Day 319: I focus too much on writing speed. So what else is new.
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 supposed to be safe for my IBS, but I reacted badly to it, so I'm in a bit of pain right now. However I need to finish this book, so I'm going to try to work through it today. According to my outline, I'm almost halfway through the book.
***
So far, the 25-minute Pomodoros have been working well for me today. I was able to focus on the book for that 25 minutes without my mind wandering or becoming distracted like yesterday.
At first I was a bit unsure how to use the 5-minute breaks. I didn't want to keep working because I was afraid that working without a break might tire me out and make it difficult to stay focused. I fiddled with the internet a bit but decided not to do that for fear of becoming too distracted.
Then I realized I could read a book. I have my Regency nonfiction research books I could read, or a book with the type of humor I'm aiming for, to help me get the rhythm of the humor beats in the prose.
***
Despite being able to focus better, my writing speed is still not great. It's because I had to do some research while writing today, because I had neglected to look something up when I was doing the blocking for this scene, and this was important enough that I needed to do it rather than just leaving a note for myself. I probably should have recorded the research time as blocking rather than letting my writing timer continue. If I remember, I'll do that next time.
I shouldn't focus so much on writing speed. I guess I'm just too used to looking at it as a marker of how well I'm doing. Maybe I should also look at the overall time the book has taken so far and calculate a words per hour rate from that?
***
I'm such a nerd when it comes to data collection. I think I just like the measurability.
Out of curiosity, I recorded the total hours, total words, and calculated words per hour for three of my Regency novels--book 2, book 3, and the prequel novella. (I didn't bother with book 1, because I had spent an inordinately long time doing the brainstorming and outlining for the book.) The hours for books 2 and 3 might be less than they actually are because I did not include the time spent brainstorming the entire series, where some of that time was spent on outlining individual books.
The Gentleman Thief
Hours: 80 hours, 49 minutes
Words: 36,071 words
Writing speed: 446 words/hour
Lady Wynwood's Spies, volume 2: Berserker
Hours: 195 hours, 15 minutes
Words: 85,694 words
Writing speed: 439 words/hour
Lady Wynwood's Spies, volume 3: Aggressor
Hours: 172 hours, 33 minutes
Words: 83,865 words
Writing speed: 486 words/hour
In contrast, here are the numbers for the current book:
The Wedding Kimono
Hours so far: 62 hours, 20 minutes
Total words so far: 15,305
Writing speed: 246 words per hour
Even though the hours worked includes all the outlining time but not all the writing time, my writing speed is still pretty terrible. While my words per hour rate will increase the more I write this book, I think this novella will still take me longer than The Gentleman Thief.
Granted, it's a new series so I had to do more characterization for this book than The Gentleman Thief (since most of the characterization for that was already done when I brainstormed the series). Also, it's a different genre, and I have noticed that I'm writing slower because I'm paying more attention to the humorous rhythm of the prose.
I had been hopeful that the time I didn't have to spend doing so much self-editing would balance out the longer time it takes me to do the polishing as I write, but it doesn't look like that will happen. However, I won't know for sure until the book is done and I can see the final words per hour rate.
I made the decision that I prefer to spend more time polishing the prose as I write it, rather the the other method of vomiting words and then doing a slapdash pass of self-editing. So the time to write the other books might have been longer if I'd spent more time polishing the prose during my self-editing. I'm essentially doing now what I would otherwise do during a really thorough and detailed self-editing pass (which of course I didn't do for the Regencies since I hate self-editing so much).
I'm still recording my start and stop times for each writing session, and the number of words I've written during that time. I also start a new row on my spreadsheet whenever I start a new scene. This is so that I know about how much time I spend on each scene. It's a bit of a pain, but I never know if I'll need this data eventually, and from what I learned when doing biology research, it's better to record everything you can while you can, just in case you need the data later.
So I'll still list my Daily writing speed in the metrics I record at the end of each day.
I did about 4 hours of writing today, which isn't bad considering I also cooked dinner tonight. I probably wasted some time looking up and recording the hours, words, and calculating words/hour for the other books so that I could compare them. Still, it's useful information to have.
If my writing speed is going to be slower using this new writing style, then I need to know so that I can plan for how long the next book will take. According to my calculations, the next Regency might take 9 or 10 weeks rather than the 7 or 8 weeks that it would take using the other faster writing style. That's still not bad--it means I can release a book every 3 months, and I'm okay with a release schedule like that. My other books released every 2 months, so it's not that much different.
I'll probably write the next book with this writing style, and then re-evaluate and see how I like it. I might absolutely hate it by then and decide to go back to my old faster style. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what works for my personality and priorities.
I just wish I could stop focusing so much on writing speed. I just can't help it. It's because I want to write like a speed demon. I admit it.
Using the 25-minute Pomodoros really helped today. I felt that I had much better focus during each Pomodoro. I wish it could have translated into faster writing, but I might get better with practice.
Also, I felt like the 5-minute breaks were productive because if I didn't have to use the bathroom or get more water, I spent it reading books either for research or for inspiration.
And I still have time today to get some more reading done to refill the creative well, so I think I did okay today.
I had planned to check email and stuff on Saturdays, but I think tomorrow I will write instead and put that stuff off to Sunday.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 4 hours, 7 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1753 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 425 words/hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 59 minutes
My takeaway for today: 25-minute Pomodoros worked really well today to help me focus during my writing sessions.
My second takeaway for today: Stop focusing on the writing speed, you moron. You'll write however fast you have to write to write a good book.
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 supposed to be safe for my IBS, but I reacted badly to it, so I'm in a bit of pain right now. However I need to finish this book, so I'm going to try to work through it today. According to my outline, I'm almost halfway through the book.
***
So far, the 25-minute Pomodoros have been working well for me today. I was able to focus on the book for that 25 minutes without my mind wandering or becoming distracted like yesterday.
At first I was a bit unsure how to use the 5-minute breaks. I didn't want to keep working because I was afraid that working without a break might tire me out and make it difficult to stay focused. I fiddled with the internet a bit but decided not to do that for fear of becoming too distracted.
Then I realized I could read a book. I have my Regency nonfiction research books I could read, or a book with the type of humor I'm aiming for, to help me get the rhythm of the humor beats in the prose.
***
Despite being able to focus better, my writing speed is still not great. It's because I had to do some research while writing today, because I had neglected to look something up when I was doing the blocking for this scene, and this was important enough that I needed to do it rather than just leaving a note for myself. I probably should have recorded the research time as blocking rather than letting my writing timer continue. If I remember, I'll do that next time.
I shouldn't focus so much on writing speed. I guess I'm just too used to looking at it as a marker of how well I'm doing. Maybe I should also look at the overall time the book has taken so far and calculate a words per hour rate from that?
***
I'm such a nerd when it comes to data collection. I think I just like the measurability.
Out of curiosity, I recorded the total hours, total words, and calculated words per hour for three of my Regency novels--book 2, book 3, and the prequel novella. (I didn't bother with book 1, because I had spent an inordinately long time doing the brainstorming and outlining for the book.) The hours for books 2 and 3 might be less than they actually are because I did not include the time spent brainstorming the entire series, where some of that time was spent on outlining individual books.
The Gentleman Thief
Hours: 80 hours, 49 minutes
Words: 36,071 words
Writing speed: 446 words/hour
Lady Wynwood's Spies, volume 2: Berserker
Hours: 195 hours, 15 minutes
Words: 85,694 words
Writing speed: 439 words/hour
Lady Wynwood's Spies, volume 3: Aggressor
Hours: 172 hours, 33 minutes
Words: 83,865 words
Writing speed: 486 words/hour
In contrast, here are the numbers for the current book:
The Wedding Kimono
Hours so far: 62 hours, 20 minutes
Total words so far: 15,305
Writing speed: 246 words per hour
Even though the hours worked includes all the outlining time but not all the writing time, my writing speed is still pretty terrible. While my words per hour rate will increase the more I write this book, I think this novella will still take me longer than The Gentleman Thief.
Granted, it's a new series so I had to do more characterization for this book than The Gentleman Thief (since most of the characterization for that was already done when I brainstormed the series). Also, it's a different genre, and I have noticed that I'm writing slower because I'm paying more attention to the humorous rhythm of the prose.
I had been hopeful that the time I didn't have to spend doing so much self-editing would balance out the longer time it takes me to do the polishing as I write, but it doesn't look like that will happen. However, I won't know for sure until the book is done and I can see the final words per hour rate.
I made the decision that I prefer to spend more time polishing the prose as I write it, rather the the other method of vomiting words and then doing a slapdash pass of self-editing. So the time to write the other books might have been longer if I'd spent more time polishing the prose during my self-editing. I'm essentially doing now what I would otherwise do during a really thorough and detailed self-editing pass (which of course I didn't do for the Regencies since I hate self-editing so much).
I'm still recording my start and stop times for each writing session, and the number of words I've written during that time. I also start a new row on my spreadsheet whenever I start a new scene. This is so that I know about how much time I spend on each scene. It's a bit of a pain, but I never know if I'll need this data eventually, and from what I learned when doing biology research, it's better to record everything you can while you can, just in case you need the data later.
So I'll still list my Daily writing speed in the metrics I record at the end of each day.
I did about 4 hours of writing today, which isn't bad considering I also cooked dinner tonight. I probably wasted some time looking up and recording the hours, words, and calculating words/hour for the other books so that I could compare them. Still, it's useful information to have.
If my writing speed is going to be slower using this new writing style, then I need to know so that I can plan for how long the next book will take. According to my calculations, the next Regency might take 9 or 10 weeks rather than the 7 or 8 weeks that it would take using the other faster writing style. That's still not bad--it means I can release a book every 3 months, and I'm okay with a release schedule like that. My other books released every 2 months, so it's not that much different.
I'll probably write the next book with this writing style, and then re-evaluate and see how I like it. I might absolutely hate it by then and decide to go back to my old faster style. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what works for my personality and priorities.
I just wish I could stop focusing so much on writing speed. I just can't help it. It's because I want to write like a speed demon. I admit it.
Using the 25-minute Pomodoros really helped today. I felt that I had much better focus during each Pomodoro. I wish it could have translated into faster writing, but I might get better with practice.
Also, I felt like the 5-minute breaks were productive because if I didn't have to use the bathroom or get more water, I spent it reading books either for research or for inspiration.
And I still have time today to get some more reading done to refill the creative well, so I think I did okay today.
I had planned to check email and stuff on Saturdays, but I think tomorrow I will write instead and put that stuff off to Sunday.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 4 hours, 7 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1753 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 425 words/hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 59 minutes
My takeaway for today: 25-minute Pomodoros worked really well today to help me focus during my writing sessions.
My second takeaway for today: Stop focusing on the writing speed, you moron. You'll write however fast you have to write to write a good book.
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