Camy's Writing Diary

I’m still reading through the Snowflake step 6 extended synopses for the other books in the series and taking notes, and I found quite a few loose threads I had forgotten to close off. Some things hadn’t been obvious loose threads when I wrote the synopses, but they changed after I wrote the first 3 books and small events changed slightly. I’m starting to think that maybe it would be a good idea for me to do this same sort of reviewing of the synopses of the other books in the series each time after I finish a book, just to adjust things and make sure all the events are lining up. It’s also a good chance to catch any continuity errors that may arise due to changes in the series storyline that occur after I write each book. I finished reading the synopses for all 10 books in the series, but now I need to read the synopsis for the side novel, which actually is looking like it’ll be super long and might end up being two or even three novels instead of just one. I actually really hope...

I was a little sick (not Covid) for the past two days so I just spent the time sleeping (a lot) and relaxing, watching anime on Crunchyroll. An unexpected result of that was that after watching a fun anime series (Idolish7), I got inspired for a storyline for my Regency Gentlemen Quartet series. It was really fun to brainstorm that story! I love that effervescent feeling of a fresh new romance storyline, the rush as I come up with new characters, new conflicts, new situations. To be honest, it feels a bit like I’m falling in love for the first time, all over again! I’m still reading through the synopses for the other books in my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series to get a better handle on the overall series plot. I’m glad I’m doing this because I saw some things that I had to fix. A part of me wonders if I’m just procrastinating starting work on book 4, but I feel like I want to be ready and prepared in my head before I start work on it. I want to know that I definitely have all the plot ...

My back is still stiff, but feeling better than yesterday (and much better than it felt this weekend). Because of that, I kind of took my time in doing my writing rituals for clearing the decks . I’ve also put off doing my house chores until later in the day, and I might skip them today depending on how my back feels. Since I was kind of lallygagging around after I woke up, I ended up taking a little longer to do my Japanese flashcards before starting work. I’m really glad I’ve put my Japanese language study as part of my clearing the decks routines, because otherwise I don’t think I’d have gotten around to getting it done. As it stands, since I started doing it before work, I’ve done it almost every day for nearly two weeks now. Next I need to develop more of a habit of doing my nonfiction reading on weekends. It’s another vital part of my writing that I haven’t been consistent about. Yesterday I wanted to try checking my email (just the subject headings and senders’ addresses) ...

I spent most of Sunday sleeping or resting my back, but it started to feel better so I was able to do some writing-related work such as cleaning my email inbox and checking Facebook. However, I couldn’t get all of it done on Sunday and so I did some of it today. It’s typically difficult for me to switch from a marketing mindset to a writing mindset, so after doing the rest of my writing-related work, instead of jumping straight into editing book 3 in my Regency series, I think I’ll take a break and eat lunch. I might be better able to get to work afterward. *** I took a longer lunch and did some reading, then got back to work. I was able to jump into the editing without problems, even though I had been worried I’d have a hard time shifting to a writing mindset. I’m not sure if it was easier to work because I was only doing light editing or because of the long lunch. If I had been doing writing rather than editing, I don’t know if it would still have been easy to get back to work....

I didn’t bother posting yesterday because it was mostly a wash. I slept a really long time yesterday and my sleep schedule got all screwed up, so I decided to skip yesterday and just blog about my work on Saturday. One thing I noticed earlier this week but forgot to blog about is that my Surrender statement has really been helping to “trigger” my brain to get started with work. I don’t always need it to trigger my work mindset, but I have noticed that when I read my Surrender Statement out loud, it’s become a ritual that reminds me why I’m writing and motivates me to be disciplined and productive. So I’ve been trying to make it more of a priority to read my Surrender Statement whenever I sit down to work. It’s helped me to focus my thoughts on writing. However, it doesn’t work if I read my Surrender Statement before I start blogging. If I do that, it kind of “loses its power,” I guess you can call it. I have found that blogging before I start work helps me get more into that...

I got to work late today again, but not for lack of earnest trying. My attempts to get up earlier failed, but not because I went to bed late. Last night, I went to bed on time, but then simply lay in bed instead of going to sleep. Then today I got up at the same time as yesterday, which was later than I wanted. Sigh. I probably could have done an extra couple hours of work last night instead of lying in bed awake. Then, besides my messed up waking schedule, I also had several house chores and cooking dinner prep to do as part of clearing the decks . But that took a lot longer than I had expected and so my clearing the decks ritual took an extra hour. This made me start thinking about rearranging my schedule. There are certain things I absolutely have to do before work, such as exercise and my Japanese flashcards, because otherwise, neither of those will get done at all. But I wonder if I can put off my house chores until later in the day and do them in between writing sessions, o...

I once again got a late start for today. I stayed up too late last night reading (again!) because it happened to be a really good book. But my body must have also needed the rest because I slept a little longer than normal. I’ve been following a more detailed schedule for my day, since that was suggested by the Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World book, and I’ve found that it helps me to know where my time goes. It takes me about 3 hours from when I wake up to the moment I sit down at my desk, and I was wondering if I waste time somewhere. But when I use my schedule, I can see what I do and (in general) how much time it takes me, and it really does take me 3 hours to get up (hygiene ritual), exercise, eat breakfast, and do the house chores scheduled for that day. Sometimes I have to do some cooking as prep for dinner, which usually takes an extra half hour. Then once I sit at my desk, I’ve been doing an hour of my Japanese flashcards before work, so that I can ...

I got another late start to the day. I don’t know why I can’t get to bed sooner! I was up reading. I did everything to clear the decks before starting work, but I got distracted for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what to cook for dinner tonight. I had forgotten that stuff like this is why I had put it down on my bullet journal to do this stuff on Sundays. That way I don’t spend time trying to figure this stuff out during the work week. Making decisions takes so long for me, so doing it on a non-work day is much more efficient, but I had neglected to do it this weekend. When I first got IBS and looked at the low-FODMAP diet, I had gotten depressed since a lot of the recipes I saw were terribly unappealing. But since then I’ve done more internet searches and found some low-FODMAP recipes that don’t look too bad. I will need to buy some ingredients, however, so I had to come up with something I can make with what I’ve got. However, that took some time away so now I feel like...

I ended up not getting any of my regular work done on Saturday. My IBS was acting up, but it wasn’t horrible, so I probably could have done some work, but I was feeling unmotivated, which I know is a terrible reason to skip work. I might have felt unmotivated because I haven’t been keeping up with my reading for the past few days, despite the fact I was supposed to be relaxing and reading after finishing the book. So on Saturday, I took some time to read and watch Netflix. I’ve been listening to the audiobook Ultralearning . It’s mostly about learning new or hard things, which I’m hoping to apply to my Japanese language learning, but there is also a lot of stuff about focus since ultralearning requires intense focus to accomplish your goals. Yesterday (Sunday) the book talked about procrastination. There are different types of procrastination, but the one I focused on was procrastinating starting a task because it’s something difficult (or unpleasant). This might be why I didn’...

I was going to work this morning, but it ended up being too distracting for me to work because I had an appointment right after lunch and I kept watching the clock. It makes me realize I really do need to practice intense concentration and focus so that I can just turn it on for however long I set a timer. That way I can efficiently work for a short period of time if I have other things to do that day. I met up with an author friend for the first time. We know each other online and I found out she lives nearby me, so we met for boba. It was the first time I’ve driven in over a year! It’s because my husband and I usually drive together if there’s something I need to do outside of the house. He arranges to do errands when he drives me somewhere, to save on gas and time. It was really fun talking to another writer. I haven’t done that in over a year! I haven’t had boba tea in that long, too! Life felt kind of normal for a change. It was really fun to talk about self-publishing and t...

I noticed yesterday that I was really tired when I finally got around to doing my Japanese flashcards at the end of the day, and I wondered if maybe I should include that as part of my clearing the decks routine in order to get it out of the way sooner. I know that I haven’t been consistent with my Japanese studies, and it was partly because I was stressed about finishing the book, plus when I was sick I didn’t have much mental energy for anything, not work or Japanese study. But I also think that I didn’t do my Japanese partly because at the end of the day I was too tired to do it, and I didn’t have enough motivation to summon up the energy to get it done. It reminded me of trying to get into running more consistently. I have figured out that if I don’t go running right after waking up and before I start doing anything else, then I won’t go running at all that day. It seems like Japanese study is the same for me. So today, I did my Japanese flashcards before I started work, not t...

After I finished the 3rd book in my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, I spent a couple days doing just business work—marketing and self-publishing stuff in preparation for the book release. This time, I sent the book to the editor for the multi-author box set, who is also one of the authors. She said she’d try to squeeze in my book before the deadline of May 30th and thinks it might be possible since I don’t need it until then. Hopefully she won’t come up with a bunch of structural issues that will need to be fixed, because the deadline for the manuscript is June 1st and I wouldn’t be able to make any major edits by then. But I also don’t have any of the business work that I had with the Regency novel, since I’m not doing the self-publishing this time. There are pros and cons to this—with my own self-publishing, I can set my own deadlines and not have to worry if illness puts me behind schedule. After all, I had mental burnout for much of December last year, so that Lady Wynwood’s Spies b...

When listening to the audiobook for Deep Work , at first I kind of dismissed his suggestion to schedule out your entire day. But today I decided to try doing it because I realize that I don’t know where some of my day goes. I think I can do it with my iPhone journaling app, Day One , which I use as a bullet journal. For the past year, my bullet journal has been great at helping me to organize my daily life much better than before. I quickly figured out that whenever I’m curious about something, whether it’s something on the internet or just a question about one of my files,  I’ll automatically look it up on my phone or computer. This is what causes me to be distracted so easily, because then I’ll get sidetracked to something else. I suppose the internet is specifically set up that way. For example, I looked up the cost of a book today on my phone and got sucked into looking at other books that were listed alongside it, on similar topics. I spent probably 10 minutes distracted by that...

I had a good sabbath yesterday. I did some knitting and finished the Deep Work audiobook. I liked how he showed that memorization tasks (or intense study habits) exercises and increases  your ability to concentrate, which then enables more focus on other tasks during the workday. I think it will help my ability to focus if I make my Japanese language learning more of a priority. If I can train my ability to focus by doing memorization, then that can only help when I have to focus to work on my books. The last part of the book was basically disconnecting from various forms of communication and social media, which I’ve already done by only checking that on weekends. But some of the strategies in the book made me realize that I haven’t been good about communicating that I’m only checking my online communications once a week, so I added that into the drip sequence for my new newsletter subscribers, and included the links where they can leave comments or questions for me. The audiobo...

I had intended to work today, which is Sunday, but I sat down and was about to pray my Surrender statement , and felt God’s conviction not to work today. Even though logically I could probably finish the book today or tomorrow and I could just take my sabbath rest day right after that, I felt God telling me that I should rest today. Not because it's logical, not to be legalistic about my sabbath, but because it’s a gesture that puts God first in my life. I suddenly feel like that is more important than getting the book done. So, to my editor and the authors in the multi-author box set, sorry, the book will be a day later. I admit I am also influenced by the Deep Work audiobook I’m listening to. I just finished the chapter talking about how the subconscious mind needs time to process all the information we’ve inputted in order to make decisions. It's like the subconscious is a big supercomputer and you input your data and then wait for it to compute the answer for you. All su...

I got a late start on my walk today but enjoyed listening to the Deep Work audiobook. I finished the chapter on learning to disconnect from the work entirely at the end of the day, and I realized that I might not do that. Sometimes I’ll think about the fantasy serial novel and do a bit of work on it. I originally started that as a way to play around, but maybe my brain sees that as “work” also. After all, eventually I’ll hopefully be publishing that. So maybe I don’t get as much downtime to refresh my brain as I think I do, even though I’m not working on the Hawaii book. I wonder if that’s why I’m a bit tired today? That might also be because my IBS was bad last night, though, and I didn’t get a very restful sleep. Anyway, tonight I’ll really disconnect and do something else entirely, like read and knit. I have to make sure I realize that any work I do on the fantasy serial novel has to fall under “work time." In the audiobook, he also talked about doing conscious internet bl...

I listened to the Deep Work audiobook again. He submitted the theory that more successful/higher performing people tend to do intensely focused periods of work on only one project at a time. They will end up spending less overall time on something with higher quality than their peers. He also talked about the different types of philosophies when it comes to Deep Work. Different people do Deep Work in different ways depending on their personality, it seems, and the necessities of their family and job. The monastic philosophy is what I’d ideally like to do. He gives examples of other authors who have done that. However since I’m self-publishing, I don’t know if I can do that. I think my method right now is a bimodal philosophy, because for a typical week, I write for 5 days a week and then do email and social media on Saturdays. However, I’ve also been trying to do a little bit of non-deep work each day, and now I wonder if I should instead shunt those to weekends so that I can fo...