Camy's Writing Diary

Dictating directly into Dragon is a bit slow It took a little longer before I got started on work today since I had house chores to do. I decided to try doing the dictation directly in Dragon so that I could see the words as they appeared. The problem was that I had to spend some of the time setting up Dragon and my blocking notes, and I also wanted to train Dragon with some words it kept missing. I expected today’s dictation to be slow because of all that, and I also was trying to get used to speaking and then seeing my words on the screen. I also noticed that I wasn’t trying to vomit-write—instead, I was writing like I normally do, when I’m writing slowly and editing as I go. In fact, I did a bit of editing within Dragon—instead of just repeating the sentence like I do when recording my dictation, I would instead delete what I just wrote and then repeat the sentence. So maybe that also contributed to my slow writing speed. I also noticed that Dragon takes a while before my wo...

For once I didn’t wake up with health issues! Praise God! I even got a chance to go for a walk today. I already did my Japanese study and am ready to dive into work. Path of least resistance I did my 100 words of writing yesterday on my computer, and in thinking about it today, I realized that one of the reasons dictation has been difficult for me is because typing is so much easier to do. I’ve made it easy by keeping the microphone plugged in, but it takes time and (a little bit of frustration) to fire up Dragon in order to transpose the recording, and then taking the time to edit it.  With typing, on the other hand, I eliminate the Dragon transpose step, and the editing step is much faster because my typing has less errors, so it’s easier to edit what I’ve typed. However, if I get much better at dictation, I’ll be able to write more in a shorter time period, and if I can dictate more cleanly, the editing won’t be quite as bad as it is now. So eventually, words per hour will (...

I am roadkill It’s been extremely frustrating to wake up so many mornings feeling like a dump truck ran me over. My sinus headaches have not let up, and even now I still have a throbbing pain behind my right eye that won’t go away no matter how many drugs I throw at it. However, I’m grateful that the drugs took the worst edge off the pain and let me get some work done today. I think I’ve been getting better at managing my health issues, knowing when to take more medicine and when to just back off and rest. Japanese I forgot to mention my Japanese studies, but on days that I have more energy, I’ve been doing it before I do any writing work. I find I definitely feel better when I do it first, before my writing. There were a couple days when I did it after I did my writing—I only did 100 words because I wasn’t feeling well, but then I felt better a little later and decided to do some Japanese. But maybe because I was tired by then because of my health issues, or just because it ...

Dealing with more health issues Today started off very badly because I woke up with a sinus headache. I can usually get work done even if I have IBS issues unless they are very bad, but working with a headache is almost impossible. Whenever I have tried, every single time the headache only gets worse and turns into a full-blown migraine. Ironically, my energy levels are rather good today, probably because my IBS has been better for a few days and so it doesn’t make me tired. Which made it doubly frustrating that I couldn’t spend much time at my computer. So I brought out the big guns (strong drugs). Once they kicked in, I decided to try dictating my fiction. Dictation: reduce resistance What I’ve discovered with dictation (and which really should have been obvious to me) is that I need to set up my equipment so that it’s very easy for me to just get started. If I have to bother to do something even as small as plug in my microphone or open a recording app, it’s just that litt...

Kept up my writing streak Even though I’ve been sick the past week, I still managed to keep up my writing streak. I only did 100 words a day, and most of the time they were absolutely terrible words, but I still managed to do a little bit of writing every day. I felt absolutely horrible and there were a couple times when I just wanted to not do my writing for the day. After all, what was the point when it wasn’t feeling well? The reason I wasn’t writing was because of my health, not because of laziness or neglect. But I still did my 100 words a day, grumbling and complaining. However, I have to admit that when I did some writing today, it wasn’t all that difficult since I’ve been writing a little bit in my novel every day. When I have taken a break from writing before, getting back into it is a little mentally painful because it had become a bit unfamiliar, and also getting back into the momentum of writing is difficult. But this time, since I’d been reading the scene a littl...

Taking a sick day today I always take one or two sick days a month for "regularly recurring womanly issues” (is that a polite and politically correct way to say it?). The problem is that sometimes those one or two days extends to three or four or five days, not because I’m in a lot of pain, but just because I’m uncomfortable and tired and perhaps a little lazy. But this time I’m in the middle of my writing streak and email streak. In doing a little work each day, I won’t be completely relaxing, so I’m hoping that it will prevent me from feeling lazy about returning to work, and will motivate me to get back to work sooner. Progress on my Japanese study: I’ll be doing my Japanese study first again. I really enjoyed doing it first yesterday—I felt a feeling of accomplishment and relief that it was done early, and I felt like it freed me up to focus on my writing. Sometimes I would have a nagging feeling about still needing to do my Japanese after my writing work was done. W...

Changed up the schedule I only did the bare minimum for my Japanese study last night before going to bed, and that felt kind of pathetic. So in keeping with what I blogged about yesterday, I decided to do my Japanese study first, before I started on my writing. I have to admit that it felt really good to get my Japanese study done first this morning. I felt fresh as I was doing it, and I remembered the flashcards better. Afterward, I had to start the meat marinating for dinner, but then my IBS started flaring up. I had to take about half an hour to get food in my stomach and take some drugs. But surprisingly I went straight to work when the pain subsided. I’m not sure if it’s because I did my Japanese study first and got into a “work mode” mindset, or if it’s just because I switched my schedule up a little today and that’s what enabled me to jump into work without procrastinating. iPad Mini and bluetooth keyboard I tried recreating the Alphasmart “experience” with a bluetoo...

Feeling mellow I had another bad IBS flareup this morning, which woke me up early so I didn’t get a full night’s rest. But I think I dealt with it a bit more quickly this time. I took my drugs and sat down to rest until they kicked in. The drugs make me tired, so I’m feeling pretty mellow right now. I was supposed to do an experiment to write at my Alphasmart at my standing desk today, but I’m too lazy to clean out my desk so I think I’ll just use the Alphasmart at my sitting desk. I’m only doing one 25-minute sprint. I’ll also try to do the editing in my Alphasmart to see how that goes. If my health remains good, I want to move immediately into blocking. If I’m disciplined enough today, I’ll get at least a couple hours done before lunch, and then a couple hours after lunch. Energy like candy I’m trying to be more aware (or feel the urgency?) of doing my writing work as soon as possible after I wake up, outside of any health issues that morning. I am hoping that doing my ...

Today I was going to use my Alphasmart at my standing desk to see if location helped me write faster, but my standing desk is a bit messy today, so instead I’m going with another experiment I wanted to do, which is using my Freewrite at my sitting desk. Right after my writing sprint, I’m also going to try self-editing the text with my Freewrite to see if I can get used to the navigation buttons. It could be that I have difficulty using the Freewrite simply because the navigation is unfamiliar to me. I’m only doing one 25 minute sprint. I’ll only be doing single sprints until I finish blocking book 4 and (hopefully) all the rest of the books in the series, so that I don’t run into the confusion I’m suffering from writing in one timeline and blocking in a future one. *** Evaluation of writing and editing on the Freewrite Traveler I actually wrote quite fast on the Freewrite today, but unfortunately the reason is because I copied almost word for word what I’d written in my blo...

Today I woke up a little early, so I didn’t get a full 8 hours of sleep, but I don’t feel tired right now. I might later, but I’ll hopefully get my writing work done before that happens. I’m continuing with my experiments. I’ll be doing my writing first, but only a 25 minute sprint. I’ll do a quick self-editing pass right after I finish writing. Today I’m not writing on my Freewrite, so I won’t need to pause to transfer the words to Scrivener before I edit them. Instead, I think I’m going to try my Alphasmart (see below). After the writing and editing, then I’ll spend 3-4 hours (hopefully) doing blocking on book 4. I am reducing the amount of time writing each day and then spending more time blocking. This is because I want to get the blocking for book 4 done quickly, and also do the blocking for the rest of the series. Yesterday (and some other times before), I would get confused about the timeline of the book I’m writing because I had blocked/outlined a future scene in the sa...

Clearing the decks: I woke up feeling okay-ish and had been planning to jump right into writing, but I found that I kind of need a little time to myself in the morning to wake up. I made tea, ate breakfast. I haven’t been feeling well enough to do my house chores lately. I have one house chore assigned to each day so that I eventually get to the entire house over the course if two or three weeks, with some chores repeating (such as cleaning the toilet). When I was feeling better, I would get my chore done before writing, because otherwise the thought of a chore left undone would nag at me while I was working. Also, I was less likely to get it done if I left it for later in the day. This morning, I was still feeling a little sleepy, and decided to do my house chore for today (mopping the kitchen floor), especially because it was bothering me that I hadn’t done it last week. It took all of 10 minutes, and I felt so much better after it had been done. Something about a clean house...

Health issues again I don’t know why, but I again woke up with an IBS flareup, and it took about an hour and a half this morning before I could deal with it and get the pain to settle down. I feel like I waste so much time getting my health under control every day. it’s very frustrating. But I also try to tell myself that actually my IBS is getting better, slowly, because I’m on this elimination diet. I’m starting to realize what foods I’m particularly sensitive to, and I’m making less mistakes in what I eat. Eating my “frogs” versus managing my energy I was thinking about how yesterday I had real issues managing my energy. I don’t like feeling so tired and having that dictate my productivity. I want to avoid situations like that. I talked before about eating my “frogs,” doing first thing in the morning the important things that I would otherwise never get around to doing if I left them for later in the day. My four “frogs” have been my Bible reading, exercise, house chores,...