Day 129: More about tricks for productivity
Just yesterday I blogged about using tricks to make myself get back to work, and today in her Facebook group, Elana Johnson talked about how she uses timers and Peanut M&Ms.
Timers don't work for me--I've tried them before, including using a nifty Pomodoro timer that I bought and which now I barely use. I will work without stopping most of the time, but once I take a break, I just don't get back to work in a timely fashion. Even when I set a timer and it goes off, telling me to get back to work, I'll ignore it.
So for me, using 4thewords.com motivates me more than just a timer since I'll lose the monster battle if I don't get my butt back in my chair to write.
I'm just not as self-disciplined as other writers, because many of them on the Facebook group mentioned that they use timers, too, and when it goes off after their break, they get back to work. I'm also the sort of person who will snooze my alarm right up until the absolute last minute, so maybe that says something about my personality.
I also read in the Facebook group that other writers will use their online friends to do group sprints and that motivates them to get back to work, because, well, everyone else is doing it. I guess it never occurred to me to try to find a group sprint Facebook group.
Also, I was doing a lot of writing in the early morning hours when there was no-one awake, so that might also be why I never found a group doing a sprint during my writing hours. Now that I understand Twitter a little better, I suppose I could also search for international people doing sprints in the early morning hours to try to find people on Twitter doing writing sprints. Twitter's gotta be good for something!
Anyway, I'm still chugging along on my Reader Magnet. Yesterday I started chapter 2 (or scene 2, I usually don't separate my scenes into chapters until the very end).
My writing pace for the last scene was very slow yesterday, but that might be because I did a bit of editing on the scene. And I'm not sure, but I might have done more editing on the scene because I'm writing with only very sparse blocking rather than the more detailed blocking I usually do.
The reason is because I did more detailed blocking for the first scene but when writing the scene, it went off in a slightly different direction and I didn't use much of my blocking at all. So for the second scene, I just started writing without doing the blocking first, to see if I might save myself some time. But if my writing pace is slower, maybe the lack of detailed blocking is the cause? I don't know. Anyway, I'll continue today and see if the lack of blocking still makes for slow writing pace.
***
After writing two and a half scenes, I think I do need more detailed blocking. This last scene is just kind of boring. I think I need to go back and restructure it.
***
Even with more detailed blocking, the writing is still slow today. I'm just not really getting into it. I also have a slight headache that's been bothering me for a few hours, so I decided to cut things short for today.
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2060
Writing: Average speed: 948 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 13 minutes
My takeaway for today: I don't think it's a good idea to skip the blocking, because then my scene starts to wander aimlessly.
Timers don't work for me--I've tried them before, including using a nifty Pomodoro timer that I bought and which now I barely use. I will work without stopping most of the time, but once I take a break, I just don't get back to work in a timely fashion. Even when I set a timer and it goes off, telling me to get back to work, I'll ignore it.
So for me, using 4thewords.com motivates me more than just a timer since I'll lose the monster battle if I don't get my butt back in my chair to write.
I'm just not as self-disciplined as other writers, because many of them on the Facebook group mentioned that they use timers, too, and when it goes off after their break, they get back to work. I'm also the sort of person who will snooze my alarm right up until the absolute last minute, so maybe that says something about my personality.
I also read in the Facebook group that other writers will use their online friends to do group sprints and that motivates them to get back to work, because, well, everyone else is doing it. I guess it never occurred to me to try to find a group sprint Facebook group.
Also, I was doing a lot of writing in the early morning hours when there was no-one awake, so that might also be why I never found a group doing a sprint during my writing hours. Now that I understand Twitter a little better, I suppose I could also search for international people doing sprints in the early morning hours to try to find people on Twitter doing writing sprints. Twitter's gotta be good for something!
Anyway, I'm still chugging along on my Reader Magnet. Yesterday I started chapter 2 (or scene 2, I usually don't separate my scenes into chapters until the very end).
My writing pace for the last scene was very slow yesterday, but that might be because I did a bit of editing on the scene. And I'm not sure, but I might have done more editing on the scene because I'm writing with only very sparse blocking rather than the more detailed blocking I usually do.
The reason is because I did more detailed blocking for the first scene but when writing the scene, it went off in a slightly different direction and I didn't use much of my blocking at all. So for the second scene, I just started writing without doing the blocking first, to see if I might save myself some time. But if my writing pace is slower, maybe the lack of detailed blocking is the cause? I don't know. Anyway, I'll continue today and see if the lack of blocking still makes for slow writing pace.
***
After writing two and a half scenes, I think I do need more detailed blocking. This last scene is just kind of boring. I think I need to go back and restructure it.
***
Even with more detailed blocking, the writing is still slow today. I'm just not really getting into it. I also have a slight headache that's been bothering me for a few hours, so I decided to cut things short for today.
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2060
Writing: Average speed: 948 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 13 minutes
My takeaway for today: I don't think it's a good idea to skip the blocking, because then my scene starts to wander aimlessly.
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