Day 253: Back issues; overall writing speed

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I didn’t sleep well and I’m experiencing some IBS issues (I really don’t know what I might have eaten!), so I’m not sure how much energy I’ll have today.

I also experienced some back and butt issues, so I’ve changed around my seat cushion and chair arrangement. I’m going to see how they work today and if my back situation improves.

I also realize some of my problems are simply because I’m working at my desk a lot and I use the mouse quite a bit sometimes, and I also don’t get up to stretch enough. I can’t be lazy and I have to make sure I get up to stretch, even if it makes me run the risk of taking too long a break from work.

***

I’m having a hard time focusing. I’m also finding it difficult to get back to work during my breaks. It might be because I’m still in the process of adjusting my seat cushions into something comfortable.

***

I had lunch and then made the mistake of checking email and got a really weird email from a reader. The tone was actually rather belligerent and I don’t know why.

What’s worse is that it made me upset and it’s hard to focus back on my work now. And I’ve only written for about 2.5 hours. I need a cookie!

***

I had a cookie and took a walk, and now I feel better. It’s late in the day but I’m hoping I can still get some work done.

***

My back is really sore. It seems no matter what I do, even going back to my old set-up, I can’t get comfortable.

Maybe I should move to a different location for now, and try using my Traveler or Alphasmart, since I can’t seem to get comfortable at my desk.

***

I ended up not being able to move because my husband had to use the dining room (it’s become a dance to figure out who gets to use what room during the pandemic). I’ll try to do another couple sprints at my desk.

***

Back is feeling better—I guess I found a comfortable setup for my seat cushions.

It was kind of awful for a while there, though. I thought I wouldn’t be able to get through my work today because of my sore back, but it was fine during the last two sprints.

I’m pretty pleased—I got almost 5 hours of writing done today. However I wasn’t writing very fast and I took long breaks to adjust my seat cushions.

I decided to try another way of tracking my time: taking my total words divided by my total writing time for the day. Before, my Average writing speed was the average words per hour only when I was actively doing sprints. But my sprints don’t take into account my breaks, and I don’t always stop my Toggl timer when I take a break. Or sometimes I’ll keep my Toggl timer running when I’m doing something related to the writing, like cleaning up my blocking notes.

So my Overall writing speed was 3078 words divided by 4 hours, 48 minutes, which equals 641 words per hour.

I calculated my average Overall writing speed and found that it’s around 1000 words per hour. So for a 100,000 word book, I can expect it to take about 100 hours. That sounds about right. Book 2 was about 91,000 words and it took me about 85 hours.

All that just makes me want to be able to write faster!!!

I was going to try to do an hour of editing today, but I’m starting to feel tired. Maybe because my back was bothering me a lot for most of today.

Blocking: time spent: 0

Editing: Time spent: 0

Writing: Time spent: 4 hours, 48 minutes

Writing: Total number of words: 3078 words

Writing: Average speed (sprints): 1122 words per hour

Writing: Overall writing speed: 641 words per hour

Time spent doing other writing-related business: (I forgot to start the timer before checking email)

My takeaway for today: I’m a bit disappointed that my overall writing speed is so slow. I want to be able to write faster!!!

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