In This Instance, Shorter Is Better

I’m a bit frustrated with the 15 minute sessions, because although I should be able to make them work, they’re not working. Could be the part I’m writing in my book, or just the usual I can’t quite hold my attention on my writing for the required length of time thing.

I’m willing to bet hot chocolate on the latter, and popsicles on the former. :D

Whatever the cause, the outcome is the same. Few words, and not enough progress.

So, it’s back to the 5 minute sessions for the rest of the book and maybe a trial run with the 15 minute sessions when I’m back at work on one of my other books.

I might update later with a comparison of my output with the two session lengths.

UPDATE:

I can’t really tell a difference in speed, although there is a difference in output between the two days I switched. I averaged 677 wph the day I used 15 minute sessions and 816 the day I used 5 minute sessions, which seems like a difference, but when I look several days back, I have slow days using the 5 minute sessions too, where my speed is anywhere from 300 to 600 wph. The biggest difference is that I wrote for a longer period of time with the 5 minute sessions and definitely ended with a better word count for the day. But truly, I don’t know if that’s because of session length or some other reason, because I’m on a deadline and I’m feeling the pressure to spend more time writing.

What I do know is that my ideal work day would be to sit and write because it’s just something I do each morning until I hit my word count and not have to track these metrics. If I could be confident I could sit down and write my word count every day in a reasonable amount of time, I really wouldn’t care what my words per hour and my daily average amounted to.

(Rare days off would be okay, but they tend to balloon into more off days than on if I don’t monitor like a hawk. Even after 87-ish days of writing every day, I still have that moment where I think, Oh crap. Did I write yesterday? I noticed it most when I was working on publishing my last book, but when my attention’s on something, I can become single-minded to the nth degree.)

I could easily set production goals based around daily word count goals and ignore time altogether, with the basic assumption that this or that word count goal is reasonable for me.

Ah well. I’ll figure something out. :o I don’t give up easily when I really want something and that’s the kind of writers’ life I want.