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. ;)

New Chair Woes

Lynn

I love my new chair. You know, this one:

New Chair

But…

The new chair’s interfering with my ability to focus while I write, and I’m sure of it. A new chair means comfort. Apparently comfort means less writing.

This breaks my heart. I thought I was going to increase my productivity if I made my stints at my workspace more comfortable, but it’s had the opposite effect.

The problem could be anything from an incorrect height adjustment (I’ve tried many, many adjustments over the last week seeking the perfect height—if there is one, it eludes me), to a wholly psychological issue. Don’t know and don’t care at this point. I just need to feel right when I’m sitting at my desk so I can write. And I haven’t felt right since I moved that chair in here.

So, back to the spindle-back dining room chair, like the one you see here:

Desk

Ah well. I can still use the new chair when I’m not working, so all’s not lost.

Remember This: Don’t Rewrite!

Lynn

So I’m staring at a passage in one of my books that I need to get right so I can figure out where the hell to go next with this thing and I’ve just realized that I’ve spent about 3 hours on it.

It’s a passage of only about 1,600 words and I’ve cycled through it, rewriting, more times than I want to think about.

I keep reworking it, mainly I think to give myself a jumping off spot for what happens next, but I still don’t know what that might be.

I’m now trying to decide if anything I’ve done has made any difference whatsoever to the passage, but I can’t tell. There’s a part of me that’s very afraid I’ve screwed this up. But there’s a part of me that knew last night that I needed to soften one of my characters and the only other choice was to scrap what I had and just rewrite the scene from scratch.

Which is exactly what I should have done, and I don’t know why I keep forgetting that. Rewriting is time consuming and rarely does more than make me crazy. The story needs to be written fresh, not pieced together from scraps already on the page. And yet that’s exactly what I’ve just done. And I can tell you now, those 3 hours of writing would have gotten me at least the 1,600 words I have now, so chopping the 1,600 wouldn’t have been a big deal in the end. In fact, I would probably have more done now than I have if I’d just chopped the passage and started fresh.

I need to remember this. I NEED TO REMEMBER THIS.

Maybe that’ll help. ;)

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Planning seems to be a key to better word counts for me. You’d think this was just a revisit of the schedule I said I was never going to revisit or the daily writing time quota that I decided didn’t work. You’d be wrong.

This feels nothing like that. I sit down and create a plan, either the night before or the morning of and I base that plan on how I’ve been feeling, how I think I’ll feel, what other plans I have, and what goal I want to hit. I also allow for experiments.

9:30–10:30 (376 words)
10:40–11:40 (413 words) (I’m behind at this point and I’m starting to think mornings are not my best time for writing. I consistently seem to do worse in the early morning hours. The new school year has also brought about a lack of sleep that I need to get a handle on asap.)
3:40–4:40 (524 words)
4:50–5:50 (569 words) (can’t seem to pick up speed today!)
7:30–8:30 (609 words)
8:40–9:40 (stopped counting and just wrote)

Partial success! I made it to 2,692. Another day where I came up short of my goal but still reached the minimum I need to stay on track with my plan for a higher daily word count.

Today’s goal is 4,000 words in 6 hour long blocks, where the goal is to reach 725 words in each block by doing ten 5 minute sessions and maintaining a 73 word average per session.

The hefty 4,000 word goal is because tomorrow I’ll be having fun and I can say with certainty that I’ll be pushing myself just to hit my minimum.

I’ve had to adjust the start times for my later sessions.

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Today’s plan is pretty much just a repeat of yesterday’s plan, with slightly very modified start times for my sessions because I won’t be getting started as early.

Same as yesterday, my goal is 2,900 words in 4 hours. That’s 725 words in each one hour session, with a goal of doing ten 5 minute sprints where I maintain an average of 73 words per session (or 15 wpm). Less second guessing and deleting, because I want to finish on time!

Also, if I feel good about it all, I might throw in some extra, but unlike yesterday, I’m not pre-planning that because I’m not convinced I want to do it since I’m starting a bit lot late today.

11:20–12:20 (453 words, interrupted by a phone call I couldn’t avoid – hoping to catch up in next session)
12:30–1:30 (277 words, can’t seem to stay focused!)
2:30–3:30 (491 words, focus desperately needed!)
4:00–5:00 (502 words, omg, writing feels hard today…)
5:10–6:10 (379 words, sitting at 2,143 total, atm, so I guess that means I’ll be back for another hour later)
8:30–9:30 (467 words)

Partial success! I made it to 2,610. So although I didn’t make it to 2,900, I did write more than the minimum I need to stay on track with my plan for a higher daily word count.

It became obvious at a certain point that I needed to add at least a fifth hour into the schedule today so I updated to do that. I hope a sixth isn’t necessary, but if it is, I’ll update as necessary. :o

Today’s Plan (Success!)

Lynn

I’m working on two novels at the moment. Both need to be finished ASAP. One needs 20–25k more words and the other needs 25–30k. If I can follow my plan, I should finish the second one within a week of the first.

I need both of these books completed this month, and preferably not both of them on August 31 either. :o

If I can stick to my plan from this day forward, I can finish the first by the 20th and that’s later than I want but acceptable.

So, the plan is to stick to the plan! :D

Today’s goal is 2,900 words in 4 hours. That’s 725 words in each one hour session, with a goal of doing ten 5 minute sprints where I maintain an average of 73 words per session (or 15 wpm). It’s the second guessing and deleting that kills my speed every time, so I’m going to try to limit that today.

9:20–10:20 (stopped at 10:20, finished 7 sessions, reached 619 words) (seemed to be off to a slow start, lots of second guessing and tweaking as I went!)
10:30–11:30 (stopped at 11:38, finished 3 sessions, forgot to reset, reached 659 words) (got busy tweaking and ended up writing without the timer by mistake—not sure how that happened, tbh)
12:00–1:00 (finished at 1:04, did 9 sessions, reached 900 words even, yay!)
2:30–3:30 (finished at 3:42, did 8 sessions, reached 861 words)

Success! I’ve reached 3,055 words.

Then if the writing is going well and I feel like continuing, I’ll aim for 5,000 in 3 more sessions.

3:40–4:40
4:50–5:50
8:20–9:20

I’ve decided I’m not ready to commit to going for 5,000 today so I’m going ahead and taking the three extra hours off my schedule. I still might do another hour or maybe even two, but I’m going to break for now. :D

It’s time to get tea and settle in and try, try, try to get my creative juices flowing, so I’m going to wrap this planning session up here.

I made some adjustments to my start times for the later sessions.

Day 46 of No More Zero Word Days

Lynn

On Day 46 I wrote 765 words and I was lucky to get those. Not because there wasn’t time (there was) but because I am in the throes of self-doubt, hypercritical self-assessment, and a general “all my books suck” frame of mind.

I also have no idea where any of my stories are going at the moment and my usual method of just going with it isn’t working. I just keeping going with it right over a cliff and I’ve deleted more in the last couple of months than I’ve deleted in the last two years prior to that put together.

Yeah. Writing is so fun right now.*

At least I’m doing some writing these days. I’ve written 30,945 words that I haven’t deleted since day 1 of my streak. Silver linings and all that. :D

*Lots of sarcasm! I apologize profusely but this is how it all came out, comma shortage and all… 

Planning for a Higher Daily Word Count—Take 2

Lynn

So, my planning for a higher daily word count post is a good idea. Only problem? I’ve had a few thoughts since then—I mean, that was like, what, six whole days ago? ;)

It’s a good plan, to be honest. I’ve just made a few tweaks and I thought I’m bring it up here again to help solidify the plan in my head before the week starts over tomorrow.

I’m behind my August goal, which is simply to maintain a 3,000 word a day average for the month. I haven’t made it to 3k words once since the 1st. Bummer, that. But that’s also part of the change, so let me just get to the re-planned plan here.

Instead of a goal of 3,000 a day, I’ve revised my goal to 2,464 words per day until the end of the year, which is the word count I actually need to average daily to write the books I’d like to write before December 31.

What was the point in pushing for a word count higher than what I really need? I decided there wasn’t one.

On the other hand, I would actually like to try to get ahead this month by averaging slightly higher than that minimum, but I decided there was no point forcing myself to do more than I have to on the days when writing isn’t going so well. Why add stress for no real reason?

I’m still going to stick to trying to get in four blocks of 725 words each and use the 5 minute sessions to do it. That should give me some leeway to reach slightly higher word counts this month, or at least allow for some slow sessions without it meaning I have to squeeze in more sessions.

Now, I’ve got to get to writing today, because so far, I’ve been doing everything I can NOT to write. :D Just one of those days where nothing is good enough and everything is a distraction!

Sometimes You Need a New Chair

Lynn

It’s time for school again, so my routine is changing. I’ve been working at my desk almost exclusively lately, and the dining room chair hasn’t been such a great option for those 5,000 word days.

Oh, yeah, day before yesterday, I wrote 5,091 words. :D

That’s two 5k days in as many weeks and that’s felt (still feels tbh) amazing.

It’s not quite on demand, because I’ve had days where I failed to reach my goals even though I planned them just the same as the successful days, but it’s still quite an accomplishment because hey, I wrote 5,000+ words twice in two weeks and I did it all in 5 minute sessions, 55 and 60 of them, respectively.

New Chair

So … I was out and about yesterday, doing stuff that couldn’t be put off, and I bought a new chair. Nothing fancy, but something with a bit more cushion that will hopefully make it comfortable to work for the number of hours I want to work to reach higher word counts.

It was a pain to put together (because it was affordable, lol!) but I like it. :D

Planning for a Higher Daily Word Count

Lynn

For the next month or so, I’d like to start averaging around 3,000 words a day. I have deadlines that I’d really like to get ahead of if I can.

To do that, I’m going to need a plan. My experiments with the 5 minute sessions have proved to be very helpful with both focus and speed so I’m hoping I can increase my daily word counts by creating a daily plan based around them. Nothing so specific as a daily schedule because I am not going there again. :D

A general plan will let me set each day up however I need.

Hour 1
Hour 2
Hour 3
Hour 4

For each hour I have a goal of reaching 750 words. To start with I’m going to do ten 5 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of maintaining an average of 75 words for those 5 minute sessions. As long as I can stick to those goals, I can reach 3,000 words each day.

This is also today’s plan.

Hour 1 (did 8 sessions, reached 313 words, and yeah, I just deleted another chunk because this book is dragging right now and I can’t get any momentum going, also went over my hour)
Hour 2 (cancelled)
Hour 3 (cancelled)
Hour 4 (cancelled)

This is easier to type than the actual times I plan to do the writing, but I do have them scheduled just as I did in my previous planning posts. First hour starts at 3:30 p.m. See ya!

From 3:45 until now, I’ve reached 490 words. I couldn’t stop fixing stuff and never actually did but 2 sessions in that entire time because I kept getting distracted so…yeah. I’m just going to call that editing and move on.

Hour 1 to start shortly after a break.

Later…

Okay, today’s writing turned into a mess and I’m not sure how to prevent these kinds of days from happening, or if I can.

(1) My critical brain kicked in and that accounted for a lot of the time. Nothing I wrote was good enough. (2) I couldn’t get any momentum going because I couldn’t settle on a “next move” for the story. (3) The story wasn’t flowing, so when I tried to write I was constantly deleting, and again, no momentum.

All those have overlap with each other, of course, but that’s the best I can come up with for why things just wouldn’t move along tonight.

Honestly, I should have switched stories before it got so late that I’m now going to have to end the night with less than a third of the word count I needed today. I’m sitting at a net increase of 804 words, and they’re all on one novel (the one I’m supposed to publish in August).

Since I’d like to have a better day tomorrow, I’m not stopping tonight until I fix whatever’s wrong and start something that I can pick up and run with tomorrow.

A Dilemma

Lynn

Faster writing, possibly more motivated writing (could be wrong, could be that I just finally got myself started again), definitely more typos, and definitely not as enamored of my own stuff as I should be when I re-read.

However, I was having an issue with that last item even before I started the 5 minute sessions, so maybe that’s not a result of the 5 minute sessions at all.

The mistakes? Definitely, absolutely, a result of the 5 minute sessions. I’m not taking time between each of them to tidy up when I’ve just written, which is exactly what I started out doing and should have kept doing but didn’t.

I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to work like this for an entire book. Part of me wants to keep it up, and part of me wants to go back to trying 1 hour blocks of a more leisurely nature so I can make sure what I’m writing satisfies me.

So, as mentioned, I have a dilemma, and I can’t decide what to do.

I said recently that I was going to try to make faster decisions, so … time to decide.

Before I set aside the 5 minute sessions, I should make a real effort to take the time between sessions to go over what I just wrote and correct any mistakes. Or, better yet, I should do it in the first few minutes of the my next hour long block I have planned, right before I start writing again as long as I can keep it short so it doesn’t take more than 5 to 10 minutes. Can I go over 800ish words in 5 to 10 minutes? Surely I can do that.

Alright then, that’s settled. Time to get to work. I’m starting about an hour and a half later than I’d planned to start today.

Later…

So that didn’t work. At all. I’ll have to rethink this. I spent nearly my entire first hour on the read through and fixes. I don’t know if I’m just in a really critical frame of mind or if every book I’ve written since January just really, really sucks.

I’m leaning toward the former, but maybe I should revisit one of my previous works just to see…

Truthfully, that isn’t likely to help and I’d like to stop needed that kind of reassurance from myself! :o

Anyway, gotta get to work or I’m going to end up with another day where I do the bare minimum, and I don’t want that.

Day 40 of No More Zero Word Days

Lynn

Yesterday was my 40th consecutive day of writing, and it was the 3rd time I’ve ended the day with a negative number because of deleting more than I wrote.

I should have stayed at it longer, because I could have made up those words, but I let the day get away from me and I was too tired to keep going after I deleted that last chunk.

I ended the day with −176 words.

It’s definitely not a zero.

Sprintless Writing

Lynn

I wanted to write today without sprinting, but I see the problem I run into now. I continue to get distracted. This is writing time and yet I was on the forums again, checking reports, fiddling with my laptop battery and settings, and checking the weather for the tenth time this morning (seriously).

I think I might need to use a timer even for the leisurely read throughs I want to do today to find and fix errors and catch myself up in the three novels I’m working on.

Hmm. Something to think about.

I need some decaf.

Also, I’m about half a day away from just giving in and buying some regular coffee next time at the store. Yikes. I must resist.

Plan for Another 5,000 Word Day

Lynn

Gonna have to post my plan today, otherwise I’m probably not going to get started. It’s just one of those days.

And since I still need to practice writing more each day because I want to be more prolific in the coming months and years, I would like a few more 5,000 word days this month if I can manage them. I would like to know if I can write 5,000 on demand using almost the same plan that got me 5,000 words on Monday. And that’s the reason for today’s experiment.

The Plan

11:20–12:20 (finished at 12:20, did 5 sessions, reached 341 words) (ouch! writing’s going slow and I keep forgetting to reset the timer today, no idea why)
12:30–1:30 (started late, finished late, did 7 sessions, reached 471 words) (no idea what’s slowing me down, other than general sluggishness, seems I’ve got no pep today!)
4:40–5:40 (finished at 5:49, did 9 sessions, reached 703 words) (better, but still too slow)
6:20–7:20 (finished at 7:18, did 5 sessions, reached 433 words)
7:30–8:30 (cancelled)
8:40–9:40 (cancelled)
9:50–10:50 (cancelled)

For each hour I have a goal of reaching 725 words. To start with I’m going to do ten 5 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of maintaining an average of 73 words for those 5 minute sessions.

Now, off to get started. I have 4 minutes to make a fresh cup of tea. :)

I’ve had to make an adjustment to my start times for the remaining sessions. I’m not sure how I’ll fare trying for 5 hour sessions in a row, but we’ll see.

I cancelled my final three hours. I’m at 2,015. I might write more later tonight, but for the moment, I’m done.

Day 37 and 38 of No More Zero Word Days

Lynn

Apparently after I do weed trimming (not being someone who usually does that) my arms feel like gelatin and all I want to do is lie on the couch. This was news to me. If I’d suspected I’d feel like that, I would have skipped the trimming, since I made yesterday’s writing plans the night before. Live and learn, as they say.

Day 37: 458 words
Day 38: 2,244 words

Today, on the other hand, I had life-outside-of-writing stuff to attend to and I was gone for a big chuck of the midday. I could have written more after I returned, but I just couldn’t write more. And the muscles in my arms are tight and sore from the previous day’s weed trimming.

Next time, I’ll just let the weeds grow. I always did like the wild look. :D

Day 36 of No More Zero Word Days

Lynn

I slowed down yesterday (day 36) and ended the day with 650 words.

I started out the day with hopes that I would go for another 4,000 word day but within about half an hour of getting up I knew I wasn’t going to be doing any such thing. I was tired. Really tired.

But 650 words is way better than some of the words counts I’ve been doing in the past couple of months so I’m still very happy! I wrote those 650 words in one leisurely session that ended up being about 15 minutes long and seven 5 minute sessions during a one hour writing block.

5 minute sessions are making it possible for me to reach several hundred words even on my worst days. Happy? Make that thrilled. ;D

I have no way of knowing how permanent this is, but I feel like I could be on to something—the kind of thing that leads to lasting changes.

Day 35 of No More Zero Word Days

Lynn

So today I put together another plan, this one to reach 4,000 words. Here’s how it went:

I ended the day with 4,047 words after 47 five minute sessions. I averaged 1,033 words per hour based on my totals.

As I’ve said before, the five minute sessions seem to be working really well for me.

Also, the planning obviously seems to be working really well too.

Planning for a 3,600 Word Day

Lynn

I wasn’t going to post about my plan today but I’ve had a slow start to the day, have passed up 3 potential start times, and I still can’t seem to wake up and it’s verging on noon. So, I thought it might help to spell out my plan and post updates again today.

Today’s goal is a more modest 3,600 words. Yesterday, I had planned to write roughly 2,500 words on two different stories. It came out closer to 3,000 and 2,000 words.

Today I’m planning 1,500 words on two different stories and 600 words on another in 5 hours of writing. I’m going to stick with the 5 minute sessions.

12:20–1:20 (finished at 1:16, did 7 sessions, reached 780 words, plus 85, for 865 total)
1:30–2:30 (finished at 2:34, did 8 sessions, reached 813 words)
5:30–6:30 (stopped at 6:25 after 5 sessions, reached 281 words) (got lost in the story and had to stop, no idea where I’m going atm)
6:40–7:40 (finished at 8:13, did 10 sessions, reached 678 words)
7:50–8:50 (cancelled)

For each hour I have a goal of reaching 800 words. I’m aiming for ten 5 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of maintaining an average of 80 words for those 5 minute sessions.

Truth be told, I’m hoping to do well enough to cut my time today to 4 hour long blocks instead of 5, that’s why the increase to a goal of 800 words per session. Looking at yesterday’s numbers, I was almost there, but today I will need to focus on getting in a full 10 sessions per hour, 8 to 9 sessions seemed to be my limit yesterday.

Well, off to collect the decaf coffee I made a few minutes ago and get ready to start.

Off to a good start, but I had to make an adjustment to my start times after my break.

Well, I didn’t make it to 3,600 today. I don’t really know what the difference was between today and yesterday, but there was a marked difference in both how I felt (tired) and how fast I was writing.

I’m ending the day at 2,637 words. I don’t believe I’m at my best right now and I certainly don’t think the writing is going to go any better the rest of the night. I cancelled my last planned session.