Day 169: Breaks; mindset shift

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Yesterday was my writing day off, so I mostly did busywork like cleaning out my email Inbox and organizing some of my research notes. I also listened to an audiobook and read a light novel, so I refilled the creative well, also.

Today I got up and tried to get writing right away. I can't remember why now, but I did some blocking on a future scene first, and then I started writing at the dining room table so that I could get away from my computer, to see if that helped with productivity and eliminating distractions.

It wasn't a great experiment, because I had forgotten how cold our dining room is, and the chill was really distracting. I only did half an hour.

I'm taking too long on my breaks. I was reading on a Facebook group that one really prolific author doesn't take breaks. I wonder if I should try to do that, just work straight through as long as I can? I don’t know if my body could handle that, though.

Maybe it’s my mindset that needs to change. Instead of taking a “break,” I’m stopping to use the bathroom or whatever and not really taking a “break,” I’m still just writing straight through. I’d really like to be able to work for 4-5 hours straight, so maybe that’s the key, a mindset shift.

I did my writing on the Freewrite Traveler today and I’m getting used to it. The arrow keys are very much like the Alphasmart, so that’s nothing new, but I’m still not really liking the lag time between my typing and the words appearing on the screen. I tend not to look at the screen as I’m typing on the Traveler because that lag is really distracting.

I was thinking I should also try typing slower, since that would also decrease my typos that I have to go back to fix. They say you should keep going and ignore the typos, but I just can’t do that, the typos nag at my brain until I go back to fix it. It might be slightly OCD. Also if I don’t fix the typos, that’s a lot of extra work when I do the self-edit, and if there’s a lot of little things like that to fix (like when I have to fix dictated scenes), then the self-edit isn’t as thorough since I’m fixing everything else.

I also got the paperback covers from my graphic designer today, so I spent time uploading the paperback versions of The Gentleman Thief and volume 1 in my series up on Amazon. As soon as the links are live, I’ll be able to email my Street Team so they can start posting reviews on Amazon for volume 1. I also registered the copyright for both books and updated the ISBN information.

One of my Street Team members emailed me today and said she absolutely loved volume 1! That made me feel so good!

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I got a little more writing done today but I’m starting to fade, so I’m going to go to bed a little early. I think I’m about to get my period, which usually makes me more exhausted.

I wasn’t able to try that mindset shift experiment today, so I’ll try that tomorrow.

Blocking: time spent: 44 minutes
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 4 hours
Writing: Total number of words: 4431 words
Writing: Average speed: 1086 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 43 minutes

My takeaway for today: Tomorrow, try a mindset shift experiment and focus on working straight through with only short bathroom breaks.

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