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. ;)

Today’s Goals and the End of No More Zero Word Days

Lynn

Well, I looked at the 50 word minimum on my 123rd day of writing every day and I quit. I have no idea why, still, but it was a conscious decision. I stared at the page, knowing I would be writing the 50 words just to keep the streak alive and I very deliberately closed my document and set my computer aside and went to bed. That was a couple of days ago.

If you want me to explain why I did that, you’ll have to ask me another day because I don’t know the answer.

Yesterday, I proofed and began formatting a book I’m preparing to publish and I didn’t write. So now I have a two day 0 word streak that I plan to end today after I finish my formatting. My biggest challenge will be staying focused enough on the formatting not to get sucked into doing related but less important tasks. I’ve already slipped off track this morning and reformatted an older story (the book I’m preparing is a bundle of the short stories I’ve written over the last few years) that needed updating (two typos, back matter updates, etc).

Now, I’m off to heat up my tea and get back to formatting the new one. I’m trying to finish by 9:30 am.

Today’s goals

I’d like to write about 3,000 words and publish that book I’m formatting by 6 pm.

Today’s progress

Well, it’s 11:24 am and I just finished that formatting. I got my EPUB, MOBI, PDF, and Smashwords DOC all fixed up, and they do look fabulous if I do say so myself. :D I use Word and Jutoh, and to be honest it was the PDF that took all my time.

I forget how finicky Word gets when you start adding in headers and footers and set the layout options to different first page and different odd and even pages. That doesn’t work well when you don’t want extra pages added into the PDF (something that’s all right when you’re doing paperback formatting but when the PDF is for general downloading, not so much). It really makes those headers and footers tricky business! But as a struggling perfectionist, I can’t seem to help the compulsion I have to get those headers just right.

I’ll be working on paperback formatting for this book and three others the rest of the week and I can tell you now, I’ve heard a lot of self-publishers talk about how they can generate their paperbacks in an hour or two, and I can only guess that they don’t bother with hyphenation, widows and orphans, fancifying, or much else or they’ve done some fantastic systemization of their process because that stuff takes some serious time.

I usually spend about 15 to 20 hours on a book to get it print ready, although I’m thinking of taking a page out of some of these other authors’ playbooks and limiting what I do. I don’t make enough on paperback sales compared to ebook sales to put as much work into the formatting as I do. I go line by line looking for hyphenation and widows and orphans issues and let me say, that takes what feels like forever.

If you have tips for how to format for print efficiently, I’m all ears. Seriously.

Well, back to work. Time to do some writing before I start publishing later. 3,000 words is probably not going to be possible today by 6 pm since I’ll have to stop around 3 pm to start publishing but I’ll take whatever I can get! :)

HA HA HA HA!

As soon as it came time to write, I remembered a very important thing I needed to do today—shop for a replacement health insurance plan, because my current plan is ending at the end of the month. So there went my afternoon. I’m pretty sure the dude who was answering my questions about the healthcare marketplace hung up on me. :D In the end, though, I didn’t need his help and I found what I was looking for. I admit it took me from 11:30 am to 3:30 pm to narrow it down to 9 policy options and then choose one. But I feel good about my choice. Only now I have the issue that the healthcare.gov website went down (likely because open enrollment starts soon and they’re doing site improvements—that’d be my guess from the error message) and I either have to try to “confirm” my choice again tomorrow or call them. I really wish it was done but hey, at least I didn’t wait until the last day!

I’m going to fit in one hour of writing here shortly but that’ll probably be it for tonight. I’m actually kind of pooped right now. :)

Tomorrow, my plan is to start writing early-ish, but I’ll still probably go ahead and publish that book first since I meant to do that today. I estimate an hour and a half for the publishing. When I can get going in the mornings, I really do perform better and stay focused longer.

Somehow I think I need to figure out how to do that every day.

Today’s Goal Is a Work In Progress

Lynn

1st: Write
2nd: Write some more
3rd: Write enough so that it approaches some quantity that passes for real writing
4th: Keep writing
5th: Finish the novella that was supposed to be finished in January so I can write another book that’s supposed to be finished by the end of this month

Seriously. I need to finish that novella. I don’t usually outline these days. I hate outlining. However, I do believe I am going to have to sit down and outline the rest of this damn novella. If I don’t, I’m thinking I will never finish it. Never, ever, ever.

Since I don’t want to set it aside again, I am going to figure out a way to finish it this time. :D

UPDATE: I’ve written 1,677 words in about 4 hours today, and although I’m about to take a break, I’m planning to try to write at least 2,600 words today … so I’ll be back! :)

UPDATE #2: I was wrong about making it back. I haven’t had time to add any more words to my daily total, but I’m okay with that as long as I have a good day tomorrow. Again, I’ll be trying to finish this novella! I’ve noticed that I only seem to have problems with the writing when I get in a hurry to end it. The book wants to take its time getting to the end and I’ve had to stop pushing and let it take as long as it takes.

See ya tomorrow. :)

Today’s Goal Is to Write 5,075 Words! (Fail!)

Lynn

Holy crap. I needed to get started at 7:30 so I didn’t end up writing all day to reach this goal. It’s 9 am! :o

Still, it’s totally possible, if I can get going. I need a plan.

I’m going to try to squish my 7 hours down into 6, since I’m starting late, and that means I’m aiming for about 850 words every hour. I’m going to have to really push my writing to do this because I don’t write thousands of words every hour. Not even close!

I want to finish about 2,500 words (or 3 hours) of writing before lunch, and the same after lunch.

And later…

Yeah. I need a do over. :D I should also start taking these goals more seriously. :o

Today’s Goal Is to Write 2,900 Words (Fail!)

Lynn

I need to write 2,900 words today.

But first and foremost, I need to relax. I have a child taking the driving skills test today and I haven’t been able to even think about my fiction this morning. So those 2,900 words will have to come late this afternoon and evening. That’ll take me about 4 hours. I’d love to get it done in 3, or 2?? But I probably shouldn’t waste time pretending I have any chance of finishing those 2,900 words in less than 4 hours.

FAIL!

I haven’t written anything and it’s 8:58 pm. I’ll end up with my minimum tonight.

My goal for this week is 23,400 words and I have 5 days left in which to accomplish it.

Which means tomorrow needs to be a huge day for me at about 5,000 words. I’ve had exactly 6 days where I’ve written 5,000 or more words in the 795 days I’ve tracked since 8/11/2012. I need two 5k word days this week.

10/15/14, Wed 5,075
10/16/14, Thu 5,075
10/17/14, Fri 4,350
10/18/14, Sat 4,350
10/19/14, Sun 4,350

I have a huge week planned. We’ll see if I get anywhere near my goal by Sunday. :D

Pivoting

Lynn

I’ve just been doing some analysis on that spreadsheet I’ve been putting together. I’ve managed to combine all the Amazon spreadsheets for the period from July 2012 to August 2014. I really wish I knew how to record macros that worked because I know there’s an easier way, but since I didn’t want to take the time to learn how to do it, I just plowed through copy and pasting all that data into one big sheet.

I still need to add Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Createspace, and all the others, but since the vast majority of my sales come from Amazon, I wanted to run some preliminary analysis because I don’t plan to use any more time tonight adding the other data. I’ll do it another day.

Until I had the data split out by title, I had no idea how much money I’ve been passing up by rotating between my series so equally.

It’s actually kind of ridiculous. I can no longer justify taking so much time between the release of books in my best selling series to make time for books and stories in all my other series. I knew it, but I didn’t know it in a way I couldn’t deny. Now there’s no denying. Ouch.

Still, it shouldn’t be a hardship to spend more time on one series than another, since I love all my books. :D And it might make the next few months really interesting when it comes to income growth. I’d certainly like to see that!

Coffee and Me

Lynn

Holy crap. I just went through every post on this site checking the “excerpt” and updating it if there wasn’t one. I found a surprisingly large number of posts where I skipped adding an excerpt, which I use for a short description of the post and which shows up on the search results pages.

Why’d I bother with this? I have no idea, but this reminds me of something I’ve read that said caffeine helps you focus but doesn’t help you focus by priority. I’m very sensitive to caffeine. One cup of coffee can send my heart racing and make me very mentally hyper—and talkative. :D

I had a cup of coffee this morning just before I started messing with a spreadsheet and thinking about writing a blog post. Decaf is my friend. This was not decaf.

I ended up going through all my 359 posts.

So, oops.

I caught myself when I had done about 3/4 of the posts but I was so close to being done I couldn’t stop.

Literally could not stop myself from clicking the button to go on to the next few pages (40 posts each) and finish.

However, it’s done, and I’m trying to find a way to get back on track before the day is gone. I was supposed to start writing at 7 am. It’s now 11:22.

There are a couple of tasks I would like to finish before I start writing, but I’m going to have to try to make it quick.

ONE: I want to finish that spreadsheet project I started. If it works like I plan, it’ll let me easily break down sales by book title. I’d kind of like to know some details I don’t have access to at the moment. I’ve been studying the market, trying to get some insight before I start into my new books, because I’m not feeling pulled any particular way and I’d like to make a few guesses about what might give me the best return on my time at the moment. (And I got enough of this done today for some preliminary insight. Boy, did I.)

TWO: I’m trying to rewrite one of my blurbs that I think could use some serious work. It’s taking a while but I hope it will help the book sell better. I really like this book and I think everyone should read it. :D

Tomorrow’s Goal Is To Write!

Lynn

I’ve ended up taking an extended break from writing without meaning to take a break, but tomorrow I’ve got to get back to writing. Although I’ve hit my minimum 50 words for the last 5 days (from my mini-habit that I’m so bored with I can hardly stand it anymore!), that’s not really writing. I’d love to pretend it is, but it’s just not.

I’ve had some ideas for some new books (that I could turn into series if they sell) and I’m planning to get back to working on multiple stories each day to drive up my word counts.

October 2014 Writing Goals

Lynn
  • Write approximately 50,000 words.
  • Finish a novella I have going.
  • Finish a novel I started months ago.
  • Get started on another novel project.
  • Finish the month with my best daily word count average for a month. (Number to beat is 1,836 from February 2013.)

Writing Plan for Monday, October 6

Lynn

4 sessions before lunch for 2,400 2,000 words. (Not sure why I had 2,400! I would’ve liked 2,400, but 2,000 is the measure of success.)

No WI-FI (on my computer) until I’m done (or lunchtime, whichever comes first). Because of that, I’m drafting this on my Kindle while I get ready.

I’m starving so I need a good breakfast this morning! I also want to get started as soon as possible while my mind is fresh.

Be back later with a report of my success. ;)

REPORT:

Session 1: 9:15 to 10:21
Ended with 44 words and only got those because I kept writing after the timer went off. I’m going to end up starting the next session late. This novella needs to get easier to write. I have no idea what’s going on.

Session 2: 10:51 to 11:54
Ended with 670 words. Things are moving but I still need to break through whatever’s wrong so I can get to an ending for this thing.

Session 3: 12:08 to 12:55
Finished a bit early with 620 words.

Session 4: 1:12 to 2:09
Finished with 738 words.

Finished the day’s writing goal by lunch with 2,072 words total.

Now I’m thinking of slipping in another session or two this evening—or trying to format a book I need to put into print. Either way, I’ve got time to read and relax beforehand. Yay!

Deadlines and Work Days

Lynn

I’m ready to try something different. Starting tomorrow morning, I’m setting myself the goal of finishing my regular writing (about 2,000 words) each day by lunch time.

In fact, I’d like to reach and maintain a 2,000 words a day average starting this month.

For more than two years now, I’ve found it almost impossible for me to get more than a couple of hours of concentrated writing time in each day. I’m prepared to accept that limit for now. In all honestly, if I can reach and maintain a 2,000 words a day average, I’m going to be ecstatic!

A lunch time deadline for my writing is hopefully going to push me to get busy writing sooner in the mornings and keep busy. In an effort to make this real, I’m not going to let myself write after lunch for the first few weeks unless I’ve met my minimum goal by lunch. In that case, if I want to try to hit a higher word count for any particular day, I’m free to try.

Otherwise, if I don’t get something written by lunch, I don’t get to write. And that includes the 50 word minimum I need to keep my daily streak alive.

This could be a disaster, or it could be my most productive month since February 2013 when I averaged 1,836 words per day and ended the month with 51,396 words.

I’m going to try to avoid the disaster outcome, because I have books I need to be writing this month!

What I hope to get out of this besides the increased daily word count is more reading time, time for some extra physical activity (writing is not an active pursuit and I can certainly use a bit more physical activity in my days!), and earlier bed times so I can get my other experiment off the ground (getting up early every day).

 

The accountability page

Lynn

I took this from the accountability page, because I want this recorded for my own benefit but that page is about to go through an overhaul.

Yesterday (October 3, 2014) was day 107 of writing every day. I knew I was close to the 100 day mark, but I didn’t know I’d already gone a week past it. Yay! :D

Now, to be completely honest, on 33 of those days I wrote less than 100 words (I have a 50 word minimum) and I only wrote more than 2,000 words on 19 of those days.

My average for those 107 days is 824 words (and includes several negative word count days where I deleted way more than I wrote). But my all time daily average is 712 words (and would technically be less than that if I didn’t include the 107 days that averaged higher than 712 words). What that means is that this “no more zero word days” plan is actually helping my daily average! Not nearly as much as I want, but any gain is better than stagnation!

A 112 word increase sounds minuscule, until you multiply it by 365 days. Then you get 40,880 words—a decent sized novella or a short novel! I don’t know about you, but that’s worth something to me. :)

 

Time to Get Back to Writing

Lynn

I’ve taken nearly a week off from doing anything productive unless you count reading and watching television and reading blogs and forums that I’m supposed to be avoiding as productive work. I don’t. :D Honestly, you probably shouldn’t either, if you do.

Since I published my last book, I’ve been spending a lot of time refreshing reports (AH!) and updating spreadsheets (AH!) and generally goofing off in a way I shouldn’t be doing. I’ve ended every day with guilt hanging over my head. If I’m going to wallow in guilt over my procrastination, shouldn’t I be at least have been doing something fun?! Yes, yes indeedy. :)

But now it’s really time I started getting back to work. I have some big goals for the rest of the year. It’s a bit of a personal challenge for myself, and I want to succeed!

Plus, if I don’t write a reasonable number of words today, my word count for the week is going to be 628 words. :o

Update #1: I read the rest of my novella in progress. Now I just need to get started on the writing.

There’s Always Tomorrow

Lynn

I haven’t been feeling great the last few days. Some sinus thing, I think, although maybe it’s what happens when I’m not stressing over anything but still feel like I’m stressing over something. Ha ha! Apparently I love stress too much to let myself live without it. ;) I can come up with a reason to worry about anything if I don’t actively stop myself from doing so.

I had a limited amount of time to work today, places to go, things to do, and somehow managed not to make good use of that limited time. But I have a plan for tomorrow to get me out of this rut I’m falling into before I get too deep into it.

See ya tomorrow!

Planning Again

Lynn

It’s time to restart my planning posts for a bit, probably just until I get settled into another book. First I need to push to finish that novella I’ve had on hold, and then I want to start right into another novel. I’m still working on my major goals: increase my daily word count average and publish more regularly and frequently.

So today I’ll be writing up a planning post as soon as I finish reading my previous novella in the series and what I’ve written of this novella… Hopefully it won’t take too long and I’ll end up with plenty of time to reach today’s quota.

Update: This turned into a no-go kind of day and I don’t exactly have a good reason for that. It feels like procrastination. So, I’m going to try this again tomorrow. But I think I’m going to make the plan now, so I can get up and get right to it without distraction.

Out of Sorts and I Need a Goal

Lynn

I’m out of sorts again. I finished that second book of 2014 last week and I must say, this is the worst part of the whole thing, that time just after I’m done and I feel a bit lost. I don’t know what to write next, could even imagine not ever writing anything again, just spend my days reading books someone else wrote.

I … don’t think I’m a particularly great author. I’m an okay writer, for sure, but I don’t do the author stuff very well.

If I didn’t write fiction, what would I do? I actually have no idea. I’ve given it thought before, thought I might end up with a website empire where I write about books and television I love, but that didn’t work out.

I need a goal. A monster goal. Something that’s absolutely huge and that depends only on me to be reachable. I need to focus on something besides the worry over whether this book is good enough, or this book is going to sell enough. I need to focus on something so far out, so far up, that it’s impossible to get bogged down in today’s or this month’s successes and failures because they’re only stepping stones on the path to whatever this massive goal is.

So, I’m going to come up with a massive goal. I’ll let you know what it is when I figure it out. (I figured it out.)

Should’ve Given More Thought to Paperback Book Sizes

Lynn

I just found that I’ve sold seven copies of a $19.99 book through the expanded distribution at Createspace and five copies of two $17.99 books this month. I don’t sell a lot of paperbacks in general, and I’m sure my pricing doesn’t help that, but I like expanded distribution, and because of that, I won’t under price my books.

If I had it to do over again, I would have chosen to size my books at 5.5 x 8.5 instead of 5 x 8 so I could cut the price a bit and keep my profit, but I didn’t, and I don’t intend to redo my entire catalog’s paperback formatting any time soon so I’m stuck for the time being.

When I start a new series, though, I will definitely be going for the slightly larger books. It cuts down on pages and makes the books cost less to produce. (I refuse to cut my font size, leading, or margins, which would also cut the number of pages, but that’s a sacrifice I won’t make.)

I chose the smaller size because my first books were quite short. But then I got stuck in that size, because I don’t want different books in the same series to be different sizes. It just doesn’t seem as professional to me to change that mid-series. Of course, maybe it’s silly to worry about that, but I do. I want my books to be pretty! ;)

So here’s my advice for anyone trying to decide on paperback book sizes.

Page count matters. Createspace creates trade sized paperbacks. Don’t try to pretend they’re mass market and go for the smallest size you can, because you’ll still have to charge trade prices and the book will look less valuable as a small book. And if you have a long book, that small book is going to be much too fat to be any more comfortable to hold than a larger book.

But… if your book is short, a small book will help pad the pages. ;) But again… if you do the font right and use an attractive leading and attractive but generous margins, you can accomplish the same thing and have a very professional looking book.

No one likes itty bitty fonts in a print book. Just don’t do it, no matter how tempted you are or how much you swear you like itty bitty fonts best. It’ll make your book shorter, but if you need a shorter book, chose a bigger book.

But the publishers use little bitty fonts, you say. So what? Aren’t there enough people complaining about how publishers have made fonts too small to cut their costs? Why would you want to emulate that?

I’m actually in the middle of formatting my last book for Createspace and yes, I’m stuck formatting it for an 5 x 8 sized book. But hey! I have a very practical reason to keep my books from turning into doorstoppers. :D

Guess I Finished Just In Time

Lynn

I guess I finished that book just in time, because I think I’m getting sick. Of course, a lack of sleep can make a person feel sick, so maybe a good night’s sleep is all I need.

I’m trying to figure out how I can be most productive this evening—keep working and try to get as much done as possible or crash and get an early start tomorrow.

If I’m actually getting sick, then tomorrow isn’t going to be any better. If it’s just sleep deprivation, I might feel like a new person tomorrow, ready to work and get stuff done in half the time. It’s certainly a quandary… Sleep deprivation is winning at the moment.

And… that was a short battle. Bed time it is! I need to be at my best for some of these tasks and right now I can’t even type a single sentence without a typo.

Trying Again to Finish the Book

Lynn

Here goes another push to finish that book. I wrote 2,966 words yesterday and I’m now 2,897 past the word count goal I had for this story. There’s good new though, because I am seriously just about done. :D No extra twenty-something thousand words for this one. Yeah!!

Anyway, getting busy this morning. I have lots to do, and only part of that “lots” is finishing the writing of this book. :)

Note to future self: NO MORE PUBLIC DEADLINES.

I don’t mind personal, private deadlines, but these things that are sitting out there mocking me in public? Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that next time. I keep saying no more deadlines and I keep setting them anyway, but this time I really mean it! ;) REALLY.

Update. I used a 1 hour timer and I finished right on time but the ending doesn’t feel quite right. I’ll wait and see if it’s just me when I do my read through. I might just be having trouble letting go of this story.

Time to Finish That Book

Lynn

Yay! I think I’ll get this done relatively early this morning. I feel refreshed and ready to go. So, here goes…

I’ll update as I progress, because someday I might want to go back through these posts and remember this crap I put myself through with deadlines! :D

(Did I mention that I quit timing my writing? I mean, I still use the timer, I just don’t record the times anywhere anymore.)

1 hour of writing later, and I’m now 629 words past my word count goal for this book and SO so so close to being done! BTW, this book is awesome! ;)

Time got away from me between hour 1 and 2 but I finally finished hour 2, and I’m now 1,138 words past my word count goal for this book. But I’m almost done. I swear!

Okay, I had some things to do, so I’m back now, and it’s 3:22 pm and I need to wrap this up. :) I have an idea where a lot of my time went today but I won’t bore you with the details. It’s time to get back to finishing this book!

Last Push to Finish Book Tonight

Lynn

So, I’d kind of like to finish my book tonight. I mean, I’m days behind my deadline. So yeah, finishing would be nice. Really nice. :D I think I’m just about there, maybe a few thousand words. No guarantees, because there never are, but if I can just get moving on this ending, I think it will all fall together.

I realize starting it at 10:37 pm isn’t exactly the best example of time management. I’ve spent the day avoiding writing this to the point that I’ve been writing notes to myself in Evernote that say things like “Start the timer. Seriously. Start the timer. Right now.” And yet, I haven’t started the timer. I started this post, probably for the sole purpose of not having to start that timer.

But it’s time.

Start the timer. Come on. Right now. Go…

Yay! I started the timer. After 1 hour of writing, which has somehow managed to be 2 hours later, I have… wow. 454 words. Hahahaha…!

You know what? I think too much when I’m writing.

Also, I made a decision today to end my participation in one writer’s forum. I kind of hated to do it, on the one hand, because there are some nice people there, but on the other hand, one writer’s forum is enough of a distraction from my writing. I compared the forums and made my choice. Even so, I plan to take a one week break from the forum I didn’t leave! (Starting now. I actually felt compelled to go check one last time for PMs and topic updates, just… in… case, yikes.)

Now, I need to start that timer again. I’m not anywhere near done with this book yet. Come on. Start the timer…

And I’m back. I’m up to 864 words now, after 2 hours. I… probably shouldn’t do this but I think I’m going to turn in. I need to dwell on a few things before I write the next scene. The book is in the validation phase of the ending now, and I want to be sure I’m not missing anything. Because I feel like I might be.

So, break time. But I’ll be back bright and early in the morning so I can get this finished up.