might mean I need as many as 20,000 words. The longest book to date in this series is about 63,000 words, so maybe I’ll need 23,000 words, but I honestly do not want the book to go that long, and I don’t think it needs to.

Here’s the breakdown of what that all means if I want to finish this book in 3 days.

If I need… I need this many words per day
10,000 3,333
20,000 6,667
23,000 7,667

My plan is simple: Aim for my 5 hours—and 3,933 words—goal, and then try to get as many extra words as I can.

Hopefully, this will give me a finished book on Friday.

I will update my progress at the end of the day; I’m about to shut down my WIFI and I’m not going to turn it back on for a while.

Starting early, starting tired, but it’s got to be done

Lynn

I woke up tired today. Which is a huge bummer because I really wanted to wake up energetic so I wouldn’t have to fight so hard to write this morning. I’m just… tired. I don’t really know why and I still have a bit of a headache.

I’m sure it’s all related, but for the moment, I need to set all those feelings aside and sink into my book.

I’m going to keep my sessions short this morning, and I’m not going to focus on the timer so I can ease into this. Maybe some 15 minute sessions just to have a record of time spent. No pressure. I’ll be back to post an update when I have something to report.

Praying the A/C repair people show up quickly and get my A/C sorted out before evening. (Supposed to be an all-day job, according to what I’ve been told. My biggest fear is that they won’t finish today. That would make me ridiculously sad.)

Eh. Forget that. I’m sad already. The new pen name book is doing about what I expected: nothing much. I started that pen name to do some pricing experiments, and yet I’ve fallen right back into my groove and done no real experimenting at all. And that genre? Probably can’t support the pricing scheme I’m using. I’m going to have a make a decision on that, but I feel weird about changing the price so soon after publishing, because I have sold 6 9 copies at the $6.99 price. But since I have zero intention of running ads or anything of the sort on the pen name at the moment, the books are just not going to do anything more than what they’re doing if I don’t change something. The smart thing to do here would be to get the next book out within 30–60 days, and ha ha ha, that’s a total laugh. I have too many books due for my primary pen name to even contemplate that.

And… this sent me off to create a spreadsheet to calculate just how it would be possible, and I’ve had to face the fact that it’s very possible, if I were able to stick to writing 98,333 words a month, which I’m supposed to be doing. Gah. Today is not the day to stare my failures in the face. It’s too depressing when I’m already bummed.

But yes, if I wrote approximately 3,233 a day (3,933 a day with my 5 publishing days off a month), I could have the next pen name book done in—get this—about 47 days, and that’s after completing three other books first. I’m so disgusted with myself right now, because now I know it’s possible, but I know the chance of me successfully reaching and maintaining 98,333 words a month is… not good.

Why does this feel so hard sometimes?

I make it hard. That’s why.

Time to just get back to focusing on getting my 5 hours / 3,933 words a day in, and let the rest fall into place.

Looks like I’m going to need some accountability

Lynn

Update: It looks like accountability didn’t help. I did 0 words, 0 minutes, and I feel terribly guilty about it. Yet, despite the fact that I could probably spend the next half hour writing something before I go to bed, I’m sitting here writing this update instead. :o

I’m having a very hard time getting started. I’m hot and uncomfortable and sweaty, and all I really want to do it sprawl out on my couch under the ceiling fan with a wet rag over my forehead and do nothing. But I have a book to finish and I’ve set myself the challenge to finish by the end of the week. (And tomorrow could be questionable for me being able to concentrate because the repair crew will be here working on my A/C.

Screenshot 2016-06-13 16.38.07
Screenshot from weather.gov for my location. The high today is supposed to be 90! I feel like they’re letting me down here… :o

It’s 4:15 pm already and I really need to get some words down. So here’s the plan.

I’ve sent the doc to my Kindle. I’m going to alternate reading for typos and writing as a way to get me back into this story.

I don’t think it’s realistic to expect myself to start this late and get in my full five hours of writing today, so I’m just going to make this a “less time, more words” challenge.

I’m going to push for 3 solid hours of writing and try to get as many words* as I can during that time.

  • Read a chapter
  • Write for 60 minutes
  • Read a chapter
  • Write for 60 minutes
  • Read a chapter
  • Write for 60 minutes

If the 60 minutes feel too hard, I’ll switch to 30 minute sessions. Whatever it takes to get me working on this book again. :) Heck, maybe I’ll even switch to a different book for a bit.

*Here’s the deal. In case I’ve never mentioned this before, because I honestly can’t remember if I have, but when I push for high word counts it’s always with the assumption that they’re going to be words that make sense and that don’t make a mess for me to clean up later. I write clean, and I like it that way. I just don’t have a “get the words down and clean up the mess later” attitude, and I can’t imagine why I’d want it. Tried it many years ago when I was trying to figure out how to write, and I set it aside in favor of something actually productive for me. :)

 

Editing and proofreading finished!

Lynn

Finally, I finished reading the last section of the book this morning, and the edits for that bit were super quick. I actually like the book much more than I remember thinking back when I finished it! :D

But it’s been more than a month since I finished the book, so I guess that makes a difference. :)

So, now I’m onto formatting and publishing. I need to finish all that today. :o

Also, I’m still trying to decide if I want to go back into KDP with this pen name or not. I pulled the book out when the last renewal came up, in anticipation of making sure both books were either in or out, on the same time line.

This is the second pen name book, and I’m not expecting great things from it, not after a wait of nearly a year since the last book came out. :o

So: do I want to put the book into KDP?

  • In favor of KDP
    • Time saved by publishing only at Amazon (about a day)
    • First book was in KDP, so I might see better results for second book if it goes in for at least a little while
  • In disfavor of KDP
    • The first book will be a new book on all vendors other than Amazon, so I’ll have two new books on those sites
    • I like my books being available in lots of places
    • I don’t like being paid by page reads. Reminds me too much of the rip-off that is Google Adsense, etc: big companies taking advantage of small publishers to make big money and share only a pittance with the person responsible for the actual content. Amazon’s page read program isn’t that bad, but it feels bad.

Hmm. I’ll have to decide, but I can finish the formatting first!

Finally, do I want to continue with a pricing experiment (which is one reason I created the pen name) or do I just want to price at $6.99?

Both questions I need answers too by the end of the day today.

Now here’s some accountability for today’s activities. (I’ve decided I really like using lists for this stuff, no idea why.)

  • 11:29 am
    • Time to format my Word docx, will try to finish before I stop for lunch today.
      • Stopping at 12:30 pm with only the table of contents to finish. The other formatting only took so long because I was puttering with my styles and updating the formatting of the first book in the series.
  • 4:10 pm
    • Starting on the table of contents
    • Finished shortly thereafter
  • Worked and reworked the blurbs (descriptions) for the current book and the one before too many times to count before I came up with something I really liked. Two hours at least, although I didn’t really keep up.

Uh, I gave up. It’s just been ridiculously hot in here this afternoon/evening, with 90° Fahrenheit and sun outside, making it hard to cool down at the computer. I’ll get back at it in the morning when it might be at least a little cooler. (Did I say they’re finally coming on Tuesday to fix the A/C? Yay!)

Also, I got distracted by a movie I didn’t intend to watch to the end while I ate supper. But it was lovely and wonderful and I couldn’t turn it off. Consider this a rec for The Age of Adalind. I loved it!

Supper was frozen blueberries, fresh cherries, and plain Yogurt and just enough honey to make it sweet (makes a really cold desert), a peach, an orange, and some strawberries. Too much fruit, I know. But I’m not cooking in this heat. Forget that.

Anyway, I’ll move on to generating my EPUB tomorrow and publish sometime after that.

The truth is, I haven’t decided on the KDP or pricing issue anyway, so I’ll make a commitment on those tonight. Then I’ll get up and get this stuff done, so I can get back to writing, ASAP.

Now, off to bed so I can be up early enough to get some windows open and get this house cooled off before facing another 90° day.

Editing and proofreading continues, redux

Lynn

I’m restarting yesterday’s challenge for today, because today is really do have to finish this editing and proofreading! I have another book to finish, and I need as few as 10k words to finish it (although it might go long, in which case, I’m really hoping I can do 20k in a week again, because a week is about all the time I have left for that one).

I’m starting at location 1997 of 4185 total locations this morning, so I have 52% of the book left to edit and proof. But really, I have a bit more, because I haven’t yet fixed the stuff I found to fix in my last reading session. So… Yeah. I really have to do a better job staying on task today and not letting my breaks eat up all my time.

Time to get to it.

The plan:

  1. Read in one hour sessions
  2. Make corrections/edit
  3. Break for five to ten minutes
  4. Do it again.

Record of time and locations (percent complete):

  • 7:18 am:
    • At location 1997 (48%)
    • Finished edits through this location at 11:03 am
      • Took much too long!!! But, to be honest, this edit encompassed the scene I mentioned in this post. I guess I’m lucky it didn’t take longer. :o Although I thought I was okay with that scene when I finished it, it still had more buggy spots left than I’d realized.
  • 2:15 pm:
    • At location 3084 (74%)
      • I forgot to set the timer so I just read until I needed a break.
      • I read for about 2 hours and made it through about 25% of the book.
      • Therefore I estimate 3–4 hours to go! (reading + edits)
      • I’ll be back to input these edits after a nap. :D Brain is toast. Concentrating so hard  for that long is tough on me!
  • 7:01 pm:
    • Still at location 3084 (74%) & about to start inputting edits!
      • Nap was too long, then it was time for the regular Friday balancing of my accounts, which inevitably took longer than I planned. It always does.
    • Finished the edits for this session and called it a night! Boo!

Editing and proofreading continues

Lynn

I need to be accountable for today’s editing and proofreading work, and that’s a fact. Yesterday, I did not come close to finishing and I really needed to. So today is it. I must work, stay focused, and get this done, even if it takes all day.

Consider it a challenge: I must finish my edits and proofreading for this book today.

I’m starting at location 641 of 4185 total locations this morning, meaning I have 85% of the book left to edit and proof.

I’m going to follow a pattern today, to see if it helps me get into a groove and maybe eliminate the overwhelm that usually comes at the end when I realize I have 32 Kindle screens worth of highlights in the “Notes” section to deal with. The plan is to have nothing left there when I’m done but the bigger issues I need to double check or fix.

The plan:

  1. Read in 1/2 hour one hour sessions
  2. Make corrections/edit
  3. Break for five to ten minutes
  4. Do it again.

Record of time and locations (percent complete):

  • 8:49 am:
    • At location 641 (15%)
  • 9:43 am:
    • At location 856 (21%)
      • And I’ve already discovered that 30 minutes is just too short. I’m going to do an hour of reading for the rest of the sessions.
    • Finished edits for this session at 10:18 am
  • 2:28 pm:
    • At location 1412 (34%)
      • Finished the last reading session around 11:30 am, but then lost 2.5 hours to lunch and several interruptions, and lost another half hour to Kboards.* I also feel like I need a nap, but I really don’t have time for one.
  • 5:02 pm or somewhere thereabouts:
    • At location 1997 (48%)

It’s 9:06 pm and bedtime and I’m not going to finish. I’ll have to do this all over again tomorrow. And the high tomorrow is forecast to be 88°F, with an air quality alert for ozone, and I still have no A/C. :o I’m really starting to wonder if the part they need to fix my unit is ever going to arrive. It’s been 4 weeks now.

*I’m going to have to start staying away from forums and blogs and other writer communities unless I have real downtime (not downtime between writing sessions, etc., but actual downtime, when I’ve already finished everything I need to do for the day and just want to do something to pass the time.

This blog and the accountability I need

Lynn

I have a problem with internal motivation. I don’t have a lot of it. I use this blog to create a sense of accountability with the world at large, despite the fact that I’m mostly writing these posts into a great wide void.

I like that. I think I’d find it a lot harder to write these posts if I thought people were actually reading them. I’d want to say all the right things, and I’m not very good at that. :D

But I do like the sense that someone could be reading, and therefore, whatever I write needs to be real and I need to mean it, at least when I write it.

I admit when I fail. I fail a lot, to be honest. If you read the blog, you know that. I mean it. I fail a lot. Trying is more important to me than succeeding.

But posting my goals, even when they’re crazy and I know almost before I start that I’m going to fail, works in some weird way to keep pushing me forward and that’s important to me.

This blog is important to me, because of that.

Editing and proofreading today

Lynn

I was supposed to be on the editing and proofreading days ago, and yet… here I am, doing it today. And let’s be honest. I’m writing this to delay getting back to it just a little longer. Procrastination, you are my frenemy.

I have about three hours in which to finish all this and I can already say in all honesty that that is not going to happen. No way, no how. It would take me that long just to read the rest of the book without distraction. And I’ve already discovered that there are places in this book that need more attention than that.

I use the Send to Kindle software on my computer to send my docx files to my Kindle Fire for this stage. The book has 4185 locations in Kindle (easier to read for typos there) and I’m at 583. It took me about a hour to get there.  Then I stopped to make some corrections to the book, ended up adding a few bits in to be most consistent with something that happens later in the book and that took about half an hour.

If I use today’s progress to estimate time to finish the editing and proofreading , I come up with about 11 hours total for editing and proofreading time. I’ve done 1.5 hours already, so that’s about 9 hours to finish. That’d put me finishing at 4 a.m. assuming I take no breaks whatsoever.

Then I’ll have to proofread everything I corrected, again.

So I’ll be at it again tomorrow. And I’d better put in as much focused time tonight on it as possible. I’m running up against a couple of deadlines now that I really can’t miss this time.

Oh well. Gotta get back to it, so I’ll leave it there. Maybe I’ll get through the rest of the book faster than I expect and will be able to report back something awesome!

Either way, I’m going to post where I end up. I’d like a written record. :D

I ended at location 641. Ack. I did do more edits, but mostly I spent some time with my son. Ah well. It was a trade off that was worth it in this instance. :D Back at it tomorrow.

Switching things up

Lynn

I’m going to switch things up today, by working half the day on writing, and the other half on copy editing that book I need to get ready to publish. I wanted to get started on the copy editing yesterday and didn’t but definitely should have. Didn’t get close to my word count goal either, and today I need to do better.

The thing is, I’m feeling very stressed. I’m going to have to get over that. It’s really isn’t helping me get anything done.

I think I’ll do 1 hour blocks and trade out. That wasn’t what I intended when I thought about switching out, but the thought of writing or copy editing for hours on end without a break between kind of makes me want to go back to bed instead.

And later…

Ugh! I’m not having any luck at this today. I finally bailed on it and did the books instead (my monthly accounting update to my records and my spreadsheet, etc., and then I did my personal books and my budget). It needed to be done, but not at the cost of missed writing time or another delay of the copy edit. Time is growing short, deadlines are looming, and I’m just making all this so much harder than it has to be!

Trying again to reach my daily goal

Lynn

Yesterday was a bit of a let down. I didn’t reach my goals—not even half.

Today I’m going to try to use the same plan I tried to use yesterday, with a minor change. I’m going to split up my writing sessions: 2 right after breakfast (right now, that is), 2 right after lunch, and the last (and maybe one extra) right after supper. So, the plan is 5–6 hours of writing today.

All with an aim to finish each block as soon as possible, so no dawdling.

Today’s goals

  • Write 3,933 words in 5 hours
  • Copy edit 1/4 of pen name 2 book #2
  • Skim read pen name 2 book #1 (checking for consistency with book #2)

This’ll be a busy day.

  • Writing = 6 hours
  • Copy editing = 3.8 hours (I can copy edit about 5,000 words an hour. Getting through 1/4 of the book is a stretch, but possible, I think, if I’m efficient with my writing time today.)
  • Skim reading = 2 hours (I don’t want to skim so fast I don’t pick up on details.)

Total estimated time = 11.8 hours

Doable, but a stretch. I’m going for it. See you back here when I’ve got something to report. :)

Updating….

I’m really failing at this today. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think some of it is that I need that “mull over” time I talked about when I explained why writing multiple stories seems to work to get me such better word counts.

Or maybe it really is just the fact that I’m distracted by having almost no time to myself right now.