Tag: Session logs

Posts with writing session details: time, words, progress, etc.

Slipped but didn’t fall

Lynn

I had a headache yesterday. Even so, I still wrote for 2 hours and 10 minutes and wrote 1,842 words. I have to say, I’m on a fantastic pace with this book. I’m not sure why, but I’m really going to keep trying to keep it up.

Saturday’s session logs:

Minutes Words Session WPH
36 498 498 830
53 1,289 791 895
37 1,776 487 790
4 1,842 66 990
130 Total minutes
1,842 Total words
850 Total WPH

I could have finished if not for my headache and general malaise, because I was still on a great pace with the book.

4 Hours to write
1.83333 Hours left
759 WPH needed

But I didn’t, so no point dwelling on it.

Now, to get started for today before I get too far off my suggested schedule (it’s 8:19). I’d definitely like to get 3 hours in before 11:30 today and I still have time to do that if I get started right this moment.

No plan today: I’m already there

Lynn

I decided last night that I needed to focus on writing about results instead of intentions, thinking that would mean I’d have a better chance of getting started on time this morning and staying on schedule.

That didn’t exactly work, although I did manage to get my 3 hours before lunch and get my last hour started during the two o’clock hour. :) I still had a good writing day, all told. But not blogging until I had results to report didn’t make any difference in my start time this morning. I started late today because I started reading some forum posts while I had breakfast and I didn’t stop when I should have.

Here are my session logs for today.

Minutes Words Session WPH
37 556 556 902
39 1,065 509 783
60 2,122 1,057 1,057
44 2,970 848 1,156
60 3,694 724 724
240 Total minutes
3,694 Total words
924 Total WPH

Sink that nail

Lynn

I’m really into the construction analogies at the moment, apparently. :D But yes, today’s plan is to do my best to repeat yesterday’s excellent performance. The only thing I can really control is how much time I spend writing and if I spend that time when I plan to spend it. The WPH is a bit out of my hands, although I will try to push for the better word counts/pace.

My timer just went off saying it’s 8, so I’m going to get started and do my best to stay caught up with the schedule/routine today. Be back with a report when I’ve finished some writing. :D

Session logs:

Minutes Words Session WPH
60 567 567 567
17 747 180 635
60 2,064 1,317 1,317
43 2,967 903 1,260
60 3,927 960 960
240 Total minutes
3,927 Total words
982 Total WPH
4 Hours to write
0 Hours left
#DIV/0! WPH needed

The writing went really well today and the book is coming along great. I no longer hate it—I love it! :D Oh how fickle I am when the writing is going well. ;)

Already in motion

Lynn

Finally, I seem to be on my way to nailing the schedule/routine today!

I made a note to myself this morning in Evernote:

Remember not to try to play catch up with the writing. Just work on getting my 4 hours during my routine and reaching 3233. If I want to write more or if I’m doing well, I can either quit at 3233 or keep going. My choice. But NOT catch up. Catch up will interfere with me setting my habits and getting into a routine.

I also set a goal to write in 1 hour blocks this morning.

The schedule was:
8:00–9:00
9:15–10:15
10:30–11:30

You can see that in the image below. :)

I wasted my first half hour figuring out some book titles for one of my series but then caught myself and got started, with the intent to catch up as quickly as I could. That was at 8:34.

Here are the morning numbers:

Minutes Words Session WPH
32 412 412 773
60 1,550 1,138 1,138
60 2,492 942 942
28 2,998 506 1,084

Now, it’s 1:07 pm and I’m having lunch and going to start an episode of Midsomer Murders I won’t get to finish. :D I’ll be back at 2 pm to finish my 4th hour.

One thing I’ve noticed that’s helped today is that I started adding “(+)” or “(-)” to my calendar after the event. It feels great to be able to see those pluses. :D
Calendar marks

Update:

I’ve just finished my 4th hour. I could go on, but I think I’m going to leave it here. I’d really like to get into this routine and if I push too hard, I could put myself off the routine entirely.

When I got back from lunch, but my battery was only at 39% charged. I ended up waiting until 2:30 to start writing to give it more time to charge.

I still finished a bit late, even for a 2:30 start, but I had several breaks. Too much tea this afternoon! Anyway, the pace slowed, but not too much, and I’m pretty happy with today’s progress.

Here are the final session logs.

Minutes Words Session WPH
32 412 412 773
60 1,550 1,138 1,138
60 2,492 942 942
28 2,998 506 1,084
60 3,723 725 725
240 Total minutes
3,723 Total words
931 Total WPH
4 Hours to write
0 Hours left
#DIV/0! WPH needed

I’ll be honest. The coffee and tea have helped tremendously. Mental fatigue isn’t setting in nearly as quickly as it has been. I don’t think I’m going to try to get off it again for a while. Maybe I’ll just give up on that entirely and stick to working on moderating my intake.

Now, to finish that episode of Midsomer Murders before I do some cover practice or start working on my federal taxes. I definitely need a break before tackling that last one. :D

Write longer

Lynn

I didn’t write for 4 hours yesterday. Not even close. Today I will try again. It really shouldn’t be as hard as it always seems to be. It doesn’t make sense.

So, today—even though I don’t like doing it this way—I’m setting my morning timer for 3 hours and I’m not doing separate sessions of shorter time periods. I’ll just pause (this is why I don’t like doing it this way, I either forget to pause or I forget to unpause) and restart when I need a quick break. But no actual stopping point until I’ve done my 8–11 time this morning.

It will also make it really easy to see how much time I lose to breaks, because I’ll be stopping when the 3 hours are up. The further from 11 that is, the more time I’ve wasted! Also, no WIFI this morning. It’s just asking for trouble and I’m not going to do that.

As soon as I’ve finished that first 3 hours I’ll update with my session logs.

See you then. :)

Updates:
403 words at 8:52 and 2:25 left on timer*
392 words at 10:32 and 1:31 left on timer**
863 words at 11:10 and 58 minutes left on timer***
1,145 words at 9:03 pm and finished 3 hours
1,439 words at 9:57 and finished 3.5 hours

Basically, my word count sucked today, but I got much closer to my 4 hours of writing goal. :D Progress is great, so I’ll take it! Maybe tomorrow I’ll conquer both time and speed.

Session logs:

Minutes Words Session WPH
180 1,145 1,145 382
30 1,439 294 588
Tomorrow I’m going to do 1 hour timers back to back. I don’t like not being able to track my progress and my pace. My goal will still be to get my 3 hours before lunch AND to get AT LEAST 3/4 of my word count goal done.
Random notes:

*Spent way too long on a break – back at 9:33.
**I seem to be going backwards but I rearranged some chapter breaks and tidied up some stuff. I’ve realized that there’s really no separation between edits and writing in my process. It’s all just writing and it’s all necessary for me to tell a story the way I want to tell it.
***I wanted to finish my 3 hours before I stopped, but crap, I’m really hungry. :o Yep, I’m stopping for lunch.

Pick up the hammer and try again

Lynn

I didn’t nail it yesterday. I didn’t even come close. Today, I’m trying again. I’m not worrying about the schedule. I’m worrying about my 4 hours.

I want to get them done by 2 pm if I can. After that, I’ll coast, maybe even do some playing around with covers. :)

I’ll try to take as few breaks as possible this morning so I can get my 4 hours in as quickly as possible. The goal is 3,233 words plus a few extra to start chipping away at my deficit. I restarted the 1,180,000 words in 12 months challenge on Sunday, February 14, and I’m 18,244 words behind at this point. An extra hundred for 3,333 sounds like a good round number. :D

Okay, now time to get started. I’ve dragged this out long enough. :)

Session log:

Minutes Words Session WPH
10 219 219 1,314
10 335 116 696
10 554 219 1,314
10 648 94 564
40 868 220 330
25 893 25 60
5 984 91 1,092
5 1,150 166 1,992
4 1,229 79 1,185

Random notes:

I’ve done 4 sessions of 10 minutes each at this point and things are going well. 10 minute sessions seem to be working for me right now. Gonna stick with them for a bit.

Yeah. I didn’t nail it today either. 4 hours shouldn’t have been that hard, but I just couldn’t stay on task today. At least I broke the 1,000 word barrier. I’ll take it.

Nail it

Lynn

It’s a beautiful day outside my window today. I’m sitting in my study / sitting room (no longer a library as I moved all the books out into my former office upstairs that’s about to become my library as soon as I can afford the bookcases I need for all those books!) and I have my music playing and I’m ready to get started on this pain in the ass scene that’s been stalling me for two months.

If I don’t get past it today, I’m deleting the whole thing and starting over with some other scene altogether. That’s a fact. That’s gonna happen and it’s a damn promise—to myself, to you, to the whole damn universe. :D

So here’s the writing plan for today. Write 3,233 words in 4 hours. It’s a challenge, but I’m certainly going to try to get it all done in 4 hours. If I can’t, then I’m going to work more hours today. Just one of those kinds of days. I feel a need to prove I can get the words when I want to.

8:30–11:30 am
2–3 pm

I’ll start with 15 minute sessions and keep an eye on my pace. I’ll update when I have something to report.

Session record:

Minutes Words Session WPH
15 99 99 396
30 358 259 518
15 516 158 632
5 602 86 1,032
5 607 5 60
10 845 238 1,428

Random notes:

Love triangle! I just created one for a secondary character (not the main characters). That’s something I hadn’t thought about before. I’ll see how it goes.

Okay, love the triangle. It’s going to work. Something else (!) came up that I’m very happy with too. :) The scene is moving again, and I’m speeding up. Considering how long I’ve been away, I can’t say I’m surprised I’m going so slow.

I’ve lost 45 minutes to breaks and a phone call. I’m going to try not to take a break between now and 11:30.

Okay, I’m really  behind, but I’ve finally got some momentum going and this pain in the ass scene has just ended! And it’s a strong, awesome ending too, I might add. ;) Now to keep up the momentum and try to catch up a bit. I need to hit and maintain a pace of 906 words to finish within the parameters of my goal (4 hours of writing, 3,233 words). I won’t finish within the parameters of my schedule, but I can live with that. Oh, and I’m on my second cup of coffee this morning. I can’t decide if I’m okay with that or not. Or, that’s not exactly true. I’m okay with it right now, but I can predict I won’t be okay with it later. So, yeah. :o

Okay, so I got excited about an idea I had and I called my sister. I shouldn’t have, because I was supposed to be writing, but I did and I can’t go back and undo it, so moving on… It’s 2:54 pm, I’ve had lunch, and I need to get back to my book. I also want another cup of coffee and I’m wondering just how badly I will regret that if I go for it. Might do green tea instead.

I did coffee.

Also, it’s kind of embarrassing that I’ve only recorded 1.33 hours of writing and it’s already 4:08 pm. :o

 

Today’s final numbers

Lynn

It was a fantastic day for writing, I have to say. I made a great recovery after yesterday’s apparent self-sabotage (I did get 720 words yesterday so it wasn’t a total loss).

Minutes Words Session WPH
45 863 863 1,151
45 1,713 850 1,133
45 2,312 599 799
45 3,452 1,140 1,520
45 4,241 789 1,052
25 4,951 710 1,704
250 Total minutes 4.16667 Hours completed
4,951 Total words
1,188 Total WPH -0.3307 Hours to finish

The biggest success today was how quickly I did this. Almost every one of my breaks came in under 15 minutes (not all, but most) and I was done by 3:56 pm. :)

One thing I will say, writing faster like this made my forearms hurt. I don’t usually have pain from writing, and I’m not liking this at all. I think I’ll stick to writing more instead of trying to write faster.

I was pushing, today, to finish early enough to go shopping so that anxiety would ease up, and I made it. :) I shopped, and now I’m finally done with that.

Also, I wrapped presents during my breaks—just one or two at a time, but it also helped me get a start on that. Tomorrow I’ll do the same thing and maybe get all the presents wrapped up!

42,000 words in 10 days: day 5

Lynn

Well. Unless I can write 2x what I needed to write to reach my 42,000 words in 10 days challenge, I’ve really blown this one.

I’ve been working, but I haven’t written any appreciable number of words in the last 4 days. That leaves me 6 days. But no, it really doesn’t, because I have one of those days scheduled for a personal day, because, holidays. And there’s just no way. I’m going to have to rethink this challenge and do something different.

Whatever I do, I’ll be starting it today. I am going to do everything I can to write my 4,558 words today.

The goal is to hit these markers as I go today:

(Well, that sucks. I just discovered that the update to WordPress has killed the ability to paste a nicely formatted table in from Excel. I had to paste it into Evernote and then copy it back from there to get the table.)

11 am 651
12 pm 1,302
2 pm 1,953
3 pm 2,605
4 pm 3,256
7 pm 3,907
8 pm 4,558

If I can stay on track, this will be a nicely paced day of writing for me; I’ll reach my goals; and I’ll have time for some other things I want to do before I go to bed tonight, despite having started writing late.

(3:04 pm) I’m not on track at all. I did complete 2 sessions before lunch, but my word counts were … not good. I’m at 136 words for the day at the moment, and although I did write quite a few more words than that, those words have been lost to the number of words I deleted. A rough guess says my pace isn’t that far off the mark, but I need to complete several more writing sessions to prove it. Now, it’s time to get back to work.

Trying today to write more than 5,221 words

Lynn

I’m going to try again today to break my new one-day word count record. :) I didn’t do well with that challenge on Sunday, ending the day early with only 535 words.

Today I expect better. But first I have to get off the WIFI and get started, so I’ll be back later with details. :D

Success!

Minutes Words Session WPH
60 761 761 761
55 1,246 485 529
39 1,711 465 715
30 2,068 357 714
12 2,279 211 1,055
10 2,405 126 756
50 2,810 405 486
42 3,589 779 1,113
40 4,142 553 830
30 4,502 360 720
30 4,910 408 816
30 5,298 388 776

I’m actually not done with tonight’s writing just yet, so this probably isn’t my final word count, but as of this last session, I surpassed my previous one-day word count record and I was too excited not to post about it. :D

Update: I made it to 5,758 words. New record! Next up, 6,000 words in one day. It’ll happen.

Work Diary for November 9, 2015*

Lynn

Today I plan to write a lot of words. Not hope, or will try, but absolutely plan to. I will push myself to get more if I slow down too much, and the story will come together.

I want to finish this book asap so I can write a few others I want to write before the end of the year.

Today’s plan: write in whatever sized sessions I want, and get lots of words, with an aim for hitting 1k wph as often as possible today!

So last night I realized I have a BIG plot hole to fix. So, doing that now before I start…

Plot hole resolved! Yes. Whew. Now, to move on and start writing today!

Time sure does move fast when you’re having fun. My first 20 minute session was over in the blink of an eye. Here’s hoping this means my plans for the day are going to come to fruition. I wrote at a pace of 945 wph and now I’m ready to get started again.

I’ll probably save the next update for my lunch break.

I had lunch, and a short nap. I do believe I need more naps in the winter. I feel better than I did right after lunch and I’m hoping it shows in my writing speed.

I do believe I’ve been overwriting though. I notice my speed on one of my stories is ridiculously fast compared to my writing for this particular series. Yes, they’re different kinds of books, but I think I’m overthinking and overwriting these books. I go into way too much detail trying to hit the right notes. The writing for my other series seems to go a lot faster and I usually reach much higher wph numbers without as much effort. Time to work on that. I want to write these books faster. But I don’t think I can change the feel of the stories or I risk changing them too much. So we’ll see.

I’m at 2,000 even for the day. I need 2,558. I did those 2,000 in just over 3 hours. I can write 4 more hours and reach my goal. If I can write more, I might break my new record. That’d be nice, but it’s not a requirement for success today. I’m just trying to finish this book in the next 3 days.

Minutes Words Session WPH
20 315 315 945
20 583 268 804
10 594 11 66
40 950 356 534
33 1,297 347 631
60 2,000 703 703

I’m resetting my “goal” so that it appears smaller this evening so I’m posting my numbers for the morning before I delete them.

183 Total minutes 4.91355 Hours to finish
2,000 Total words
656 Total WPH 3.05 Hours completed

I’m very close to my goal. I’m going to finish it without the timer because I need to get it done quickly so I can go to sleep early enough to get a good night’s sleep.

Minutes Words Session WPH
60 582 582 582
60 1,354 772 772
60 1,974 620 620
180 Total minutes 0.887538 Hours to finish
1,974 Total words
658 Total WPH 3 Hours completed

That puts me at 3974 today so far, so just over 500 words to go.

I ended the night with 4,149 words. Not bad, but I’m still falling short of my goal. I’m just going to keep trying.

*Written in Evernote and posted after the fact so the WIFI wouldn’t become an issue! What is it they say about temptation? Paraphrased, I think it’s something like this: Stay away from it! ;)

Breaking my one-day word count record—attempt #3

Lynn

Success!

I’m writing this in Evernote today so I can have the accountability without the WIFI. ;) I need accountability.

FYI: This turned out to be one long log! TMI warning!

8:02 am—

Starting with a 50 minute timed session of writing. Playlist is playing. Book doc is open. And yes, I’m still working in Word 2016 although I had to zoom in to 110% so the font issues don’t annoy me so much. I’m not that unhappy with the zoomed text. I still like Word 2007 better! :D

8:59 am update—

I wrote 497 words in 50 minutes. That’s a pace of 596 WPH. So still a little slow but better than yesterday for sure! Going for a quick break and then I’ll get back to it.

Okay, here’s an example of breaks and what happens. I got up at exactly 9 am, peed, went to the kitchen, made coffee, peed, refilled the soap dispenser in the bathroom, moved my computer from the desk to the living room, peed, poured the coffee into a cup, and got comfortable on the couch. It was then exactly 9:15.

It’s now 9:18. This comes to 18 minutes break for 50 minutes writing. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes.

I have a hard deadline this afternoon of 4 pm because of an obligation I have, so today needs to go well if I want to break that word count record. :)

10:13 am update—

I’m now up to 1,051. That’s another 554 words in another 50 minute session, bringing my pace up to 631 WPH. My spreadsheet tells me I’ve completed 1.6667 hours of writing and need another 6.592 hours to reach my goal at that pace. :o

I can do it. The story is going well now, and I’m thrilled to be able to say that.

Now, off to take a quick break before I start again. I might go with a 60 minute session next. Let’s see how long this break runs.

Alright. I’m back and it’s 10:26, so that’s .  .  . 13 minutes. Wow. I did nothing but pee and heat my coffee in the microwave for 25 seconds, text my kid a message about when he needed to be home, and text my sister about my word count. Short texts too. I didn’t even wait for a response before I put my phone back into airplane mode.

If I can stay writing for the entire session and not need to stop for peeing, longer sessions would seem to be the best way for me to cut the breaks back. My goal is 25%, so for every 18 minute break I have I should be writing 18/.25=72x.75=54 minutes. Of course, the 13 minute break goes just fine with a 45-50 minute writing session.

But longer sessions might only be a good idea if I can do them without needing to stop in the middle of them. That’s where I’ll run into problems.

It’s now 10:39 am. Time to get back to writing. I’m not going to count the extra 13 minutes against myself since I’m trying to figure out something here. :)

11:34 am update—

Can’t wait to stop at 60 minutes! I’m dying here. :D Pee break necessary!

Okay, whew. Peed, knocked down a spider web on my front porch, which I stepped out on to get a breath of fresh air and a moment of sunshine, then made a fresh cup of mint tea, peed again, and I’m back. It’s 11:45. So, an 11 minute break for a 54 minute writing session. That’s acceptable.

I got another 692 words to put me at 1,743 and my pace is now 679 WPH, which is an acceptable average. :D

Now, back to writing. ;) I’m going to try 60 minutes again. If this one doesn’t work out, I’m going back to 50 minutes and will just have to focus on keeping breaks as short as possible.

12:52 pm update—

I made it 60 minutes, but I can say confidently that I wouldn’t have made it more than 5 minutes more. I wrote 686 words this time, putting me at 2,429 words. My pace is now 681 WPH.

I need a lunch break now, and I’m going to really hope my break doesn’t slow me down once I come back to writing. I usually break for lunch at 12, but I forgot about that when I started this last session and when my phone alarm went off to remind me, I decided I could wait. I wasn’t that hungry at the time, although I definitely am now! :)

Be back soon. When I return I think I’ll go back to 50 min. Just less chance all around of needing to stop early for a break.

2:04 pm update—

Okay, I have no idea how lunch went long. The clock doesn’t lie though and it’s obviously been just over an hour since I stopped.  Tomorrow I think I’ll set a timer for 45 minutes and see if I can shorten that.

I feel good that I’m restarting at almost the halfway point to breaking my word count record. I have 2,779 words to go to break it, but I’d like to break my record by at least 100 words.

So far, my spreadsheet shows I’ve written for 3.56 hours today and that I need to write for another 4.08 to finish. I can do that. Although not by 4 pm, unless I suddenly double my WPH. Possible but not probable. I do believe I’ll have another 2 hours tonight to write also, although without WIFI I can’t exactly check my calendar. :D

Anyway, time to get to it. I only have enough time for 2 more 50 minute sessions if I start right now!

3:10 pm update—

Not tired yet. The story is going GREAT. :) I hate that I have to stop in less than an hour! I have this horrible fear I won’t recapture the magic when I get back.

Anyway, I wrote 664 words in 50 minutes, putting me at 3,093 for the day. My pace is currently 703 WPH. My spreadsheet says I’ll need to write for another 3 hours to reach my goal of breaking my word count record. :)

I think I have time for one more 50 minute session.

4:08 pm update—

I’ve run out of time! I’ve had to stop at 40 minutes at 3,699 words. My WPH shot up with this last session, so I’m very happy with my progress! My pace is 730 WPH now, and the spreadsheet says I need to write for 2.06 more hours.

We’ll see if I get time to do that tonight and beat this record of mine!

8:02 pm update—

Got home at 7, but the one thing I forgot when I said I could probably get 2 more hours of writing time tonight was dinner time. Because of that I’m getting started later than I wanted to. I try to quit at 9 every night, but it’s a Friday so I might just stay up and get this record broken. I think I can do it.

I’ll see how this first session goes and decide then. If my WPH is tracking near what I got earlier today, then I’m willing to stick it out and go to bed later. If it’s too low, I’ll push for my 4,521 words and quit there, because I plan to write a lot of words again tomorrow and I won’t be up for that if I stay up really late tonight. That kind of thing tends to have a snowball effect on my productivity.

Since my intent is to train myself to write 4,521 on every work day I can, I need to be able to do it while sticking to my normal evening routine. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life staying up too late trying to hit that word count. :)

Also, my fingernails grew today. Or maybe I’m more dehydrated now after 3 hours in the car and the pads of my fingers have shrunk away from my nails. Who knows. This morning, they weren’t a problem, but right now, they’re driving me crazy. Time for clipping. Then I’ll get started on that first 50 minute session.

Alrighty! Got that taken care of. Time to get started.

9:19 pm update—

I’m getting tired. It didn’t slow me down much though, although I do feel like I’m making more typos than I was and having to correct myself. I wrote for 50 minutes, 667 words, and my pace now averages 740 WPH. So although I wasn’t as fast as I was in the session before this one (at 909 WPH), I was still faster than in any of the rest, coming in at 800 WPH exactly.

I do think I’ll continue. Tonight might just be the night. :D

My spreadsheet says it’ll take me another 1.137 hours to finish. That’s 69 minutes. So . . . I’m going to set my timer for 60 minutes and try really, really hard to write at least 942 WPH! That would put me 100 words above my record and I wouldn’t have to go into another session. ;)

Anyway, need a quick break first because my legs are going numb and I’m very thristy.

Back from break and it’s now 9:40 pm. Somehow my break has taken me 21 minutes! I can’t explain it, because I didn’t do anything during my break except pee, guzzle a cup of water, make a fresh cup of herbal mint tea, and shake out my legs while I waited the 2 minutes it takes to boil the water.

Honestly, I think I’m just tired and I’ve slowed down. I mean, I’m seriously tired. I’ve started yawning a lot, because 6 am comes early and that’s what time I get up every day. I’ve had a couple of days this week where I just didn’t get enough sleep and although I got more the last two nights, I’m not caught up by any means. I’ll get to sleep in tomorrow morning, so maybe I’ll catch up finally. ;)

Honest to goodness, I just want to go to bed! Fighting that feeling and getting back to my book . . . right . . . now.

10:56 pm update—

How’s this for irony: I finished my 60 minute session and I’m sitting at 5,108 words. Exactly 100 words fewer than my record.

I’m not going to bother with a break because if I take one right now, I might not come back. I’m so tired I think I could fall asleep right here. I’m setting a 15 minute timer and hoping I can knock out 200 words so I can call this thing! :D

11:21 pm update—

It’s done! I have written 5,221 words today. I didn’t end up with an extra 100 words but it’s close enough! I’ve now set a new one-day word count record for myself, and boy am I tired.

Too bad all these words weren’t fiction. This is one long log!

I’m not even going to read through this to see if I went too far over the TMI line. Just too tired! :)

I’ll be back tomorrow to try for my daily goal of 4,521 words.

Now goodnight!

Here are today’s numbers, all laid out for you. Or me, in case I want to see them again (I don’t archive daily detail like this anywhere; I only track a daily total).

Minutes Words Session WPH
50 497 497 596
50 1,051 554 665
54 1,743 692 769
60 2,429 686 686
50 3,093 664 797
40 3,699 606 909
50 4,366 667 800
60 5,108 742 742
15 5,221 113 452
429 Total minutes -0.017803 Hours to finish
5,221 Total words
730 Total WPH 7.15 Hours completed

Today’s goal: 625 words x 5

Lynn

I’m going to update this post as the day goes along, keeping a running log of my progress.

Goal 1— 625 (at 735)
Goal 2— 1250 (at 1,504)
Goal 3— 1875 (at 2,163)
Goal 4— 2500 (finished at 3,183!)
Goal 5— 3125

The last time I wrote at least 3,000 words in a day was September 18, 2014. No wonder I’m writing slow these days. I’m out of practice. :o I should make a point of having at least one 3,000 word day a week.

Progress—

Goal 1: First session went well and I made it to 735 words. I started just a bit later than I thought I would but I still think I can get in two more sessions before I have to stop for some family/life stuff. I’ll be picking up the last two sessions later this evening around 6:30 if all goes according to plan.

Goal 2: I ended this session with 1,504 words total. The session went well, although I forgot that I needed to have lunch so I paused to cook and eat. So, of course, I’m not going to be able to do more than get started with the next session before I have to stop. Still, if I can keep up my pace, I will reach my goal today. The book is back on track for the moment and I’m liking it again (a lot!). :D

Goal 3: This one started a lot later than I’d hoped, so I’m very glad it went well. I’ve ended the session with 2,163 words, meaning there’s actually the possibility I’ll meet this goal with one more solid session. Fingers crossed! I’m going to push for it!

Goal 4: I reached my word count goal for the day after only 4 sessions instead of 5 and finished at 3,183 words for the day. Yay!

It’s tomorrow!

Lynn

Today I begin my schedule. Breakfast is over and I’ve sat down to write. I’ll be aiming for six 45 minute sessions, and I hope to reach about 500 words for each one. So yeah, I would like to start this with a 3,000 word day. I’ll be happy to fail to 2,000 though if that’s all I manage. :D

Last night, I read some interesting articles about ideal room temperature for productivity (yeah, I don’t know why, but hey, anything that helps, right?) and have decided to raise my room temperature by 2 degrees F. I tried it last night and to be honest, I couldn’t tell the room was any warmer so I don’t know if it’s going to be worth the extra energy usage, but I’m willing to give it a few days trial run same as I’m willing to try out the schedule. One thing I know is that as soon as my fingers get cold, my ability to focus takes a major hit.

Now, on to my writing before time gets away from me and it goes from 9:34 to 10 and I have nothing to show for it. :)

This spot reserved for actual results… See ya in 5 hours or so! ;)

And later—

Minutes Goal Actual
45 500 86  (414)
45 500 105  (809)
45 500 127  (1,182)

As you can see, that table isn’t complete. I had to stop about 3.5 hours into the block (which was about an hour more than it should have been for only 3 of my sessions to be complete). I started an hour late (messing around on the internet when I was absolutely not supposed to—tonight I’ll be shutting off the WIFI on my computer before I turn it off and won’t be turning it back on until time’s up).

Because I started an hour late and because my breaks ran long, I started getting really hungry and so I decided to finish the second half of my sessions after I have lunch. Tomorrow, I hope this won’t happen.

Also, I spent all of the 3 sessions I’ve already done reworking the last scene I wrote. I didn’t like it, and it didn’t feel true to the characters (or maybe I just wanted it to go somewhere else and I had to find what would send the characters that way while being true to themselves). ;) Either way… I’m just about done with that and maybe, hopefully, please God, I’ll be moving along quite a bit faster when I get back to it after lunch.

I really think this would have worked today if I’d gotten started when I was supposed to. But hunger drove away my will to continue! :D Meaning I better make sure I get started when I’m supposed to tomorrow if I don’t want a repeat of today.

And later still…

There’s a reason I wanted to start lumping my time together. That reason was in play here. :D Tomorrow is a new day. And I did end up working another 15 minutes, but I had a negative word count because I deleted some stuff. Still, I left off with the story waiting on me to write all new words tomorrow.

So, it definitely could have been a worse day.

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!

Writing In 15 Minute Sessions

Lynn

I’m trying out a new writing method now that I’ve finally got back into the swing of things. I’m finding the 5 minute sessions a little annoying the last few days so I’ve reverted to 15 minute sessions. I’m trying to do 3 every hour, and hit 800 words. I haven’t done it yet, but I do think I can so I’m going to practice that for a while.

What I’m hoping to gain is the ability to write more—of course. :D Say, 5 to 7 hours a day at 800 words each… That would be a pretty nice output by anyone’s standards! I’d get 15 minutes to recharge every hour. Yep. I’m liking this idea a lot and I’m optimistic I can make it work for a while. :D

I’ll report back later today with some numbers to see if this thing’s working out.

UPDATE:  I liked it. I had trouble meeting the 800 words goal (267 per session) but I think I just need to keep practicing. All told, here are my results:

session 1 – 3 sprints – 543 words
session 2 – 3 sprints – 481 words
session 3 – 3 sprints – 423 words
session 4 – 3 sprints – 521 words

I came up 1,232 short of where I would’ve been if I’d managed the 800. Still, I did like this way of working! It was a nice change from the mad pace of the 5 minute sessions and I’m hopeful I can train my brain to hit 300 in 15 minutes. ;)

I’m calling it a success and worth further experimentation. :D

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Today’s plan is to reach a record smashing 6,000 words.

I’ve set aside 8 hours for my 5 minute sessions, and I’m trying for 750 each hour in ten 5 minute sessions of approximately 75 words each.

9:20–10:20 (8 sessions, 574 words)
10:30–12:00 (10 sessions, 741 words) (interrupted in the middle of the hour)
12:10–1:10 (10 sessions, 840 words) (switching stories when I come back after a break)
3:10–4:10 (10 sessions, 614 words)
5:00–6:00 (7 sessions, 424 words)
6:20–7:20 (10 sessions, 752 words)
8:30–9:20 (5 sessions, 422 words) (cut the session short)
Hour 8 (cancelled)

But … I’m off to a terribly slow start in the first hour. I have 20 minutes left, and as I write, I’m barely cracking 50 words in 5 minutes. Sometimes I’m not even doing that. I stopped to write this because I feel like the book is screaming out to me that something’s not right and I’m totally ignoring it. And it’s slowed my writing to a crawl.

I should just put everyone in bed together and say to heck with it all. Surely that’ll perk things up! :D

For real, though, I’m having difficulty with something that’s going on. I’m just not sure how to explain it. I’ve set up this really great thing and the payoff is taking too long. But stuff is happening that is forcing that delay. Yet I know I need to do something about that and I have no idea what that something should or could be. Sigh. What a mess!

Ah, well, back to writing. My brain feels foggy and if I don’t get a move on, I’m not going to come in anywhere close to the word count I planned for today.

Also, although I hadn’t planned to bother with a list of the specific timing of my hours, I remembered that I’m planning to revisit all these posts in the future to see if I can identify any patterns of better/worse times to write. So, I’m appending the time as I add the counts. :)

I’m at the beginning of hour 7 and right now, I’m looking at my numbers and thinking it’s going to take a miracle (or one heck of a breakthrough in the writing) to make it in two hours. The sad part is that I’ll be close enough for one more hour to do it, all things staying about the same. The really sad news is that I don’t know if I have that extra hour to give tonight because I have somewhere to be tomorrow! My brother’s wife will be delivering a baby. :D

On that note, I’m going to get started even though I’m really close to cancelling my last sessions after I reach 4,000 and saving the run at 6,000 for another day. We’ll see.

Well, I did end up cutting the next to the last session short and cancelling the last. The numbers just aren’t there and I don’t want to drag this out too late since 6,000 is off the table. :D

Partial success! I reached 4,367 words today. That’s way over my minimum of 2,464 and an excellent day’s writing for me. :)

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.

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.