Day 151: Think outside the box
I’m reading Elana Johnson’s book, Writing and Marketing Systems (Indie Inspiration for Self-Publishers Book 3), and I’m really enjoying it. For one thing, I read her book Writing and Releasing Rapidly (Indie Inspiration for Self-Publishers Book 1), and I just really like her writing style. It’s breezy and casual and easy to zip through. I also like how she’s very much into hard data.
For this book, she doesn’t give her own hard data so much as teaching you how to create your own. It’s also really neat how her own writing routine and writing process is pretty unconventional, but she’s still a very successful author. It’s refreshing and also gives me hope.
In the book, she is constantly encouraging you to find out what works for you, and she gives examples of how to try different things to figure out what will work best for your own personality and lifestyle.
I was especially inspired by some ideas she gives of how to think outside the box in terms of writing routine and process. She stresses to find out what’s not working for you so you can stop doing it, and to figure out what does work for you, even if it’s flying against conventional wisdom from other writers.
I like her idea of timing her marketing each day. She sets a 60 minute timer and does as much as she can in that 60 minutes, and when the timer goes off, she stops. That might help make some of the marketing things I have to do more palatable.
She’s also an evening writer, which I am when my sleep schedule isn’t messed up like it is now. And she writes in 60-90 minute sprints with long breaks in between to get done the things she needs to do around the house and with her family.
It made me reevaluate my own writing schedule. I can’t write as fast as she can (she’s clocking about 4k words an hour), but if long breaks might enable me to write faster and more refreshed, then why not?
Ideally I’d like to get in four 90 minute writing sessions a day. Right now I usually only do two or three, and those writing sessions are not always 90 minutes.
So I think I’ll start small and try to build up from there. I’ll focus mostly on making each writing session at least 90 minutes, and I’ll shoot for two of them a day for now. If I am super efficient and productive and can get in three, that’ll be great. Eventually I can build up to four sessions a day.
The 90 minute sessions might be harder now that I’m doing the self-editing, but I’ll still give it a shot. Since I want volume 1 out soon, I think I will only focus on the self-editing for now rather than trying to write volume 3 at the same time.
From the articles I’ve read on procrastination, most suggest reward systems to help with my particular procrastination problem. So I’ll continue to use snacks, but I realized that the audiobook during my break can also be a form of reward since I enjoy it so much.
I think I will also borrow her idea of a timer for my writing related work. I can try to do my email and social media all within 30 minutes, and then set a timer for another 30 minutes to do the things on my marketing checklist.
I’m still trying to start my writing earlier in the day since I might work best then, so I think I’ll try to do the email and marketing later in the day, maybe after my first writing sprint.
I’m so glad I’m reading her book right now! And I’m only on chapter four or five!
***
Editing the first chapter is taking a really long time, mostly because I have to rework the dialogue now that I’ve written the prequel (the Gentleman Thief) and it changed some things that happened at the very beginning (but not what happens later in the story). I also have to change how the chapter ends because what I’d originally written doesn’t make sense now, and it took some time free-writing and brainstorming to figure that out, but I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do.
I have to say again, the free-writing has been great since I started doing it on 4thewords.com. Before, I just never felt very motivated to do it, and when I did I never got good results—I usually got better results when I brainstormed while knitting. But now that I’m motivated to defeat a monster, I’ll automatically start free-writing when I have a plot problem. Since I usually write more because I want to defeat the monster, I end up finding a solution rather quickly, even more quickly than when I used to knit. I should have tried free-writing more before, and not given up just because it didn’t work well for a few times.
***
I did some editing before breakfast, and then set my timer and did email for only 30 minutes.
However, I have more house chores to do today that need to be done every 30 minutes or so. I’m going to try to be more disciplined and do the editing in between until I’ve gotten about 90 minutes or so, and then take a break.
***
I didn’t do too badly, I did 71 minutes of editing, although it was broken up because of my house chores and some family demands. Now my lunch is ready so I’ll go ahead and eat.
***
Lunch took a little longer than expected, partly because I’m cooking for dinner, and partly because I was reading Elana’s book some more. So much information! I’ll have to re-read it and take better notes.
I did editing for another 69 minutes before taking another break, although I also recorded my time, copied and pasted into Scrivener, and made backups, but I didn’t record that in Toggl.
And then I did a bunch of procrastination on social media and some retail procrastination, too! Ugh!
I wanted to get more done before dinner, but I’m feeling a bit mentally tired so I might just eat and then see how I feel afterward.
Overall, today hasn't been too bad in terms of work done. I got my minimum, which was two 90-ish minute segments.
It’s a little frustrating that I might have been able to squeeze in a little more time, but I didn’t because of my bouts of procrastination.
But since editing is usually like pulling teeth for me, the amount of work I got done is respectable compared to other times when I would get barely an hour of editing done the entire day.
***
I did get another hour of work done after dinner, but I think now I will stop and go to bed early.
It’s been a bit tough to do the editing in 4thewords because I just don’t add a lot of words. Most of my self-editing has been deleting words. So I’ve been using my blogging words to defeat my long time duration monsters. And to be honest, it’s a little stressful to have to watch the clock and make sure I copy and paste my blogging words before the monster’s time runs out.
I’m considering doing the editing in Scrivener again. I thought that means I can’t use any added words to defeat monsters (since it’s all about the monsters!). But I think that even if I do the editing in Scrivener, I can still have 4thewords count some of my added words. I have to first copy and paste the Scrivener scene into 4thewords. Then make the changes in Scrivener. Then copy and paste the entire scene into the same file on 4thewords, and I think it will only count the added words. I’ll have to try it and see. If I can do this, then I can use the added editing words to defeat some small word count monsters, who usually have short time limits.
Editing: Time spent: 3 hours, 44 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 0 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 39 minutes (but I didn’t count all my social media procrastination so it might be longer than this)
My takeaway for today: Use a timer for email, social media, marketing tasks.
My second takeaway for today: Don’t be afraid to think outside the box to figure out what writing routines might work better for me to make me more productive.
My third takeaway for today: Try for two to four 90-minute writing segments a day with long breaks in between.
For this book, she doesn’t give her own hard data so much as teaching you how to create your own. It’s also really neat how her own writing routine and writing process is pretty unconventional, but she’s still a very successful author. It’s refreshing and also gives me hope.
In the book, she is constantly encouraging you to find out what works for you, and she gives examples of how to try different things to figure out what will work best for your own personality and lifestyle.
I was especially inspired by some ideas she gives of how to think outside the box in terms of writing routine and process. She stresses to find out what’s not working for you so you can stop doing it, and to figure out what does work for you, even if it’s flying against conventional wisdom from other writers.
I like her idea of timing her marketing each day. She sets a 60 minute timer and does as much as she can in that 60 minutes, and when the timer goes off, she stops. That might help make some of the marketing things I have to do more palatable.
She’s also an evening writer, which I am when my sleep schedule isn’t messed up like it is now. And she writes in 60-90 minute sprints with long breaks in between to get done the things she needs to do around the house and with her family.
It made me reevaluate my own writing schedule. I can’t write as fast as she can (she’s clocking about 4k words an hour), but if long breaks might enable me to write faster and more refreshed, then why not?
Ideally I’d like to get in four 90 minute writing sessions a day. Right now I usually only do two or three, and those writing sessions are not always 90 minutes.
So I think I’ll start small and try to build up from there. I’ll focus mostly on making each writing session at least 90 minutes, and I’ll shoot for two of them a day for now. If I am super efficient and productive and can get in three, that’ll be great. Eventually I can build up to four sessions a day.
The 90 minute sessions might be harder now that I’m doing the self-editing, but I’ll still give it a shot. Since I want volume 1 out soon, I think I will only focus on the self-editing for now rather than trying to write volume 3 at the same time.
From the articles I’ve read on procrastination, most suggest reward systems to help with my particular procrastination problem. So I’ll continue to use snacks, but I realized that the audiobook during my break can also be a form of reward since I enjoy it so much.
I think I will also borrow her idea of a timer for my writing related work. I can try to do my email and social media all within 30 minutes, and then set a timer for another 30 minutes to do the things on my marketing checklist.
I’m still trying to start my writing earlier in the day since I might work best then, so I think I’ll try to do the email and marketing later in the day, maybe after my first writing sprint.
I’m so glad I’m reading her book right now! And I’m only on chapter four or five!
***
Editing the first chapter is taking a really long time, mostly because I have to rework the dialogue now that I’ve written the prequel (the Gentleman Thief) and it changed some things that happened at the very beginning (but not what happens later in the story). I also have to change how the chapter ends because what I’d originally written doesn’t make sense now, and it took some time free-writing and brainstorming to figure that out, but I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do.
I have to say again, the free-writing has been great since I started doing it on 4thewords.com. Before, I just never felt very motivated to do it, and when I did I never got good results—I usually got better results when I brainstormed while knitting. But now that I’m motivated to defeat a monster, I’ll automatically start free-writing when I have a plot problem. Since I usually write more because I want to defeat the monster, I end up finding a solution rather quickly, even more quickly than when I used to knit. I should have tried free-writing more before, and not given up just because it didn’t work well for a few times.
***
I did some editing before breakfast, and then set my timer and did email for only 30 minutes.
However, I have more house chores to do today that need to be done every 30 minutes or so. I’m going to try to be more disciplined and do the editing in between until I’ve gotten about 90 minutes or so, and then take a break.
***
I didn’t do too badly, I did 71 minutes of editing, although it was broken up because of my house chores and some family demands. Now my lunch is ready so I’ll go ahead and eat.
***
Lunch took a little longer than expected, partly because I’m cooking for dinner, and partly because I was reading Elana’s book some more. So much information! I’ll have to re-read it and take better notes.
I did editing for another 69 minutes before taking another break, although I also recorded my time, copied and pasted into Scrivener, and made backups, but I didn’t record that in Toggl.
And then I did a bunch of procrastination on social media and some retail procrastination, too! Ugh!
I wanted to get more done before dinner, but I’m feeling a bit mentally tired so I might just eat and then see how I feel afterward.
Overall, today hasn't been too bad in terms of work done. I got my minimum, which was two 90-ish minute segments.
It’s a little frustrating that I might have been able to squeeze in a little more time, but I didn’t because of my bouts of procrastination.
But since editing is usually like pulling teeth for me, the amount of work I got done is respectable compared to other times when I would get barely an hour of editing done the entire day.
***
I did get another hour of work done after dinner, but I think now I will stop and go to bed early.
It’s been a bit tough to do the editing in 4thewords because I just don’t add a lot of words. Most of my self-editing has been deleting words. So I’ve been using my blogging words to defeat my long time duration monsters. And to be honest, it’s a little stressful to have to watch the clock and make sure I copy and paste my blogging words before the monster’s time runs out.
I’m considering doing the editing in Scrivener again. I thought that means I can’t use any added words to defeat monsters (since it’s all about the monsters!). But I think that even if I do the editing in Scrivener, I can still have 4thewords count some of my added words. I have to first copy and paste the Scrivener scene into 4thewords. Then make the changes in Scrivener. Then copy and paste the entire scene into the same file on 4thewords, and I think it will only count the added words. I’ll have to try it and see. If I can do this, then I can use the added editing words to defeat some small word count monsters, who usually have short time limits.
Editing: Time spent: 3 hours, 44 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 0 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 39 minutes (but I didn’t count all my social media procrastination so it might be longer than this)
My takeaway for today: Use a timer for email, social media, marketing tasks.
My second takeaway for today: Don’t be afraid to think outside the box to figure out what writing routines might work better for me to make me more productive.
My third takeaway for today: Try for two to four 90-minute writing segments a day with long breaks in between.
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