Day 229: Trying sprints again
I decided to relisten to the audiobook of Chris Fox's book, 5,000 Words Per Hour, which I've found inspiring and motivational. Today was no exception. The book reminded me of the power of using sprints to force you to pound out words and eliminate the internal editor, especially in light of the story he tells about how he would write in micro-sprints of 1-2 minutes in between customer service calls when he was working as a customer service rep. With only a minute or two to write, he learned to mute the editor because of the short time period he had to get his words in before the next call.
That mindset of getting words done in a short time period reminded me of how I used to do sprints a lot before, but I'd stopped doing it because every break would set me back. I'll be honest, breaks still set me back, they are my Achilles heel. It is difficult for me to dive back into writing after a break. It's easier when I start work at the beginning of my writing day than to get back to work after a break.
I thought about that as I was walking and thought I'd try something a little different today. I'm going to try 15-minute sprints, but not take breaks--at least, I won't leave my desk, since that seems to be what causes the problems. I had also forgotten a tactic I wanted to try earlier, which was to listen to audiobooks during my writing breaks, but I never really got a chance to give that a good shot, so I might try that today.
I'm going to try for 3 sprints and see how that goes.
***
The sprints seem to be going well. Actually, right now I am blogging my thoughts during my 5-minute break between sprints.
The problem with trying to write as fast as I can during the sprints is that sometimes I need to take time to think about a line of dialogue to figure out how I want the scene to flow. There are some things I can lay down and leave a note to fix later, but some pieces of dialogue are vital for the flow of the scene, and I need to know exactly what needs to be said before I can continue the scene. I ran into that just now in my last sprint, so my writing pace was a little slower than the previous sprint.
I want to give myself permission to slow down and think when those things happen. The problem is that it's hard to tell the difference between something I really do need to think about and just wanting to edit as I go. I really do want to not edit as I go so that I can enter into creative flow, but at times like this, I don't know how to continue the scene without fixing that line of dialogue.
Maybe I just need to leave the dialogue and a note to fix it, then skip the portion I don't know about and continue the scene from the segment after that. It will make editing take longer, but it will enable me to not stop and edit as I'm writing. I just hope the editing isn't going to be awful.
***
I did 3 sprints of 15 minutes each with 5 minutes break in between, and ended up with about 1300 words in an hour's time, although for each sprint, my words per hour rate was about 1650. I started off faster and gradually slowed down by the third sprint, but I also think my writing was better by the third sprint. For the first sprint, I was writing faster, but my writing was rather choppy and a little disjointed at times. It drove me nuts, but I just left notes for myself to fix it and kept writing. By the third sprint, the writing was smoother but my writing pace was also a little slower.
I have to clean the kitchen right now while hubby is working out, so I'm going to do a few short minutes of writing just to finish the monster in 4thewords.com that I have running, then go do my chores.
***
While cleaning, I started listening to the audiobook for Dear Writer, You Need to Quit, and it's been absolutely fantastic! Maybe because it caters to my psychology-major brain.
I especially liked her comments about Questioning the Premise. It was very freeing to hear a coach, who has spoken to thousands of writers, talk about how the things we assume are true are not necessarily true for me and my way of thinking. What especially struck me was a short segment where she talked about how not editing as you write isn't always the best way for someone to write, depending on their personality.
I'm still not entirely sure if not editing as I write is good or bad. The times I've written in flow state (usually near the end of a book), I haven't edited as I wrote--the words just flowed. Conversely, I've had lots of experiences where I stared at the page and didn't know how to move a scene forward.
The sprinting today, forcing myself to just write and not stop, helped me move forward in the scene without second-guessing myself about how to go about doing it. But the short breaks in between sprints were useful because I would look back over what I wrote and I would be able to think if I'd just done something that didn't sit well with me, and I could try to figure out how to fix it.
So for now, I think I will continue to do the short sprints and try not to edit as I go, but I will also try to use the breaks in between to think over what I wrote to decide if I want to leave a note for something I want changed later.
I think I will also give myself permission to slow down to write if I need to think about what to write next. I think that focusing too much on high words per hour rate is a problem for me--I think I am stressing and trying to push myself to write faster during the sprint, but the writing may be suffering because I'm more focused on speed.
Since lately I've been trying to eliminate stressors in my life, I definitely want to eliminate the stress of writing faster. Instead, I need to focus on the things the sprints do to help me, which is making me focus on writing without stopping, to enable me to move forward in the scene.
***
I did another three sprints. The short sprints seem to be working really well for me today. I use the 5-minute breaks in between each 15 minute sprint to double check what I've written and see if anything doesn't strike me as right, so that I can figure out how I may want to change it during the next sprint, or else just leave a note for how to change it later.
I didn't want to do much editing as I write, but I realized that because I write from my blocking notes, I need to make sure I include everything in my notes in the rough draft. If I don't, I end up forgetting about those items, because I don't often remember to look through my blocking notes as I'm self-editing. Plus by that point, it can be hard to know what exactly in my blocking notes I didn't include in the rough draft.
As I was writing during this last sprint, I realized I had forgotten to include something from my blocking notes that should have occurred earlier in the scene. Now that I think about it, I probably could have just written a note to myself to add it later during self-editing, but I ended up going back in the scene to write in the short segment that I had forgotten. But I feel better doing it now, plus if I'd left it to later, I might have forgotten where I had intended to add the short segment.
My writing speed so far has been slower than when I did my first three sprints of the day, but I think the writing is smoother than earlier. I've been focusing on simply keeping moving forward in the scene and to not stop writing. I think that, for my personality, that might be more important than a fast writing speed. With the breaks, my writing speed is not all that fast--I wrote about 1000 words in an hour, which included two 5-7 minute breaks.
I've also been looking at my time log, and I think that sprinting plus breaks results in a writing speed pretty much the same as most of the time when I write straight through--in general, for writing sessions 60-90 minutes long, my writing speed is usually 1000-1300 words per hour. However, the act of sprinting enables me to move forward faster since I'm forcing myself to write without stopping, and the breaks (without leaving my desk) have been good for me to evaluate what I just wrote in the sprint, and to think about the next part of the scene.
For today, at least, the sprinting has been good to motivate me to be productive and put in the work hours. My writing speed is also better than it was yesterday.
***
After a late lunch, I ended up spending about 2.5 hours cleaning up my computer desktop and also clearing some emails from my Inbox, so while I didn't get back to writing, I still was productive doing non-writing things.
I have about an hour before I have to start dinner, so I'm going to try to get a few sprints done.
***
I only got 2 sprints done before dinner instead of 3, but all in all, the sprinting worked pretty well today! I don't know if it's because I haven't been writing consistently for many, many weeks, or if the method really does match my personality. I guess I'll have to see if I can keep up with it.
I am hoping this method will enable me to write more hours and more words each day. I decided not to focus so much on writing speed anymore (although I will still track that, since it's useful), but it occurred to me that the sprints themselves help me move forward rather than being stalled on a scene, so overall the method might also help me to write faster, too.
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent:0
Writing: Time spent: 3 hours, 11 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 3053 words
Writing: Average speed: 1400 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 46 minutes (I forgot to start my Toggl timer when I was cleaning up my desktop and email inbox)
My takeaway for today: Sprints where I focus on writing without stopping help force me to move forward on a scene where I might otherwise be stalled.
My second takeaway for today: Short breaks where I don't leave my desk enable me to evaluate what I just wrote in the last sprint and figure out how to fix it, and to think about the next part of the scene.
My third takeaway for today: While I should try not to edit as I write, I need to make sure I include all the points in my blocking notes, because otherwise I'll probably forget to include them when I self-edit, in which case it's okay for me to edit while writing.
My fourth takeaway for today: Instead of stressing about faster writing speed, I should focus on using the sprints in order to move forward in the scene, and I should slow down if I need to in order to write smoothly.
That mindset of getting words done in a short time period reminded me of how I used to do sprints a lot before, but I'd stopped doing it because every break would set me back. I'll be honest, breaks still set me back, they are my Achilles heel. It is difficult for me to dive back into writing after a break. It's easier when I start work at the beginning of my writing day than to get back to work after a break.
I thought about that as I was walking and thought I'd try something a little different today. I'm going to try 15-minute sprints, but not take breaks--at least, I won't leave my desk, since that seems to be what causes the problems. I had also forgotten a tactic I wanted to try earlier, which was to listen to audiobooks during my writing breaks, but I never really got a chance to give that a good shot, so I might try that today.
I'm going to try for 3 sprints and see how that goes.
***
The sprints seem to be going well. Actually, right now I am blogging my thoughts during my 5-minute break between sprints.
The problem with trying to write as fast as I can during the sprints is that sometimes I need to take time to think about a line of dialogue to figure out how I want the scene to flow. There are some things I can lay down and leave a note to fix later, but some pieces of dialogue are vital for the flow of the scene, and I need to know exactly what needs to be said before I can continue the scene. I ran into that just now in my last sprint, so my writing pace was a little slower than the previous sprint.
I want to give myself permission to slow down and think when those things happen. The problem is that it's hard to tell the difference between something I really do need to think about and just wanting to edit as I go. I really do want to not edit as I go so that I can enter into creative flow, but at times like this, I don't know how to continue the scene without fixing that line of dialogue.
Maybe I just need to leave the dialogue and a note to fix it, then skip the portion I don't know about and continue the scene from the segment after that. It will make editing take longer, but it will enable me to not stop and edit as I'm writing. I just hope the editing isn't going to be awful.
***
I did 3 sprints of 15 minutes each with 5 minutes break in between, and ended up with about 1300 words in an hour's time, although for each sprint, my words per hour rate was about 1650. I started off faster and gradually slowed down by the third sprint, but I also think my writing was better by the third sprint. For the first sprint, I was writing faster, but my writing was rather choppy and a little disjointed at times. It drove me nuts, but I just left notes for myself to fix it and kept writing. By the third sprint, the writing was smoother but my writing pace was also a little slower.
I have to clean the kitchen right now while hubby is working out, so I'm going to do a few short minutes of writing just to finish the monster in 4thewords.com that I have running, then go do my chores.
***
While cleaning, I started listening to the audiobook for Dear Writer, You Need to Quit, and it's been absolutely fantastic! Maybe because it caters to my psychology-major brain.
I especially liked her comments about Questioning the Premise. It was very freeing to hear a coach, who has spoken to thousands of writers, talk about how the things we assume are true are not necessarily true for me and my way of thinking. What especially struck me was a short segment where she talked about how not editing as you write isn't always the best way for someone to write, depending on their personality.
I'm still not entirely sure if not editing as I write is good or bad. The times I've written in flow state (usually near the end of a book), I haven't edited as I wrote--the words just flowed. Conversely, I've had lots of experiences where I stared at the page and didn't know how to move a scene forward.
The sprinting today, forcing myself to just write and not stop, helped me move forward in the scene without second-guessing myself about how to go about doing it. But the short breaks in between sprints were useful because I would look back over what I wrote and I would be able to think if I'd just done something that didn't sit well with me, and I could try to figure out how to fix it.
So for now, I think I will continue to do the short sprints and try not to edit as I go, but I will also try to use the breaks in between to think over what I wrote to decide if I want to leave a note for something I want changed later.
I think I will also give myself permission to slow down to write if I need to think about what to write next. I think that focusing too much on high words per hour rate is a problem for me--I think I am stressing and trying to push myself to write faster during the sprint, but the writing may be suffering because I'm more focused on speed.
Since lately I've been trying to eliminate stressors in my life, I definitely want to eliminate the stress of writing faster. Instead, I need to focus on the things the sprints do to help me, which is making me focus on writing without stopping, to enable me to move forward in the scene.
***
I did another three sprints. The short sprints seem to be working really well for me today. I use the 5-minute breaks in between each 15 minute sprint to double check what I've written and see if anything doesn't strike me as right, so that I can figure out how I may want to change it during the next sprint, or else just leave a note for how to change it later.
I didn't want to do much editing as I write, but I realized that because I write from my blocking notes, I need to make sure I include everything in my notes in the rough draft. If I don't, I end up forgetting about those items, because I don't often remember to look through my blocking notes as I'm self-editing. Plus by that point, it can be hard to know what exactly in my blocking notes I didn't include in the rough draft.
As I was writing during this last sprint, I realized I had forgotten to include something from my blocking notes that should have occurred earlier in the scene. Now that I think about it, I probably could have just written a note to myself to add it later during self-editing, but I ended up going back in the scene to write in the short segment that I had forgotten. But I feel better doing it now, plus if I'd left it to later, I might have forgotten where I had intended to add the short segment.
My writing speed so far has been slower than when I did my first three sprints of the day, but I think the writing is smoother than earlier. I've been focusing on simply keeping moving forward in the scene and to not stop writing. I think that, for my personality, that might be more important than a fast writing speed. With the breaks, my writing speed is not all that fast--I wrote about 1000 words in an hour, which included two 5-7 minute breaks.
I've also been looking at my time log, and I think that sprinting plus breaks results in a writing speed pretty much the same as most of the time when I write straight through--in general, for writing sessions 60-90 minutes long, my writing speed is usually 1000-1300 words per hour. However, the act of sprinting enables me to move forward faster since I'm forcing myself to write without stopping, and the breaks (without leaving my desk) have been good for me to evaluate what I just wrote in the sprint, and to think about the next part of the scene.
For today, at least, the sprinting has been good to motivate me to be productive and put in the work hours. My writing speed is also better than it was yesterday.
***
After a late lunch, I ended up spending about 2.5 hours cleaning up my computer desktop and also clearing some emails from my Inbox, so while I didn't get back to writing, I still was productive doing non-writing things.
I have about an hour before I have to start dinner, so I'm going to try to get a few sprints done.
***
I only got 2 sprints done before dinner instead of 3, but all in all, the sprinting worked pretty well today! I don't know if it's because I haven't been writing consistently for many, many weeks, or if the method really does match my personality. I guess I'll have to see if I can keep up with it.
I am hoping this method will enable me to write more hours and more words each day. I decided not to focus so much on writing speed anymore (although I will still track that, since it's useful), but it occurred to me that the sprints themselves help me move forward rather than being stalled on a scene, so overall the method might also help me to write faster, too.
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent:0
Writing: Time spent: 3 hours, 11 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 3053 words
Writing: Average speed: 1400 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 46 minutes (I forgot to start my Toggl timer when I was cleaning up my desktop and email inbox)
My takeaway for today: Sprints where I focus on writing without stopping help force me to move forward on a scene where I might otherwise be stalled.
My second takeaway for today: Short breaks where I don't leave my desk enable me to evaluate what I just wrote in the last sprint and figure out how to fix it, and to think about the next part of the scene.
My third takeaway for today: While I should try not to edit as I write, I need to make sure I include all the points in my blocking notes, because otherwise I'll probably forget to include them when I self-edit, in which case it's okay for me to edit while writing.
My fourth takeaway for today: Instead of stressing about faster writing speed, I should focus on using the sprints in order to move forward in the scene, and I should slow down if I need to in order to write smoothly.
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