Camy's Writing Diary

I feel better than I did yesterday, so I’m hopeful I’ll get more done today. As I mentioned yesterday, I’ll be doing the Snowflake step 8 for my Hawaii novella. I decided to work on just this first before I work on blocking because it might help the blocking go quicker and more smoothly to have a scene list done first. *** I did get some work done, but for some reason I was really easily distracted today. I got distracted by some knitting—which normally wouldn’t be a problem because I do tend to knit while I’m thinking—but since I was sick for much of this month, I’m on a time crunch to get this book done and so the distraction somehow seems worse. And then even though I was feeling tired I tried to push through and keep working, but I ended up being distracted by retail procrastination. And now I feel really guilty for the distraction/procrastination because I have to finish this book!!! I wish I didn’t have a firm deadline for this book. Initially, I’d had a lot of time to wr...

Once again I’m not feeling so hot, but I want to keep moving forward on my writing. I have some writing-related business to take care of first, then I’ll get to work doing the Snowflake step 8 for my Hawaii novella. I decided to work on just this first before I work on blocking because it might help the blocking go quicker and more smoothly to have a scene list done first. *** I ended up getting a sinus headache and took a nap, so I didn’t get work done on the book today. I also ended up going back to my old desk setup because the buckwheat meditation pillow just wasn’t comfortable for longer than a couple hours, and I found myself unmotivated to work when my desk was a little uncomfortable. I guess I need my workspace to be super comfortable to be able to be productive. Outlining: time spent: 0 Blocking: time spent: 0 Editing: Time spent: 0 Writing: Time spent: 0 Writing: Total number of words: 0 Writing: Average speed (sprints): 0 Writing: Overall writing spee...

I’ve felt terrible health-wise for the past week, and today was the first day I’ve woken up and didn’t feel like roadkill. I still don’t feel 100%, but I want to try to get work done since it looks like almost the entire month of March has been a loss, in terms of my writing. I actually did do some work on my Hawaii novella on March 24th, even though I didn’t post on my writing blog that day, but I only got a couple hours of work done before I started feeling sick (menstrual pain). After that passed, I also had IBS issues and I didn’t start to feel better until today. I’ll be working on Snowflake step 2 for my Hawaii novella today. I realized that when I worked on it on the 24th, I’d marked them as steps 2 and 4 when in actuality, they were too detailed and were more like steps 4 and 6. So I will work on step 2, then go on to step 8 and blocking . I’m also trying out a new desk arrangement that I hope will be better for my core and back. I’m using a buckwheat meditation pillow t...

I’ve had a terrible time the past few weeks being sick because of my IBS, so I was really relieved when I woke up this morning and felt well enough to do some work. Unfortunately, most of the work I had to do first involved self-publishing and marketing stuff that I hadn’t been able to keep up with when I was sick. But I spent several hours doing that and now they’re all done for now. Tomorrow I’ll go back to work on my contemporary romance novella. I’m still in the middle of doing the Snowflake on it, but hopefully I can get started writing it soon. Outlining: time spent: 0 Blocking: time spent: 0 Editing: Time spent: 0 Writing: Time spent: 0 Writing: Total number of words: 0 Writing: Average speed (sprints): 0 Writing: Overall writing speed: 0 Time spent doing other writing-related business: 4 hours, 59 minutes

Yesterday, I started off doing a couple hours of work on The Wedding Kimono , but I was still feeling a bit tired from my sick days and ended up resting and reading the rest of the day. I’m still not feeling great, although this time it’s because it’s started raining here in California and I have a bit of a sinus headache from my allergies. But since I haven’t done a lot of work for the month, I’m going to take medicine and try to power through it. I already did a bit of characterization but since I altered the series premise, the storyline will also adjust a bit, as will the characterization I did. So today I’ll work on Snowflake steps 2, 3, and 4. (I know, those of you who are pantsers are screaming). When I was working on the series premise, I already did Snowflake step 1 on all the books in the series, just so I can start to get the book storylines down. *** While working on the Snowflake step 2 (1-paragraph synopsis), I started realizing that I would gradually shift towar...

I might have been able to get back to work a few days ago, but I mistakenly ate something I shouldn't have, so I had to take a few days off for IBS issues. If they hadn’t been bad symptoms, I’d have tried to push through the discomfort, but this time I had to fight nausea, and I know from the past that I simply can’t work when that’s going on. I flaked on checking social media this weekend so I’ll have to try to do it sometime later today. Right now I want to do some work since I haven’t worked on the Hawaii book in a week. I’m starting to realize that the series premise is perhaps a bit more complicated than I had originally anticipated when I agreed to do the multi-author box set with the first book in this series. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s making it take longer to write the first book when I haven’t solidified the series premise. I will try to get that done today so I can start more detailed work on the first book in this series. The manuscript needs to be done by the...

I didn’t blog on Friday because I just didn’t get a lot done. I admit, I stayed up too late reading and so I got up late on Friday, but I also had a lot of IBS discomfort. I got a little work done, but it was so little that Friday was essentially a sick day. Then Saturday was a full-on a sick day. Girl stuff. I ended up doing a bunch of marketing stuff on Sunday, although I still wasn’t feeling great. I scheduled a bunch of blog posts, which also involved shifting around the posts I had previously scheduled. It reminded me of Tetris for some reason. It’s now Monday and while I’m not feeling great, I want to try to get some work done. I think the problem with my series premise is that I don’t have a clear direction for it to go. I don’t have an ending except for something vague. I think I need to figure out the large scale steps of the series, like a story plot, rather than a general concept for a series, like a TV show. *** I think I figured out a way to tie all the books t...