Camy's Writing Diary

I had a really good quiet time this morning. I like using the devotional book My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. It seems to always remind me to put God first, and to give up all of myself to God. I'm not actually following it according to the dates listed. I always skip dates because I'm not very consistent with my Bible reading, and I got tired of the fact that there were lots of the devotional readings that I hadn't yet read. So I started reading it straight through rather than adhering to the dates for the readings. The past few days have been in the month of December in the book. They were all really good reminders to me of how my focus needs to be completely on Christ and the crucifixion, but I also realized today that if that should be my own personal focus, then my characters should also follow the same advice. My hero's spiritual conflict, especially, was kind of lackluster and mimicked the heroine's spiritual conflict, maybe because I hadn...

I'm still not feeling great, but I'm doing better than I did yesterday. I started off my writing today doing something different, and it was solely because I wanted to finish some monsters on 4thewords.com . I had to write about 700 words in an hour, and I didn't think I'd be able to do that while working on the Hawaii book, so I instead did some brainstorming on the fantasy novel that I had been considering doing as a serial novel a week or so ago. At this point it's still just plotting and character development, but I had a world backstory that had been drifting in my head which I wanted to get down. I also had two story ideas for the fantasy world, one which was more vague while another which was more thought-out, and I also wanted to write those down rather than let them be locked in my head. Actually, whenever I had to finish a monster quickly on 4thewords, I would write a little on the fantasy brainstorming in order to finish off the monster, since I'm j...

I'm still having IBS issues today, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get done, but I want to work on the Hawaii book again. *** Why do I keep getting distracted??? Well, I also forgot to set my Pomodoro. But I also might have gotten distracted because I came across something I needed to fix in an earlier chapter, so I went to fix it and moved away from the current chapter I was writing, and that started it all. Maybe I should try not to move out of the document while I'm writing so that I can eliminate those kinds of distractions. However, one thing I've been doing with this slower writing style is to make sure each word is what I really want it to be, and that means sometimes I need to look up a word in a thesaurus, or I need to do research into something. I guess I need to do like I did before when I was vomit-writing, and try to leave those things to fix later so that I don't leave the document and get distracted. Either that, or if I do leave ...

I had some non-writing related stress this past week, and while they were a little more stress than could be fixed with a glass of wine, they weren't, you know, life threatening. But apparently my IBS didn't get the memo and flared up like a beast. In combo with sinus headaches, I've had a rather miserable week. So now I'm really behind on finishing my novella, but the things that caused me stress are now past and my body's starting to feel a bit better. When I had my sinus headache and couldn't read, I listened to the audiobook of Several Short Sentences About Writing . The language is more literary with lots of pretty metaphors, which isn't really my preferred style, but so far, the content itself is not bad. He starts off the introduction with the premise to question everything you've been taught about writing and decide for yourself what works for you, which is the same as the Dear Writer, You Need to Quit book. In the first chapter (which s...

I got up late today so I got a very late start to my day. I listened to the Dear Writer, You Need to Quit audiobook today on my walk and it prompted me to think about the things I fear, since a lot of writers are motivated by fear. The author encouraged writers to face their fears and execute their plans rather than letting it stall them. I have been feeling an impatience when I write, wanting to write faster, but I don't think I'm motivated by FOMO (fear of missing out). I am not focused on putting out books as fast as possible, nor do I feel compelled to do rapid release in order to make a best-seller list or to make a certain amount of money each month. However, I think I do fear not being able to finish this series, which is planned for so many books. I think it's because my health has been so bad for the past year (or two) that I kind of worry if I'll be able to get these books out of me before my body gives out. Not that I think I'm going to be so sick ...

I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but instead of reading last night, I brainstormed a new fantasy series. I had actually come up with the story idea a long time ago, and I had also come up with a separate fantasy world, and so last night I merged the two. The reason is because I had heard about the new Kindle Vella coming out, and it inspired me because I actually really like serial novels (well duh, considering I'm writing one). I don't really have time to be writing a new story, but at the same time I couldn't help thinking of new ideas. I suppose it's that whole thing about being attracted to whatever's new and shiny. The fun thing is that this fantasy story idea perfectly lends itself to a serial novel, because it's actually quite episodic, although there is also an overarching plot. I wish I could write faster! I think I'm crazy. I'm actually considering writing the story in small pieces, 300-500 words a day, and see how it goes. I cou...

I have to post in a Facebook group tomorrow, and since that kind of business stuff bothered me yesterday, I just went ahead and wrote the post today before I started writing. It disrupted my writing train of thought, and I'll have to make an effort to get into a writing mode, but it's better than having it nag at me while I'm writing. It's definitely better to do it before writing rather than right in the middle of my writing session. I also made a recurring reminder for myself for Saturdays to write the following week's Facebook group post ahead of time. That way I can compartmentalize all my business-related things on weekends and not have to worry about it during the week. Today I hope to improve my focus. I haven't been able to focus very well when I write--I only can focus in bursts, and then my attention wanders. So I'm going to try 25-minute Pomodoro sessions today to see if that will help my focus better. I ate something yesterday that was supp...

I listened to the Dear Writer, You Need to Quit audiobook during my walk today and it talked about setting expectations. If your expectations of yourself are too high, or can't be sustained at a certain level for long-term, you might burn yourself out. The author had mentioned systems before in an earlier chapter, and she talked about how our systems are complex things composed of many different things. If you cause stress to your system, depending on the type and amount of stress, the system will not necessarily accommodate. Some parts of the system might fail, which will lead to burn out and/or mental distress and/or health problems. So I guess the takeaway is to determine the type and amount of stress that your system can handle, and don't exceed it. I don't think the author was discouraging trying hard, but instead just saying that that kind of strenuous effort can't be sustained for too long or it will cause detriment to your overall health. It made me recal...

I managed to get up a little bit earlier today, so after doing house chores and clearing the decks , I'm starting work a little bit earlier. I hope this enables me to work more hours today than I did yesterday. I think so--I don't have as much to blog about today since I analyzed my writing productivity and writing style yesterday, and I'll just be continuing this slower writing pace. I'm rather pleased that my writing speed actually increased a little bit yesterday compared to the day before. I hope that even though I'm being more thoughtful and essentially self-editing as I write, that I'll still start improving my writing speed a little bit. I also want to start doing a bit of reading before I start writing. I discovered that if I read a certain type of humorous book, it helps with my pacing and rhythm when I write. So I'm going to try to do about 15 minutes of reading before writing today. I'll have to set a timer or else I might not stop. *** ...

I had a good walk today. At first I was listening to the Dear Writer, You Need to Quit audiobook, but then the book made some good points so I shut it off so that I could think about it. I realized that the reason I've been rambling and worrying about my slower writing style the past few days is because I have a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) on the creativity supposedly generated by flow state. I don't doubt that a writer enters into a more uninhibited creative state in flow state, although I haven't positively seen the results in my own writing since I haven't done a real experiment with it--I haven't deliberately generated writing while in flow state and then compared it to writing not done in flow state. So because I don't have any solid data, I've been wondering if my writing during flow state is superior to my writing when doing this current slow, but more polished writing style. But I also know writers don't necessarily have to write in flow st...

Wow I got a lot of business stuff done yesterday. I checked my email and Facebook, and then I put together drafts of my newsletters for both Camy Tang and Camille Elliot for May. I also set up several blog posts for my Camy’s Loft blog, which took a lot more time than I had expected. However, I’m glad I got all that stuff done ahead of time. It was helpful that I had a To Do list with everything that needed to be done, so I just had to check things off. I also feel better that now I don't have to check email or Facebook until Saturday. I can focus on just my writing. I even turned off the email notifications on my phone. I had been using the notifications in order to do a quick look at the senders and subject lines of the emails I received to see if I needed to go into my email program to answer anything that was urgent. But as my husband mentioned, if anything was really urgent, the person would text me or call me, so I think it'll be okay if I don't answer emails unt...

I woke up feeling good (praise God!) and I did my home chores and cleared the decks . Since I just checked email and Facebook yesterday, I decided to skip that today, even though I had planned to do them on Saturdays, and I'll instead check my online and social media things tomorrow. I also had a great run before starting work. I listened to the Dear Writer, You Need to Quit audiobook again and was really inspired. I listened to the chapters on not being like everyone else (alignment is magic), questioning your defaults, and I was especially impacted by the chapter on how it's not going to be easy. That should be obvious, but I guess I needed to have her spell it out for me. It occurred to me that I assumed writing in a different genre (Christian Contemporary Romantic Suspense) would be the same level of effort as writing in Christian Regency Romantic Suspense, which I've been working on for almost 2 years now. I assumed that writing Christian Contemporary Romantic S...