Fiction writer. Expert procrastinator. This is my life.
I write fiction—it’s how I earn my living—and I like to ramble. Just so you know. Nearly everything I do these days relates in some way to writing and publishing, so most of my posts are here.
Alrighty! Time to get busy today. I have some writing I want to do, and I’m racing to see how much I can get done before I break for dinner. :) I’d like that to be 2,000, but I’ll settle for whatever I get. I want to finish that pesky novella today.
Update: Considering how much messing around I did with other stuff today, I feel lucky I made it to a few words under 400.
12:38 p.m. Derailed by style issues, again.
Not that the fault belongs to Microsoft Word. No, the fault is mine.
I meant to get started writing about an hour ago, but I started messing with the former book in the novella series so I could update the back matter (my list of books, my bio, blah blah), and I realized my styles are not matching up, which made me want to create a new style set (again, not like I don’t already have a ton of them), and then I ended up looking up the Microsoft Office help pages so I could see if I’m missing something in my understanding of styles and style sets and templates (oh, I definitely am, even though I know enough to have created about 10 style sets of my own).
This is all for Word 2007. I toy with the idea of upgrading, but I haven’t because I’m pretty happy with this version.
In the meantime, I’ve wasted a lot of good writing time on something that would take very little time to do, if I could figure out where I need to start to combine the quick styles I definitely need into one new style set, so I can just delete most of the rest of them.
Let’s see, it’s 9:58 a.m. and I’m going to see if I can get this done within 10 minutes before I drive myself crazy with it.
And later…
10:31 a.m. to be exact. I’ve got a new style set for my ebooks and I think it’s going to work. I’ve made a note to delete the old style sets (not the print style sets yet) once I’m sure I’m happy with this new set.
Not 10 minutes but close enough! :D
So last night and this morning I read Writing in Overdrive (which I really liked, btw) and I came away from the book with the feeling that maybe I don’t know what “fast” means when it comes to writing.
I’ve been daydreaming about hitting daily word counts of 5,000 and 6,000 for a while, and there’s definitely this part of me that thinks this should be a daily thing. Maybe weekends off. But maybe not.
And I have to ask myself, in what world is this realistic?
What kind of writer writes 5,000 words every day? That’s 1,825,000 words a year.
Where’d I get the idea that this is something I even want?
I mean, I could write a new novel every month at around 2,000 words a day. A new novel every month.
At 4,000 words a day, I’d be pumping out two novels everymonth. Or one massive 120,000 word novel.
I have no idea why I’ve fixated on 5,000 words a day. No idea.
When I won NaNoWriMo in 2010 with just a hair over 50,000 words, I thought I’d done something amazing. When I decided to go back to writing original works so I could try publishing in 2012, I thought I was really accomplishing something when I wrote 56,287 words in two months. I was so sure I was writing a significant enough number of words that I quit my job to start writing full-time. Let me repeat that: I quit my job based on me being able to write about 25,000 words a month.
I have to wonder when I decided it was such a great idea to put so much pressure on myself that I feel like I’ve started to avoid writing, even though I love writing stories. Why have I let my critical self run roughshod over my creative self by focusing so strongly on word counts and hourly output and self-imposed deadlines?
What have I been thinking?
Then there’s the idea that I’m a slow writer at my average 551 words per hour.
I’ve been dreaming of consistently writing 1,000 words an hour for a while now. I’ve done it a few times, but I don’t like it when I push for it. It’s happened a few times when I haven’t pushed for it, and those times were fun. But when I tried to force it? It was too stressful, and I didn’t like how it felt at all. It made writing very much unfun.
There were several passages within Writing in Overdrive that made me question what kind of hourly output I should be expecting from myself.
In chapter 1, Jim Denney talks about Ray Bradbury:
He averaged about five and a half typing hours per day, totaling 49 hours of typewriter time at a cost of about $9.80 in dimes. His daily output averaged about 2,800 words. “It was a passionate and exciting time for me,” he recalled in an article for UCLA Magazine.
…
Bradbury believes in writing quickly, intuitively, explosively, and passionately.
I’m left wondering if 2,800 words in five and a half hours is considered fast? If not fast, I think it’s safe to assume from the context that it’s not slow. At just over 514 words an hour that means…
I’m plenty fast enough.
I actually feel a lot better.
It’s really time I stop worrying about how “fast” a writer I am and just get back to having fun when I write so I can develop a good, strong writing habit.
Also, I definitely feel like I made the right decision to drop the time quota. :)
Set goals that are focused on creativity and productivity, not merely on putting in the time. “I will write from nine until noon” is not a goal — it’s a schedule.
LOL. You better believe I highlighted that. ;)
I just got rid of another old site I had. It never made much money, but I liked it at one time in my life. As with many of my sites, though, it never got much attention and never did amount to much. I’m not going to miss it. I like my fiction writing empire-in-progress much better. ;)
I keep an eye on my writing totals on a weekly basis—not that I log weekly totals in my daily word count log or anything. I just like to have a weekly goal, and now I’m trying to focus on that weekly goal even more.
I’ve been comfortable using a Saturday–Friday week, because I thought—irrationally?—that by putting the weekend days at the beginning of my week, I’d have fewer weekends where I try to work all weekend and catch up on my weekly writing word count goals.
Uh, no. Not even close to reality.
What’s been happening is that I’ve been telling myself it’s okay to slack off on the weekends, because they’re the first two days of the week, and I can catch up on Monday and Tuesday—which I never seem to do.
I’m still within the first two years of my writing career. I have to publish semi-regularly to make money, or I’ll go broke. So which problem seems more like a real problem here: writing too much on the weekends or not writing enough?
Yeah. I had that same thought, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. :D
I’m shifting it back to Monday—Sunday.
Wow. I hadn’t realized how much having a story around that I needed to publish was dragging me down. I feel a lot lighter now that it’s done.
So, that makes short story #2 for the year, while the novella #1 is still unfinished. But it’s close to being done finally. It really is. I swear! :)
Oops … if I have a 100 word minimum, I broke my streak yesterday. However, I did write. Only I wrote 58 words, not 100.
Then today, I just haven’t done it. The change in routine with the school year ending is throwing me off, but really, I just didn’t want to write. Sigh.
This just isn’t working.
I should clarify. My new routine is working quite well. I’m exercising. I’m no longer snacking between meals. I’m not feeling as fatigued as I was. So that’s great. I’m just not writing during the times I have set aside for writing. That’s … problematic.
As for the money thing, well, that’s easy. Apparently money has no motivational power over me at all. I mean, maybe if I was starving or something, but since I’m not… Yeah.
I just don’t understand why I keep trying the same things over and over, except … I kind of do. I forget. I forget why it didn’t work, or I think something’s different this time so I won’t have the same outcome—but then I do. And I shouldn’t be surprised, but I always am.
I don’t know how to overcome that. I don’t know how to make myself remember that I’ve tried the “hours thing” before and couldn’t get it to work for me. Although basing my writing goals around the time I spend writing seems rational and doable, when I put it into action, I end up feeling like I’m trapped, and I avoid writing as if I hate it. As if—ah…
I think I get it now. As if it’s a job.
I just can’t keep doing this to myself. I know better. Treating writing as a job in the sense that most people think of “job” just doesn’t work for me.
I have to take the time scheduling off the table, completely, forever, else I’m just going to try this again in a few months and have this happen all over again.
I sincerely hope this is the last “schedule” post I ever write.
Here’s my plan for the rest of the year: enjoy my writing life and give myself a break.
This doesn’t mean I can’t have goals and dreams and continue attempting to improve as a writer. I will write—I don’t doubt that. I will try to reach a weekly word count goal, and I will continue to try to write every day, because that’s what I do.
Frankly, I don’t have a choice if I want to keep earning a living with my writing. But that doesn’t mean I should spend so much time driving myself crazy with perfectionism—not with the writing itself (I seem to have that under control), but with how much writing I do and how often, because I’m never satisfied. It’s never enough. It will never be enough for the perfectionist in me.
So here’s how much I’d like to write each week—a realistic number that’s going to get me to the number of books I would like to publish each year. 13,535. It’s not my lowest recorded word count for a week and it’s not my highest, so it’s realistic for me. It’s a modest number, and if I don’t make it each week, so be it.
I’d like to do this in conjunction with continuing to write on multiple stories each day, because that’s working for me, and it’s refreshing to be able to switch stories when things get all tangled up in my head. The breaks always seem to do me good.
But it’s just something to keep me focused.
And that’s it.
I will still probably have days where I’ll want to challenge myself—because it can be fun to do that sometimes, but my days will be devoted to enjoying the writing life as much as possible and learning how to let go of the perfectionistic ideals of what my writing life should be like.
Update: 1,299 words! Yay! Not great as far as WPH, but at least I didn’t end the day with <100 again. :D The majority of those words were for my 2014 novella #1.
It’s Sunday! Yes, lately I always seem to screw up Saturday and then try to do better on Sunday.
So that’s the plan today. Do better.
I’m supposed to be following my routine but here it is 12:25 PM and I’ve napped (yes! I did! At 8:20–9 AM!). I’ve visited a few forums. I’ve called my mother (and talked for a very long time). I’ve read a few other forums. And blogs. And looked at sales reports.
What I haven’t done is sit down and write.
I’m going to go ahead and try to stick to my routine, hoping that as I add more activity to my day, my fatigue will ease up and I’ll feel more like getting started in the mornings. If that doesn’t work after a few days to a week, I’ll rearrange some stuff so that I can just do my writing in the afternoons.
For today, though, I’ll be revisiting the writing at 2 PM when I’m supposed to do publishing stuff and reading, and write until 6 PM, because I must get in 4 hours of writing today or I owe someone some money. :D Because yeah, I made a bet I could get in my 4 hours today.
Day #3: 30 words
Seriously, I did those words just to keep the streak alive. It’s embarrassing.
Next up, setting a minimum word count to qualify for the streak!
100? It is a minimum, after all.
Maybe I’ll go up to 250 eventually!
I’d say tomorrow is going to be a much better day, but I have no idea, and technically, I’m writing this on Sunday morning anyway, so it’s already today instead of tomorrow. ;)
I came across a great quote today, one that surprised and pleased me and seemed to come at just the right time since I’ve been mulling over the why and why nots of having a schedule and why it might be time for me to get back to mine.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.
This quote, from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, which I came across at Brain Pickings in “How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives: Annie Dillard on Presence Over Productivity,” resonated. I haven’t thought of a schedule in quite this way before, and I like the idea that a schedule isn’t so much a prison as it is a scaffolding and a haven.
I could use a haven; frankly, I could use some scaffolding.
I love the idea of looking back and seeing “a blurred and powerful pattern” in my days past.
I’m going to build my scaffolding from my old schedule, and following another piece of advice from someone else, I’m going to start the day with creative work first.
Failure is always an option, but I don’t mind. Gotta (re)start somewhere. :)
Hmm. This is so embarrassing. But hey, at least it’s a streak, right? :D
Day #1 : 61
Day #2 : 206
Hmm. Time for some conclusions!
The word count issues I keep coming up against are just a symptom of a bigger issue. Time. Time is where I’m falling short and letting myself down.
I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that procrastination is still a problem—truly, a symptom of a different issue, or that I still have to work on motivating myself, blah, blah, blah, but worrying about word counts without worrying about the amount of time I’m devoting to my writing seems very short-sighted.
There’s a solution to my word count woes and it’s a simple one. Spend more time writing. :D
My focus should be on consistently putting in more time. Back in February 2012, I had a fantastic month—a month of the most consistent writing output I’ve ever had (truly, ever). I averaged over three hours of writing a day. That kind of consistency could do wonders for my writing and my income. More practice, more published stories, more money.
If I want to be sure I put in more time consistently, then I need structure.
It’s time to start writing every day.
I would never depend on one backup. I back up my works at least once daily, often twice, to Google Drive, Dropbox, an SD card, a networked computer’s hard-drive (which I back up to an external hard-drive), and then I throw in the occasional email of my WIPs to a secondary and tertiary email account and a DVD backup.
I also copy my main works directory monthly to create a monthly snapshot of it on my main writing computer’s hard-drive.
This all works like a charm and doesn’t take me but seconds to do. I use Spacejock Software’s yCopy2 and saved jobs to make doing these backups simple and quick. It’s as easy as clicking a shortcut link for each backup I want to run.
After every day’s work, I copy my WIP files to a backup directory so that I have a complete daily record of what I’ve written (or deleted). If I work on a WIP for 80 days, then I end up with at least 80 copies in the backup directory. I say “at least” because if I take a break, sometimes I back up then too, and if I know I’m about to do any kind of editing or redrafting, I back up then.
I regularly check that my copies of these files are present where they’re supposed to be and that they open without any problems.
That’s how I back up my writing.
As far as backing up other files: pictures, letters, emails, program settings, even my Calibre library of nearly 800 ebooks? I don’t even bother. It’s kind of funny. I really need to get on that…
Since early April, I’ve allowed myself to freely write on multiple stories each day instead of constraining myself to only the one I want completed first.
So far I’ve put almost all my effort into six projects: my early 2014 novella, two novels I need done ASAP, a new novel meant for a new pen name, and two short stories (one of which is done and needs only to be published).
Getting that story publishing should be a high priority but every time I sit down to format it, I get distracted. Yeah. I’m really not acting in my own best interests here. ;)
For the moment, I’m looking for a way to pump up my word counts this month, on those specific projects I need to finish, by focusing on the one million words challenge. Now that I feel like I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough, I think I can meet the word count goals I’ll need to meet to end the year with those one million words of fiction. :D
The math as of today: 905,523 words left to write / 232 days left in the year = 3,903 words per day.
The good news is that although that will be tough, it’s doable.
I need to revisit the idea of a daily time quota, and that may not be my favorite idea, but it’s time to do whatever I need to do to get me where I want to go. I honestly believe I can still meet the one million words challenge but I’m going to have to keep improving and pushing.
I’ve always said I want to be prolific. I want to write a lot—and I mean a LOT—of books.
If that’s truly what I want, then I probably need to get busy making that happen.
I’m bored. Not of my books (although you’d think so after today’s determined efforts to procrastinate), not of this site, but of these progress posts.
I thought they’d be helpful or motivational or something, but they’re really not doing anything for me.
So this could be the last “progress” note. I even created a category for them.
Ah, well. I’ll just use it for something else. I still haven’t renamed the “It’s a Job” category either. I might not.
Right now, I’m sitting at -255 words.
I deleted some stuff with the intent to write on that story and then I gave in to the fact that I just don’t feel well. I think I have an ear infection or something. My ear hurts. And I’m very tired. And although I had big plans—HUGE plans—for my writing today, when it came down to it, I just didn’t feel like writing.
So here’s to a better day tomorrow and calling it a night tonight.
—Working to increase my daily average word count
Made it to 454. Ugh. Headache never did really go away. MUST do better tomorrow.
Hoping to have a great day today but I’ve gotta get rid of this headache or writing’s going to be tough.
Not much writing done over the weekend, but like I said a while back, weekends just don’t seem to be good writing days most weeks. This was one of those weeks.
Saturday I made it to 337 pretty early, but then never got back to it.
Sunday I didn’t write a word of fiction although I did write a nice, long note to myself about the coming weekdays and what I need to get done. :D It was boring number crunching so I’m not going to bother repeating any of it here.
My conclusion: I need to pick up some serious speed. :D To get to one million words of fiction in 2014, I’m going to have to start averaging almost 3,900 a day. Since I’m not writing much on the weekends at the moment, that means I’ve got to start having some killer good weekdays. Possible, just not likely if I don’t do something different than I’ve been doing.
—Working to increase my daily average word count
Made it to 1,175 after a 4 hour midday interruption. Thought I was going to come home and write but I didn’t feel well, and in fact, I never did feel better, so I just ended up reading a book.
9:28 am: 452
10:58 am: 939
3:08 pm: 1,101
3:49 pm: 1,175