Day 125: Pushing through health issues; struggles

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I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to get done today. After a few days of feeling great, today my IBS has flared up (I'm not sure what I might have eaten to trigger it). However, I really wanted to get Snowflake step 6 (extended synopsis) done on the Reader Magnet novella today, so I'm going to try to push through the discomfort. I hope I can get my work done.

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Finished outlining the reader magnet! It didn't take as long as I thought, and my IBS eventually got a bit better.

Next I will do the blocking and Snowflake step 8 (scene spreadsheet) for the story. If I'm fast, I'll be able to start writing it on Monday!

***

I really have to credit 4thewords.com with motivating me to push through my IBS discomfort. For a while my intestinal pain was really bad, but once it got down to just discomfort, I could have gone back to work or I could have rested. I had a quest I wanted to complete on 4thewords, so I pushed through the discomfort to write.

I wouldn't recommend for every writer to push through health problems, but for today, while it was uncomfortable, it wasn't bad.

I'm actually really glad because I got the Snowflake step 6 done, and I started blocking the first scene, and I even started writing it. I wasn't quite editing-as-I-go--I left notes for myself for etymology words to look up and other minor bits of research to do later. The number of notes so far is very small, so I don't think Future Camy will throw too much of a hissy fit at the amount of work Sprinting Camy left for her to do.

My writing speed was great, about 2400 words an hour! I only wrote for about 45 minutes, but I got about 1500 words done.

I will have to see how Future Camy responds to the editing later, but I hope it won't be too bad.

It's strange how some of my writing friends have no problems with editing, but they have difficulty getting themselves to write, while I'm the complete opposite.

But no matter what the issue is, if you're also struggling with an aspect of the writing, then start a journal and observe your behavior so you can try to come up with ways to adjust and work around your strengths and weaknesses.

I also spent some time doing research into my characters. I went through movies and actors to find photos I can use for reference. It was really helpful--suddenly I had a clearer picture of each character and how they sounded different from each other. I really should have done this sooner, but I had forgotten. When I start editing, it'll make it easier to make each character sound more unique rather than mashing all their voices together.

Writing: Time spent: 6 hours, 7 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1546
Writing: Average speed: 2370 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 40 minutes

My takeaway for today: 4thewords is an incredible motivator for me to work when I'm on the fence about it.

Comments

  1. CoffeeQuills12:47 AM

    Love the idea of starting a journal, and I miiiight steal that very good idea of stats you have at the bottom of your page. I hope you feel better soon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Camy Tang12:04 PM

      Thanks so much CoffeeQuills! I do feel better today.

      I borrowed the stats idea from the book Write Better, Faster, but it's also a habit I had picked up when I was doing biology work. We had to record all our data in our lab notebook, so I've been treating my daily journal like a lab notebook to record my data from my experiments. It's been super useful to help me remember and process the things I've been trying to improve productivity.

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