Day 310: Tried a longer writing session and putting off exercise/chores
I woke up feeling really terrible (IBS and sinus headache), but I went ahead and cleared the decks anyway as though I were going to write, and now I feel a bit better.
I listened to a podcast yesterday that was talking about writing routines, and the hosts mentioned two things that stuck with me a lot.
The first was that they have to get started working as early as possible after they wake up. If they start after a certain time later in the morning, they don't get much done at all.
I've noticed something similar to this for myself. In my time tracking log, I not only put down the time I start my writing sprint, but I started having a column where I put down the time I woke up that morning, and another column that calculates how many hours it's been since I woke up. So I can filter how productive my sprints are based on how early in my day it is.
I've noticed that when I sprint within 4 hours after waking up, my words per hour rate tends to be fastest. If I'm sprinting more than 10 hours after I wake up, my words per hour rate takes a nosedive. What that tells me is that I'm most productive in the hours right after I wake up. I obviously still get work done later in the day, but I'm most efficient in those hours after I wake up.
This really surprised me because I'm so NOT a morning person. I had always thought I was more productive later in the day, since I tend to be a night owl. But the numbers don't lie--when I'm working, I tend to work better earlier in the day.
The second thing the podcast mentioned was that most writers need about 45 minutes to an hour to get warmed up. Even writers who write during their lunch hour at work tend to spend some time in the hours before lunch thinking about their story so that they can get going once their writing time arrives.
So one of the hosts mentioned that they changed to one long 8-hour writing session rather than two 4-hour ones, because then they have 6 productive hours in the middle of that long writing session, rather than 2 productive hours each in the middle of two 4-hour sessions.
That makes sense to me, because I have noticed that just getting myself to start work is often the hardest. Once I get started, I can usually count on inertia to keep me in place to keep writing. It happened even yesterday when I was trying to work through my headache. It was hard to get started, and I was rather listless for at least 20 or 30 minutes, but once I got past that time segment, even though I was still in pain, I was able to finish the editing of the scene and keep going to write more.
This all makes me want to reevaluate my writing routine to optimize my time. I've been exercising first thing in the morning because otherwise I won't get it done, but if I can figure out a way to discipline myself to exercise later in the day, I can take advantage of my increased productivity in the morning to get more done. This morning, since I'm not feeling great, I didn't go out to walk, so this might be a good way to test that out.
I think I will also experiment today with a longer writing session rather than breaking things up in shorter sprints. I guess it'll be just one long sprint. That way I won't be tempted to get up when the sprint ends and take a break. I already know that breaks have been my downfall--I often have a hard time getting back to work after I've left my desk, for whatever reason, whether because I get distracted doing chores or from some other method of procrastination.
Most writing articles say that shorter sprints make you more productive, and I have seen that a 25 minute sprint will often force me to write when I'm feeling lazy. But since my breaks have been derailing that productivity, maybe it's time to think outside the box and try something new? I think I might have tried something like this before (I'm too lazy to go back through my writing diary to check), but it won't hurt to try this again. Also, this time I will be aiming for a longer writing session than normal. I'll go for 6 hours and see if I can do it.
***
I realized something kind of odd. When writing in 4thewords.com, or when doing a 25 minute sprint, I was thinking in terms of short bursts. For example, I'd be thinking about how much I'd need to write to finish off the monster I had going, or how much time I had left on the sprint.
But in deciding to do a long writing session--essentially a really long sprint--I suddenly noticed that I stopped thinking like that. I found myself starting a new monster more easily, and not thinking about the time I've been writing.
I also mentioned this before, but having a monster battle going on keeps me from taking too long of a break (especially when I have to leave my desk to use the bathroom). So something that enables me to more easily start monster battles helps a lot.
The only problem is that my sinus headache isn't getting much better. It's so distracting! I've taken more drugs and I'm going to try to keep working.
***
I finally finished that troublesome first scene! And I'm actually rather happy about it! Yay!
The problem now is the second scene. I changed the first scene a bit, but the changes actually made it clear that the second scene has some structural problems. How do I fix this? I think I need to do some blocking for the second scene rather than writing it right away.
***
Doing a long writing session is hard! I got to 4 hours but started feeling a bit braindead, so I decided to stop for lunch.
Also it kind of bugged me that I hadn't done my exercise or my house chores before I started working, since I had wanted to get my writing done first. I think tomorrow I want to try doing both exercise and house chores first before my writing session, even though it will delay the start of my work time by about 90 minutes, because the fact I didn't get that done kind of distracted me when I was writing.
After lunch, I did my house chores, but I decided to do another writing session before doing my exercise. So I'll see how that goes.
***
I didn't do too badly after lunch. I did about 90 minutes of writing, but then I got a bit stuck on a transition and stared at the computer screen for a while. So I decided to stop for the day. My total writing time today was 5 hours and 39 minutes, so that's not too far off from my goal of 6 hours. I did take a break in between for lunch and to do my house chores, but it wasn't very long.
I was a bit shocked at my low word count today, but I probably shouldn't since I spent so much time staring at my computer. My overall writing speed was pretty slow, but I also didn't take many breaks. It's probably about the same as when I do 25-minute sprints but take breaks in between.
After doing this experiment today with a long writing session, I'm thinking maybe it would just be better to do the 25-minute sprints and take the breaks, because I felt like I did too much staring at the screen. When I do a sprint, since it's a short period of time, I feel like I'm more likely to force myself to just keep writing something down and moving forward in the book.
I think what impacted me the most today was that when I thought about the fact that I had a long writing session ahead of me, it made me more quickly start a new monster, which kept me working, and which made my breaks shorter.
I don't know why I don't have that same mindset when I'm doing three or four 25-minute sprints in a row. What is it about sprinting that makes me think so short-term? I guess because it's modular, so I'm thinking only about writing until the next segment of time.
If I can translate that same mindset to when I do 25-minute sprints, maybe I can focus for longer periods of time. I can try to do more sprinting sessions at a time rather than only three (which is my usual). I can still try to increase my writing sessions with more sprints and see how long I can go.
Doing the writing first thing today, before I did exercise and my house chores, only seemed to distract me since I kept thinking about it during my writing time. So even though it will delay my starting work, I think I'll continue trying to do my exercise and chores before work. I think I just need to try to make sure I don't get derailed by other things and start my writing as soon as I can.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 59 minutes
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 39 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1161 words
Writing: Average speed (sprints): 433 words/hour
Writing: Overall writing speed: 433 words/hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 11 minutes
My takeaway for today: When I thought about the fact that I had a long writing session ahead of me, it made me more quickly start a new monster, which kept me working, and which made my breaks shorter. However, the long writing sessions seemed to make it harder to keep moving forward in the writing, so I will try to instead incorporate that mindset for sprinting sessions.
My second takeaway for today: It was distracting to not do my exercise and house chores before work, so I'll go back to doing them first, before starting work. But I'll still try to start work as soon as possible after waking up.
I listened to a podcast yesterday that was talking about writing routines, and the hosts mentioned two things that stuck with me a lot.
The first was that they have to get started working as early as possible after they wake up. If they start after a certain time later in the morning, they don't get much done at all.
I've noticed something similar to this for myself. In my time tracking log, I not only put down the time I start my writing sprint, but I started having a column where I put down the time I woke up that morning, and another column that calculates how many hours it's been since I woke up. So I can filter how productive my sprints are based on how early in my day it is.
I've noticed that when I sprint within 4 hours after waking up, my words per hour rate tends to be fastest. If I'm sprinting more than 10 hours after I wake up, my words per hour rate takes a nosedive. What that tells me is that I'm most productive in the hours right after I wake up. I obviously still get work done later in the day, but I'm most efficient in those hours after I wake up.
This really surprised me because I'm so NOT a morning person. I had always thought I was more productive later in the day, since I tend to be a night owl. But the numbers don't lie--when I'm working, I tend to work better earlier in the day.
The second thing the podcast mentioned was that most writers need about 45 minutes to an hour to get warmed up. Even writers who write during their lunch hour at work tend to spend some time in the hours before lunch thinking about their story so that they can get going once their writing time arrives.
So one of the hosts mentioned that they changed to one long 8-hour writing session rather than two 4-hour ones, because then they have 6 productive hours in the middle of that long writing session, rather than 2 productive hours each in the middle of two 4-hour sessions.
That makes sense to me, because I have noticed that just getting myself to start work is often the hardest. Once I get started, I can usually count on inertia to keep me in place to keep writing. It happened even yesterday when I was trying to work through my headache. It was hard to get started, and I was rather listless for at least 20 or 30 minutes, but once I got past that time segment, even though I was still in pain, I was able to finish the editing of the scene and keep going to write more.
This all makes me want to reevaluate my writing routine to optimize my time. I've been exercising first thing in the morning because otherwise I won't get it done, but if I can figure out a way to discipline myself to exercise later in the day, I can take advantage of my increased productivity in the morning to get more done. This morning, since I'm not feeling great, I didn't go out to walk, so this might be a good way to test that out.
I think I will also experiment today with a longer writing session rather than breaking things up in shorter sprints. I guess it'll be just one long sprint. That way I won't be tempted to get up when the sprint ends and take a break. I already know that breaks have been my downfall--I often have a hard time getting back to work after I've left my desk, for whatever reason, whether because I get distracted doing chores or from some other method of procrastination.
Most writing articles say that shorter sprints make you more productive, and I have seen that a 25 minute sprint will often force me to write when I'm feeling lazy. But since my breaks have been derailing that productivity, maybe it's time to think outside the box and try something new? I think I might have tried something like this before (I'm too lazy to go back through my writing diary to check), but it won't hurt to try this again. Also, this time I will be aiming for a longer writing session than normal. I'll go for 6 hours and see if I can do it.
***
I realized something kind of odd. When writing in 4thewords.com, or when doing a 25 minute sprint, I was thinking in terms of short bursts. For example, I'd be thinking about how much I'd need to write to finish off the monster I had going, or how much time I had left on the sprint.
But in deciding to do a long writing session--essentially a really long sprint--I suddenly noticed that I stopped thinking like that. I found myself starting a new monster more easily, and not thinking about the time I've been writing.
I also mentioned this before, but having a monster battle going on keeps me from taking too long of a break (especially when I have to leave my desk to use the bathroom). So something that enables me to more easily start monster battles helps a lot.
The only problem is that my sinus headache isn't getting much better. It's so distracting! I've taken more drugs and I'm going to try to keep working.
***
I finally finished that troublesome first scene! And I'm actually rather happy about it! Yay!
The problem now is the second scene. I changed the first scene a bit, but the changes actually made it clear that the second scene has some structural problems. How do I fix this? I think I need to do some blocking for the second scene rather than writing it right away.
***
Doing a long writing session is hard! I got to 4 hours but started feeling a bit braindead, so I decided to stop for lunch.
Also it kind of bugged me that I hadn't done my exercise or my house chores before I started working, since I had wanted to get my writing done first. I think tomorrow I want to try doing both exercise and house chores first before my writing session, even though it will delay the start of my work time by about 90 minutes, because the fact I didn't get that done kind of distracted me when I was writing.
After lunch, I did my house chores, but I decided to do another writing session before doing my exercise. So I'll see how that goes.
***
I didn't do too badly after lunch. I did about 90 minutes of writing, but then I got a bit stuck on a transition and stared at the computer screen for a while. So I decided to stop for the day. My total writing time today was 5 hours and 39 minutes, so that's not too far off from my goal of 6 hours. I did take a break in between for lunch and to do my house chores, but it wasn't very long.
I was a bit shocked at my low word count today, but I probably shouldn't since I spent so much time staring at my computer. My overall writing speed was pretty slow, but I also didn't take many breaks. It's probably about the same as when I do 25-minute sprints but take breaks in between.
After doing this experiment today with a long writing session, I'm thinking maybe it would just be better to do the 25-minute sprints and take the breaks, because I felt like I did too much staring at the screen. When I do a sprint, since it's a short period of time, I feel like I'm more likely to force myself to just keep writing something down and moving forward in the book.
I think what impacted me the most today was that when I thought about the fact that I had a long writing session ahead of me, it made me more quickly start a new monster, which kept me working, and which made my breaks shorter.
I don't know why I don't have that same mindset when I'm doing three or four 25-minute sprints in a row. What is it about sprinting that makes me think so short-term? I guess because it's modular, so I'm thinking only about writing until the next segment of time.
If I can translate that same mindset to when I do 25-minute sprints, maybe I can focus for longer periods of time. I can try to do more sprinting sessions at a time rather than only three (which is my usual). I can still try to increase my writing sessions with more sprints and see how long I can go.
Doing the writing first thing today, before I did exercise and my house chores, only seemed to distract me since I kept thinking about it during my writing time. So even though it will delay my starting work, I think I'll continue trying to do my exercise and chores before work. I think I just need to try to make sure I don't get derailed by other things and start my writing as soon as I can.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 59 minutes
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 39 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1161 words
Writing: Average speed (sprints): 433 words/hour
Writing: Overall writing speed: 433 words/hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 11 minutes
My takeaway for today: When I thought about the fact that I had a long writing session ahead of me, it made me more quickly start a new monster, which kept me working, and which made my breaks shorter. However, the long writing sessions seemed to make it harder to keep moving forward in the writing, so I will try to instead incorporate that mindset for sprinting sessions.
My second takeaway for today: It was distracting to not do my exercise and house chores before work, so I'll go back to doing them first, before starting work. But I'll still try to start work as soon as possible after waking up.
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