Day 228: I'm back, again
After another week of low productivity, I’m back! On January 8th and 9th, I got about 40 minutes of writing done each day, but then Monday I came down with something else (or maybe it was a continuation of whatever I had on the 7th), so I took it easy on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I’m feeling better today and I’m going to try to get more work done.
I was looking over some old writing blog entries and remembered how I felt a lot of guilt and shame at how my health was sidelining my writing. I had forgotten about that because my health had been pretty good for a couple months after that bout of sick days.
I have to remember that there’s no shame in low productivity when I’m feeling sick. This entire writing diary is an experiment in learning how to be productive within the constraints of my regular life. Writers who have both kids and health problems (and I know several of them) have figured out how to still crank out books despite the constraints of their lives, so I should be able to, also.
Also my health has been improving. I’m finally starting to get my IBS under control so instead of both IBS and migraines to contend with, I’ve only had to try to manage my headaches.
However, I have been making effort to eliminate things in my routine that take up too much mental energy. Social media is one of them, so I haven’t been on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads or Instagram. I think that social media is stressful to me because there’s too much going on for my poor brain to process—too many posts about articles to read or videos to watch or even just a writing-related question or concern or bit of news.
I’ve realized that my brain is much less cluttered-feeling when I don’t check social media, and I’m better able to focus and relax. Since I’m already having health issues, a better frame of mind makes me feel better able to tackle the things that are the most important and take the most time, namely writing my book.
The last time I was writing, I realized that I tend to take a break when I finish a monster on 4thewords.com. And I know from the past that my breaks tend to be too long—once I stop work, I get distracted with house chores that need to be done or I lose momentum and have to get over that inertia hurdle to start work again. On last week Friday and Saturday, I was still getting over my cold and feeling rather blah so I just stopped work for the day after finishing a monster, so I only wrote for about 40 minutes each day.
I don’t know if I’ll get a lot of work done today, since I’m still not 100%, but if I can work for a while without breaking, I might be able to get more done.
So while I enjoy writing directly on the 4thewords website the most, I think today I’ll write in Scrivener and then copy and paste into 4thewords. It might force me to write for longer since I won’t have a defeated monster to mark a stopping point.
***
I did get some writing done, but then I got sidelined when my internet suddenly slowed WAY down. Any websites I tried to open, any browsers, the connection was really slow. It didn't bother me as much while I was writing, but when I tried to copy and paste my words into 4thewords, it was a nightmare. And after I fought with my computer for a while, and I couldn’t defeat any monsters on 4thewords, I just kind of lost motivation to keep working.
I was aiming for about 2000 words, but only got 1456 words. That's not bad, though, especially after several weeks of zero. My writing speed was very slow, but I expected that after not writing for a while.
I hope I can do better tomorrow.
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent:0
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 55 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1456 words
Writing: Average speed: 864 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 34 minutes
I’m feeling better today and I’m going to try to get more work done.
I was looking over some old writing blog entries and remembered how I felt a lot of guilt and shame at how my health was sidelining my writing. I had forgotten about that because my health had been pretty good for a couple months after that bout of sick days.
I have to remember that there’s no shame in low productivity when I’m feeling sick. This entire writing diary is an experiment in learning how to be productive within the constraints of my regular life. Writers who have both kids and health problems (and I know several of them) have figured out how to still crank out books despite the constraints of their lives, so I should be able to, also.
Also my health has been improving. I’m finally starting to get my IBS under control so instead of both IBS and migraines to contend with, I’ve only had to try to manage my headaches.
However, I have been making effort to eliminate things in my routine that take up too much mental energy. Social media is one of them, so I haven’t been on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads or Instagram. I think that social media is stressful to me because there’s too much going on for my poor brain to process—too many posts about articles to read or videos to watch or even just a writing-related question or concern or bit of news.
I’ve realized that my brain is much less cluttered-feeling when I don’t check social media, and I’m better able to focus and relax. Since I’m already having health issues, a better frame of mind makes me feel better able to tackle the things that are the most important and take the most time, namely writing my book.
The last time I was writing, I realized that I tend to take a break when I finish a monster on 4thewords.com. And I know from the past that my breaks tend to be too long—once I stop work, I get distracted with house chores that need to be done or I lose momentum and have to get over that inertia hurdle to start work again. On last week Friday and Saturday, I was still getting over my cold and feeling rather blah so I just stopped work for the day after finishing a monster, so I only wrote for about 40 minutes each day.
I don’t know if I’ll get a lot of work done today, since I’m still not 100%, but if I can work for a while without breaking, I might be able to get more done.
So while I enjoy writing directly on the 4thewords website the most, I think today I’ll write in Scrivener and then copy and paste into 4thewords. It might force me to write for longer since I won’t have a defeated monster to mark a stopping point.
***
I did get some writing done, but then I got sidelined when my internet suddenly slowed WAY down. Any websites I tried to open, any browsers, the connection was really slow. It didn't bother me as much while I was writing, but when I tried to copy and paste my words into 4thewords, it was a nightmare. And after I fought with my computer for a while, and I couldn’t defeat any monsters on 4thewords, I just kind of lost motivation to keep working.
I was aiming for about 2000 words, but only got 1456 words. That's not bad, though, especially after several weeks of zero. My writing speed was very slow, but I expected that after not writing for a while.
I hope I can do better tomorrow.
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent:0
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 55 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1456 words
Writing: Average speed: 864 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 34 minutes
Comments
Post a Comment