Day 355: Surrender Statement as a trigger
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 working mindset, in a different way than my Surrender Statement. It’s like when starting a car. Blogging is turning on the engine while my Surrender Statement is putting it in first gear to get going.
My problem is that blogging can sometimes take a while (like Thursday). I realize that it can be important—after all, on Thursday I had a really important breakthrough in understanding myself and my writing style and my self-editing problems. So I am reluctant to cut short my blogging, especially since its main purpose is to help me understand myself so that I can develop the right techniques to become more productive. If I don’t understand myself, I won’t know the right techniques. And I’ve discovered that using the wrong techniques for my personality (like vomit writing) can be detrimental to the prose as well as my productivity.
So for now, I’m doing my Surrender Statement after blogging. But it has been really helpful to get me to start work. It’s become a valuable ritual for me.
***
I was kind of bad at keeping my focus when I was doing my Japanese flashcards. I got distracted by retail procrastination when I found out a favorite author now has her backlist books on ebook, and so I was looking to see what books I wanted to buy.
While my Japanese language learning is important, I don’t put as much emphasis on it as my writing work, so maybe that’s why my focus isn’t as intense when I’m doing flashcards. I probably need to practice being more focused when I’m doing something kind of boring like flashcards.
I’m almost done with editing book 2 in my Regency series, and I’ll continue on to book 3. Then once that’s done, I’ll start work writing book 4. I’m really glad I’m doing this read through, especially since last time I found several errors in book 2 that I had completely missed due to a patchy self-editing method rather than a long continuous read through. I have to remember for future books that one long read through really is a must to catch continuity errors.
***
I finished book 2, and I even compiled the final .epub and interior .pdf files and uploaded them to KDP. I ended up not making all that many edits to book 2, but some of the ones I did were correcting continuity errors, which were kind of embarrassing.
I started book 3, then paused for Bible study group tonight, but suddenly my back gave out! Just like that! All I did was stand up from my chair, too!
So instead of going back to work after Bible study, I was flat on my back in bed with a heating pad. It feels a bit better right now, after taking some pain killers, but my lower back issues traveled up my back and are causing some headaches. Actually I had some minor headaches before Bible study, too. Maybe it’s all related somehow?
I considered just working through the pain since it’s not so bad right now and I’m due for another pain pill in ten minutes. But I worry that the low-grade headache will make me sloppy as I’m reading through the book and I won’t catch errors that need to be corrected, especially since book 2 had way more continuity errors than I had expected. So I think instead I’ll call it a night.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 1 hour, 10 minutes (book 2), 29 minutes (book 3)
Writing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Total number of words: n/a
Writing: Overall writing speed: n/a
Time spent doing other writing-related business: forgot to start Toggl timer when started blogging.
My takeaway for today: For future books, make sure to do one long read through to catch continuity errors.
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 working mindset, in a different way than my Surrender Statement. It’s like when starting a car. Blogging is turning on the engine while my Surrender Statement is putting it in first gear to get going.
My problem is that blogging can sometimes take a while (like Thursday). I realize that it can be important—after all, on Thursday I had a really important breakthrough in understanding myself and my writing style and my self-editing problems. So I am reluctant to cut short my blogging, especially since its main purpose is to help me understand myself so that I can develop the right techniques to become more productive. If I don’t understand myself, I won’t know the right techniques. And I’ve discovered that using the wrong techniques for my personality (like vomit writing) can be detrimental to the prose as well as my productivity.
So for now, I’m doing my Surrender Statement after blogging. But it has been really helpful to get me to start work. It’s become a valuable ritual for me.
***
I was kind of bad at keeping my focus when I was doing my Japanese flashcards. I got distracted by retail procrastination when I found out a favorite author now has her backlist books on ebook, and so I was looking to see what books I wanted to buy.
While my Japanese language learning is important, I don’t put as much emphasis on it as my writing work, so maybe that’s why my focus isn’t as intense when I’m doing flashcards. I probably need to practice being more focused when I’m doing something kind of boring like flashcards.
I’m almost done with editing book 2 in my Regency series, and I’ll continue on to book 3. Then once that’s done, I’ll start work writing book 4. I’m really glad I’m doing this read through, especially since last time I found several errors in book 2 that I had completely missed due to a patchy self-editing method rather than a long continuous read through. I have to remember for future books that one long read through really is a must to catch continuity errors.
***
I finished book 2, and I even compiled the final .epub and interior .pdf files and uploaded them to KDP. I ended up not making all that many edits to book 2, but some of the ones I did were correcting continuity errors, which were kind of embarrassing.
I started book 3, then paused for Bible study group tonight, but suddenly my back gave out! Just like that! All I did was stand up from my chair, too!
So instead of going back to work after Bible study, I was flat on my back in bed with a heating pad. It feels a bit better right now, after taking some pain killers, but my lower back issues traveled up my back and are causing some headaches. Actually I had some minor headaches before Bible study, too. Maybe it’s all related somehow?
I considered just working through the pain since it’s not so bad right now and I’m due for another pain pill in ten minutes. But I worry that the low-grade headache will make me sloppy as I’m reading through the book and I won’t catch errors that need to be corrected, especially since book 2 had way more continuity errors than I had expected. So I think instead I’ll call it a night.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 1 hour, 10 minutes (book 2), 29 minutes (book 3)
Writing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Total number of words: n/a
Writing: Overall writing speed: n/a
Time spent doing other writing-related business: forgot to start Toggl timer when started blogging.
My takeaway for today: For future books, make sure to do one long read through to catch continuity errors.
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