Day 489: Changing up the daily routine
Music:
I was reading that there is some psychology research that suggests that noise might help writers concentrate better, because you’re forced to have to tune it out.
I will admit that tuning out noise is hard for me, at least for the first few minutes. But after that I usually can tune it out just fine.
But what also got me thinking about it is that I noticed how some songs just really get me excited and energized, and after suffering from so much fatigue lately, I could use some excitement and energy while I'm working.
So I’m going to try an experiment where I listen to my favorite playlist while writing and see how that works. I’m hoping that the music won’t be too distracting or make it hard to concentrate, if I can manage to focus and tune it out. And certain songs might even lift my spirits to make the writing go faster and better. Anyway, I’ll give it a shot and see.
***
Writing streak:
I kept up day 2 of my writing streak! I know the early days will be easier to keep up the streak, but I’ll still celebrate the win.
My minimum requirement for each day is 15 minutes, even if it’s only one word. I figure that’ll make it easier to keep up the streak, and I’m pretty sure I can write more than just one word in 15 minutes.
When I first started writing today, it took me a little while to get into it. I found myself doing some editing of the few paragraphs on my screen that I’d written the day before. It might have gotten me into the groove of writing, or it might have been just a means to procrastinate, I don’t know. I know that my writing speed for the first half hour or so was rather slow.
I had to stop and do some cooking, and then went back to writing after that. I didn’t edit, and my writing speed was a lot faster.
Music:
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to listen to music with lyrics while writing today, although I had listened to music with lyrics while writing yesterday. I started off with the music on, but eventually turned it off so that I could figure out a word I wanted to use.
However, I’m hoping to get some blocking done after this, and I think I’ll put the music on then.
4thewords:
I used a helpful trick from 4thewords while I was writing. I usually don’t care much for the small word count monsters because they tend to have a very short time limit, and especially when I’m blocking, sometimes I’ll go for 10 minutes or more without typing anything.
But when I’m writing prose, using a small word count monster with a short time limit forces me to keep writing and not slow down. It prevented me from staring at the paragraph and taking too long to come up with what to write next. It forced me to just keep going with the next thing that came to mind.
I was still doing a bit of tinkering with sentences, especially if it didn’t say what I meant to convey, so it wasn’t as if I was entirely turning off the internal editor. I don’t know if I could ever really do that, because a messy first draft bothers me too much and gives me too much internal conflict.
But a short time deadline forces me to stop second-guessing myself quite so much, and I write faster than I would have if I’d had a large word count monster with a long time limit.
Self-editing:
I’m torn as to whether I’ll save all the editing for after I finish the book, or if I want to do cycling, which I did before, and edit each scene the day after I finish them.
For my last book, and I think even with Lady Wynwood’s Spies book 3, I had done all the blocking at once, then did all the writing in a large push, so I was aiming for high word counts every day when I was in the writing phase.
But this time, since my mindset is focused on a writing streak, my daily word count is small, and I’m not pushing for large word counts every day. So I have time to jump to doing other things after I finish my writing for the day. I still have to finish blocking the rest of the scenes, so I’ll be focusing on that for a while, but I’m going to try to rush through that because I’ve already spent too much time doing the blocking (basically I was doing a lot of second-guessing and tinkering that wasn’t absolutely necessary).
So I actually do have time to do some self-editing after I finish each scene. Some writers refer to this as “cycling,” where they “cycle” back and edit what they wrote the day before, then start writing for that day’s quota.
However, my writing streak is more important to me than the editing, so I don’t think I want to do the cycling before I do my writing. Instead, I might do the cycling after I finish writing for the day, and before I start on the blocking. I also won’t have cycling to do every day, since some days I won’t have finished a scene yet so there won’t be anything to edit (like today).
I guess I’ll try the cycling and see how that goes. I know from past experience that cycling has helped me get over the wretched hump to do my self-editing, so it’s worth a shot.
Writing a messy rough draft:
I absolutely am NOT writing a messy rough draft, but since I decided to try the cycling, I am considering leaving certain things to do during that second pass. I know that deciding on synonyms will often derail me, so leaving a note for myself to look a word up in the thesaurus might be okay and not cause me to feel like I’m leaving too much work for the cycling pass. After all, I tend to tinker with word choices when I do editing of the paragraphs above where I start writing for the day, so I think it’ll be the same kind of thing.
Sometimes I need to look up something, such as a character’s eye color, and I could probably leave a note for myself for those things, too.
But today during my writing session, I admit I kind of wrote myself in a (small) corner and had to rearrange my house layout a bit to accommodate my mistake. Something like that I couldn’t leave for editing, because the layout of the house would determine what my character is going to do in the next scene. I could leave notes for each instance where I had to come up with something later, but it makes the rough draft too messy for my sensibilities.
So I guess I need to just make a mental list of what I should and shouldn’t leave notes for, and hopefully it’ll help me write a bit faster.
Also, in doing the cycling now, it will save time after I finish the rough draft. Going by the writing time totals for my last 3 books, I know that for every hour I spend writing, I will spend about 20 minutes editing what I wrote. If I can do some of that editing now, while I’m writing, it will save time after the manuscript is done and before I can send it to my proofreader.
Daily writing routine:
So for now, my tentative daily schedule is:
1) Writing prose every day, at least 15 minutes, preferably at least 900 words (900 words a day would enable me to finish the book in 100 days)
2) Cycling, if there is any
3) Blocking
I’m going to do some blocking right now.
***
Blocking:
I got about 2.5 hours of blocking done. I'm not entirely sure if I'm moving quickly or not, but I'm trying to make the decisions I need to make and then moving on. There were several new side characters, and I had to decide on their names now so I don't have to waffle about it later. It also helped that I decided on actor photos for the characters so I can have a better idea of their looks and mannerisms when I write the scene.
I think I kind of like splitting my day into writing and then blocking. I don't feel as tired as I do when I only do writing for long hours.
I also listened to music while blocking, and I think it helped keep me energized while working since I chose a favorite songs playlist.
Breaks:
I still have a problem in taking a long time for my breaks. I find it difficult to get back to work after I've been doing other things. It's a bit easier to get back to work after washing dishes, but I know I tend to really have a hard time getting back to work after eating lunch.
So today I tried something different. I made lunch as something I could snack on while I work. After cooking, I ate at my desk. I tend to like snacking while I write anyway, so in "snacking" on my lunch, it kind of took care of both problems.
It's supposed to be unhealthy to snack while you work, but since I usually take too long of a lunch break and have a hard time making myself get back to work, I think this is preferable to that.
I think I'll continue to try to do something similar for lunch this week.
Blogging:
I spent quite a while blogging today. I have been trying to keep my blogging to a minimum so I don't waste too much time on it, but I'm rather glad I took the time today.
I was able to work through my concerns about my self-editing, and ultimately was able to make a decision to try the cycling again. I also analyzed the things I was looking up when writing my rough draft and came to a decision about what not to look up in future, saving it for the second pass. I think I really need to write this stuff out in order to make decisions, since I tend to be very bad at making decisions quickly.
I worry that I'm trying to change too many things at once, so I hope I remember all these things tomorrow. It's probably a good thing I blogged about it, so that I have it written down somewhere.
***
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours 34 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2592 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 1007 words/hour
Writing streak: 2 days
Editing: Time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 1 minute
My takeaway for today: Try listening to my favorite playlist to maybe give me more energy and also force me to focus more intently.
My second takeaway for today: Since I’m doing a writing streak this time, with smaller word counts per day, try cycling again.
My third takeaway for today: Try making lunch something I can snack on while I work, so I don’t waste time on a lunch break.
I was reading that there is some psychology research that suggests that noise might help writers concentrate better, because you’re forced to have to tune it out.
I will admit that tuning out noise is hard for me, at least for the first few minutes. But after that I usually can tune it out just fine.
But what also got me thinking about it is that I noticed how some songs just really get me excited and energized, and after suffering from so much fatigue lately, I could use some excitement and energy while I'm working.
So I’m going to try an experiment where I listen to my favorite playlist while writing and see how that works. I’m hoping that the music won’t be too distracting or make it hard to concentrate, if I can manage to focus and tune it out. And certain songs might even lift my spirits to make the writing go faster and better. Anyway, I’ll give it a shot and see.
***
Writing streak:
I kept up day 2 of my writing streak! I know the early days will be easier to keep up the streak, but I’ll still celebrate the win.
My minimum requirement for each day is 15 minutes, even if it’s only one word. I figure that’ll make it easier to keep up the streak, and I’m pretty sure I can write more than just one word in 15 minutes.
When I first started writing today, it took me a little while to get into it. I found myself doing some editing of the few paragraphs on my screen that I’d written the day before. It might have gotten me into the groove of writing, or it might have been just a means to procrastinate, I don’t know. I know that my writing speed for the first half hour or so was rather slow.
I had to stop and do some cooking, and then went back to writing after that. I didn’t edit, and my writing speed was a lot faster.
Music:
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to listen to music with lyrics while writing today, although I had listened to music with lyrics while writing yesterday. I started off with the music on, but eventually turned it off so that I could figure out a word I wanted to use.
However, I’m hoping to get some blocking done after this, and I think I’ll put the music on then.
4thewords:
I used a helpful trick from 4thewords while I was writing. I usually don’t care much for the small word count monsters because they tend to have a very short time limit, and especially when I’m blocking, sometimes I’ll go for 10 minutes or more without typing anything.
But when I’m writing prose, using a small word count monster with a short time limit forces me to keep writing and not slow down. It prevented me from staring at the paragraph and taking too long to come up with what to write next. It forced me to just keep going with the next thing that came to mind.
I was still doing a bit of tinkering with sentences, especially if it didn’t say what I meant to convey, so it wasn’t as if I was entirely turning off the internal editor. I don’t know if I could ever really do that, because a messy first draft bothers me too much and gives me too much internal conflict.
But a short time deadline forces me to stop second-guessing myself quite so much, and I write faster than I would have if I’d had a large word count monster with a long time limit.
Self-editing:
I’m torn as to whether I’ll save all the editing for after I finish the book, or if I want to do cycling, which I did before, and edit each scene the day after I finish them.
For my last book, and I think even with Lady Wynwood’s Spies book 3, I had done all the blocking at once, then did all the writing in a large push, so I was aiming for high word counts every day when I was in the writing phase.
But this time, since my mindset is focused on a writing streak, my daily word count is small, and I’m not pushing for large word counts every day. So I have time to jump to doing other things after I finish my writing for the day. I still have to finish blocking the rest of the scenes, so I’ll be focusing on that for a while, but I’m going to try to rush through that because I’ve already spent too much time doing the blocking (basically I was doing a lot of second-guessing and tinkering that wasn’t absolutely necessary).
So I actually do have time to do some self-editing after I finish each scene. Some writers refer to this as “cycling,” where they “cycle” back and edit what they wrote the day before, then start writing for that day’s quota.
However, my writing streak is more important to me than the editing, so I don’t think I want to do the cycling before I do my writing. Instead, I might do the cycling after I finish writing for the day, and before I start on the blocking. I also won’t have cycling to do every day, since some days I won’t have finished a scene yet so there won’t be anything to edit (like today).
I guess I’ll try the cycling and see how that goes. I know from past experience that cycling has helped me get over the wretched hump to do my self-editing, so it’s worth a shot.
Writing a messy rough draft:
I absolutely am NOT writing a messy rough draft, but since I decided to try the cycling, I am considering leaving certain things to do during that second pass. I know that deciding on synonyms will often derail me, so leaving a note for myself to look a word up in the thesaurus might be okay and not cause me to feel like I’m leaving too much work for the cycling pass. After all, I tend to tinker with word choices when I do editing of the paragraphs above where I start writing for the day, so I think it’ll be the same kind of thing.
Sometimes I need to look up something, such as a character’s eye color, and I could probably leave a note for myself for those things, too.
But today during my writing session, I admit I kind of wrote myself in a (small) corner and had to rearrange my house layout a bit to accommodate my mistake. Something like that I couldn’t leave for editing, because the layout of the house would determine what my character is going to do in the next scene. I could leave notes for each instance where I had to come up with something later, but it makes the rough draft too messy for my sensibilities.
So I guess I need to just make a mental list of what I should and shouldn’t leave notes for, and hopefully it’ll help me write a bit faster.
Also, in doing the cycling now, it will save time after I finish the rough draft. Going by the writing time totals for my last 3 books, I know that for every hour I spend writing, I will spend about 20 minutes editing what I wrote. If I can do some of that editing now, while I’m writing, it will save time after the manuscript is done and before I can send it to my proofreader.
Daily writing routine:
So for now, my tentative daily schedule is:
1) Writing prose every day, at least 15 minutes, preferably at least 900 words (900 words a day would enable me to finish the book in 100 days)
2) Cycling, if there is any
3) Blocking
I’m going to do some blocking right now.
***
Blocking:
I got about 2.5 hours of blocking done. I'm not entirely sure if I'm moving quickly or not, but I'm trying to make the decisions I need to make and then moving on. There were several new side characters, and I had to decide on their names now so I don't have to waffle about it later. It also helped that I decided on actor photos for the characters so I can have a better idea of their looks and mannerisms when I write the scene.
I think I kind of like splitting my day into writing and then blocking. I don't feel as tired as I do when I only do writing for long hours.
I also listened to music while blocking, and I think it helped keep me energized while working since I chose a favorite songs playlist.
Breaks:
I still have a problem in taking a long time for my breaks. I find it difficult to get back to work after I've been doing other things. It's a bit easier to get back to work after washing dishes, but I know I tend to really have a hard time getting back to work after eating lunch.
So today I tried something different. I made lunch as something I could snack on while I work. After cooking, I ate at my desk. I tend to like snacking while I write anyway, so in "snacking" on my lunch, it kind of took care of both problems.
It's supposed to be unhealthy to snack while you work, but since I usually take too long of a lunch break and have a hard time making myself get back to work, I think this is preferable to that.
I think I'll continue to try to do something similar for lunch this week.
Blogging:
I spent quite a while blogging today. I have been trying to keep my blogging to a minimum so I don't waste too much time on it, but I'm rather glad I took the time today.
I was able to work through my concerns about my self-editing, and ultimately was able to make a decision to try the cycling again. I also analyzed the things I was looking up when writing my rough draft and came to a decision about what not to look up in future, saving it for the second pass. I think I really need to write this stuff out in order to make decisions, since I tend to be very bad at making decisions quickly.
I worry that I'm trying to change too many things at once, so I hope I remember all these things tomorrow. It's probably a good thing I blogged about it, so that I have it written down somewhere.
***
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours 34 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2592 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 1007 words/hour
Writing streak: 2 days
Editing: Time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 1 minute
My takeaway for today: Try listening to my favorite playlist to maybe give me more energy and also force me to focus more intently.
My second takeaway for today: Since I’m doing a writing streak this time, with smaller word counts per day, try cycling again.
My third takeaway for today: Try making lunch something I can snack on while I work, so I don’t waste time on a lunch break.
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