Day 494: Alphasmart success! Felled by fatigue.
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 same book. Yesterday I almost wrote about a character who hadn’t even appeared yet in the story. So I’m planning to only write for one sprint each day, and then rush to finish the series blocking all at once.
Once the blocking is done for the series, then my daily writing schedule will adjust to increase the amount of time I spend writing. I can write for a couple hours on the book, and then do outlining for a different series, my Hawaii romantic suspense, which are different characters and time period. That way I won’t get confused while writing.
This will probably increase the time it takes me to write this book, but I will be able to write the other books in the series much faster.
Alphasmart
It occurred to me that I could possibly write on my Alphasmart, which is similar to the Freewrite in that I only see a few lines and it forces me to just keep going when I’m writing. But the difference with the Alphasmart is that it’s easier to back up to make corrections if I want.
However, that function would also enable me to edit on the Alphasmart itself, before I transfer it to Scrivener. So that might be an option to help me to write continuously and not stop. I think I’ll try that today.
What I hope to do about my procrastination
Yesterday, I procrastinated at LOT. I eventually managed to do both my Japanese study and email/social media checking, but it was very late in the evening. I was really flagging in terms of energy and I actually cut short my Japanese study. I hope I can get those done earlier today.
I’m still not entirely sure WHY I procrastinated, and I did a very poor job of trying to do things to make myself get back to work. I was easily distracted by things that were important but not urgent.
Today, I will try to be more conscious of my increased tendency to procrastinate and be easily distracted. I’ll write down those important but not urgent things in my bullet journal to take care of after my work.
I will also try not to take too many breaks where I can be easily distracted by those non urgent things. It’s not good for my back to sit for longer than an hour, so when I do the blocking, I’ll work for 55-minute sprints and get up only to stretch and go to the bathroom. If I can do 2 hours, then break for lunch, and then another 2 hours after lunch, that might work. (I just hope I don’t take too long of a lunch break.)
I also decided to do a combination of aromatherapy and also CBD to help me feel calmer. If I’m in a more mellow frame of mind, I think I’ll be less likely to be distracted by non-urgent tasks that need to be done.
I honestly can’t think about what else I can do to combat my procrastination, but I’ll try this and see. I’m also still reading a few writing books that I borrowed from the library, so maybe those will have ideas that I can use.
***
Evaluation of writing on the Alphasmart
I had forgotten that I take at least 5-7 minutes before I start writing in order to read my blocking notes and re-read the last few paragraphs I wrote the day before. This may be why my first writing sprints for the past few days have always been slower than my later ones.
However, even with those 5 minutes, I still managed to write much faster on my Alphasmart than on my Freewrite or on my computer, about 791 words total, at a speed of 1760 words per hour!
I’m not entirely sure why my speed was so much faster today. It could have been simply because of the part of the scene where it was. Or it could be that I was at my sitting desk rather than at my standing desk, which is where I had written yesterday. Or it could be because of the Freewrite—with my Alphasmart, I don’t have to wait for the time lag between when I type and when the words appear on the screen, and perhaps that affects the way my brain works when I’m writing. Or maybe it’s because I have a bit more energy today than I did yesterday.
With all those factors, I think I’ll try writing at my standing desk tomorrow with my Alphasmart and see how that goes.
Also, I couldn’t edit on Alphasmart because i had to rearrange a section written earlier. If I’d only had to look up research points or change word choices, I could probably have done those things on the Alphasmart since it’s much easier to move around in the file with the Alphasmart’s arrow keys. (Theoretically I can move around on the Freewrite, too, but you need two hands to move the arrow keys and I’ve been having difficulty getting used to it.)
So I had to pause to download the text into Scrivener, but I tried to be conscious of my tendency to be distracted, and so I went straight into editing as soon as the file was transferred. Also (and this might be my imagination) but the aromatherapy and CBD might have also kept me calm enough to not be so easily distracted by worries about things I need to do.
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll again try to edit on the Alphasmart. If there are things I will need to do on my computer, I could leave that for after I transfer the file.
Also, if I had edited the piece in my Freewrite, I might not have avoided self-editing yesterday. So, another day, it might also be worth it to try writing at my sitting desk with my Freewrite and to try editing in the Freewrite.
Blocking problem and MRUs
I remember I had difficulty blocking this scene, and so the emotions and flow of the conversation wasn’t very smooth. This was why I had to rearrange the writing I did yesterday—I had a character suddenly feel an emotional reaction, but there was no trigger for it, he just spontaneously started thinking and feeling a strong emotion. It wasn’t very believable as I’d written it.
Also, if I’d more carefully read my blocking notes before writing yesterday, I might have caught the problem before I wrote the dialogue. But then again, I might not have caught it, either.
But doing that kind of rearranging always takes me a long time, and so the editing today was longer than the sprint! I was hoping to only take 30 minutes for the editing, at most, but it ended up being over an hour. The scene is better arranged now, but that still took a long time. I really need to be more careful about when I’m blocking scenes, and try to keep MRUs more in mind.
***
When procrastinating is not necessarily not writing
I had health problems (so what else is new?). After finishing the editing, I took a short break and was going to get back to work when I had some IBS discomfort. So I took a little more time to take some drugs and rest a bit.
I’m still reading Scrappy Rough Draft, and one thing she mentioned is that procrastinating is not necessarily not writing. Every writer knows that the act of writing the story isn’t only when you actually go through the act of putting words down. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the imagination during all the other hours during the day. Not constantly, but at certain times.
The author talks about how a book is also thinking, reading, and researching. Obviously you don’t want a disproportionate amount of time spent not putting words down—she mentions thinking about what you can give up in your day and in your life in order to get your writing done, and she has and exercise where you visualize what your ideal schedule could be if you were a disciplined writer, all still within the context of your real-life commitments.
But she also talks about how you can take a few minutes at various times during your day and do something in relation to your book—not necessarily writing, but something else. I can see how you could use small pockets of time to read an article or a few pages of a book you need for research for your novel, or take a pad of paper and pencil and brainstorm a particular issue with your current scene. Just thinking about your book will keep it top-of-mind and perhaps allow your subconscious to work through the plot of characters, especially if you’ve come across a problem (I actually remember reading that in Deep Work).
So was I actually writing while I was not writing? I don’t know. I kind of doubt it. But the act of resting was probably best for my IBS.
The problem is that the break took away my work momentum, and it was hard to get back to work. I should have tried to find some sort of food I could eat at my desk rather than taking a break for lunch, but I had already taken a break to take care of my IBS, so I just automatically went to make myself lunch.
I want to beat myself up for not getting work done, but I’m not sure I could have done work with my IBS the way it was feeling, and I ended up needing to take a little more drugs than normal to combat the pain. The drugs seem to be kicking in now and I’m feeling better. But I still feel disappointed in myself, that I couldn’t get some work done earlier when the pain wasn’t quite so bad.
Well, at least I’m not procrastinating for the same reason as yesterday! That means I’m not making the exact same mistakes again today, right?
***
Fatigue
I managed to get some blocking done, but not as much as I wanted to. I’m pretty tired and not able to focus very well. I’m really not sure why except that maybe when I had to rest because of my IBS, that sapped my energy. Oh, and I had forgotten that I didn’t get enough sleep last night. But I still think I should have been able to squeeze out another couple hours of blocking! I’m pretty frustrated right now.
I did the minimum for my Japanese study and in checking email/social media.
Tomorrow
I had forgotten tomorrow is Sunday. I will do at least one writing sprint so that I can keep up my writing streak, and similarly I will also check email to keep up that streak, but I may hold off on more blocking since I’d like to keep the day as a work sabbath.
I am hopeful that I’ll feel better soon. I’m pretty sure I know what I ate that caused the current flare-up, and once that passes, I think I’ll have more energy.
***
Writing: Time spent: 27 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 791 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 1760 words/hour
Writing streak: 7 days
Editing: Time spent: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Email/Social Media streak: 5 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 33 minutes
My takeaway for today: The aromatherapy and CBD might have also kept me calm enough to not be so easily distracted by worries about things I need to do.
My second takeaway for today: Try writing at my standing desk tomorrow with my Alphasmart to see if that had an impact on my productivity and writing speed yesterday.
My third takeaway for today: Try editing at my Alphasmart as much as possible, leaving anything that needs to be done of the computer for after you transfer the file.
My fourth takeaway for today: Some other day, try writing at my sitting desk with my Freewrite and try editing in the Freewrite.
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 same book. Yesterday I almost wrote about a character who hadn’t even appeared yet in the story. So I’m planning to only write for one sprint each day, and then rush to finish the series blocking all at once.
Once the blocking is done for the series, then my daily writing schedule will adjust to increase the amount of time I spend writing. I can write for a couple hours on the book, and then do outlining for a different series, my Hawaii romantic suspense, which are different characters and time period. That way I won’t get confused while writing.
This will probably increase the time it takes me to write this book, but I will be able to write the other books in the series much faster.
Alphasmart
It occurred to me that I could possibly write on my Alphasmart, which is similar to the Freewrite in that I only see a few lines and it forces me to just keep going when I’m writing. But the difference with the Alphasmart is that it’s easier to back up to make corrections if I want.
However, that function would also enable me to edit on the Alphasmart itself, before I transfer it to Scrivener. So that might be an option to help me to write continuously and not stop. I think I’ll try that today.
What I hope to do about my procrastination
Yesterday, I procrastinated at LOT. I eventually managed to do both my Japanese study and email/social media checking, but it was very late in the evening. I was really flagging in terms of energy and I actually cut short my Japanese study. I hope I can get those done earlier today.
I’m still not entirely sure WHY I procrastinated, and I did a very poor job of trying to do things to make myself get back to work. I was easily distracted by things that were important but not urgent.
Today, I will try to be more conscious of my increased tendency to procrastinate and be easily distracted. I’ll write down those important but not urgent things in my bullet journal to take care of after my work.
I will also try not to take too many breaks where I can be easily distracted by those non urgent things. It’s not good for my back to sit for longer than an hour, so when I do the blocking, I’ll work for 55-minute sprints and get up only to stretch and go to the bathroom. If I can do 2 hours, then break for lunch, and then another 2 hours after lunch, that might work. (I just hope I don’t take too long of a lunch break.)
I also decided to do a combination of aromatherapy and also CBD to help me feel calmer. If I’m in a more mellow frame of mind, I think I’ll be less likely to be distracted by non-urgent tasks that need to be done.
I honestly can’t think about what else I can do to combat my procrastination, but I’ll try this and see. I’m also still reading a few writing books that I borrowed from the library, so maybe those will have ideas that I can use.
***
Evaluation of writing on the Alphasmart
I had forgotten that I take at least 5-7 minutes before I start writing in order to read my blocking notes and re-read the last few paragraphs I wrote the day before. This may be why my first writing sprints for the past few days have always been slower than my later ones.
However, even with those 5 minutes, I still managed to write much faster on my Alphasmart than on my Freewrite or on my computer, about 791 words total, at a speed of 1760 words per hour!
I’m not entirely sure why my speed was so much faster today. It could have been simply because of the part of the scene where it was. Or it could be that I was at my sitting desk rather than at my standing desk, which is where I had written yesterday. Or it could be because of the Freewrite—with my Alphasmart, I don’t have to wait for the time lag between when I type and when the words appear on the screen, and perhaps that affects the way my brain works when I’m writing. Or maybe it’s because I have a bit more energy today than I did yesterday.
With all those factors, I think I’ll try writing at my standing desk tomorrow with my Alphasmart and see how that goes.
Also, I couldn’t edit on Alphasmart because i had to rearrange a section written earlier. If I’d only had to look up research points or change word choices, I could probably have done those things on the Alphasmart since it’s much easier to move around in the file with the Alphasmart’s arrow keys. (Theoretically I can move around on the Freewrite, too, but you need two hands to move the arrow keys and I’ve been having difficulty getting used to it.)
So I had to pause to download the text into Scrivener, but I tried to be conscious of my tendency to be distracted, and so I went straight into editing as soon as the file was transferred. Also (and this might be my imagination) but the aromatherapy and CBD might have also kept me calm enough to not be so easily distracted by worries about things I need to do.
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll again try to edit on the Alphasmart. If there are things I will need to do on my computer, I could leave that for after I transfer the file.
Also, if I had edited the piece in my Freewrite, I might not have avoided self-editing yesterday. So, another day, it might also be worth it to try writing at my sitting desk with my Freewrite and to try editing in the Freewrite.
Blocking problem and MRUs
I remember I had difficulty blocking this scene, and so the emotions and flow of the conversation wasn’t very smooth. This was why I had to rearrange the writing I did yesterday—I had a character suddenly feel an emotional reaction, but there was no trigger for it, he just spontaneously started thinking and feeling a strong emotion. It wasn’t very believable as I’d written it.
Also, if I’d more carefully read my blocking notes before writing yesterday, I might have caught the problem before I wrote the dialogue. But then again, I might not have caught it, either.
But doing that kind of rearranging always takes me a long time, and so the editing today was longer than the sprint! I was hoping to only take 30 minutes for the editing, at most, but it ended up being over an hour. The scene is better arranged now, but that still took a long time. I really need to be more careful about when I’m blocking scenes, and try to keep MRUs more in mind.
***
When procrastinating is not necessarily not writing
I had health problems (so what else is new?). After finishing the editing, I took a short break and was going to get back to work when I had some IBS discomfort. So I took a little more time to take some drugs and rest a bit.
I’m still reading Scrappy Rough Draft, and one thing she mentioned is that procrastinating is not necessarily not writing. Every writer knows that the act of writing the story isn’t only when you actually go through the act of putting words down. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the imagination during all the other hours during the day. Not constantly, but at certain times.
The author talks about how a book is also thinking, reading, and researching. Obviously you don’t want a disproportionate amount of time spent not putting words down—she mentions thinking about what you can give up in your day and in your life in order to get your writing done, and she has and exercise where you visualize what your ideal schedule could be if you were a disciplined writer, all still within the context of your real-life commitments.
But she also talks about how you can take a few minutes at various times during your day and do something in relation to your book—not necessarily writing, but something else. I can see how you could use small pockets of time to read an article or a few pages of a book you need for research for your novel, or take a pad of paper and pencil and brainstorm a particular issue with your current scene. Just thinking about your book will keep it top-of-mind and perhaps allow your subconscious to work through the plot of characters, especially if you’ve come across a problem (I actually remember reading that in Deep Work).
So was I actually writing while I was not writing? I don’t know. I kind of doubt it. But the act of resting was probably best for my IBS.
The problem is that the break took away my work momentum, and it was hard to get back to work. I should have tried to find some sort of food I could eat at my desk rather than taking a break for lunch, but I had already taken a break to take care of my IBS, so I just automatically went to make myself lunch.
I want to beat myself up for not getting work done, but I’m not sure I could have done work with my IBS the way it was feeling, and I ended up needing to take a little more drugs than normal to combat the pain. The drugs seem to be kicking in now and I’m feeling better. But I still feel disappointed in myself, that I couldn’t get some work done earlier when the pain wasn’t quite so bad.
Well, at least I’m not procrastinating for the same reason as yesterday! That means I’m not making the exact same mistakes again today, right?
***
Fatigue
I managed to get some blocking done, but not as much as I wanted to. I’m pretty tired and not able to focus very well. I’m really not sure why except that maybe when I had to rest because of my IBS, that sapped my energy. Oh, and I had forgotten that I didn’t get enough sleep last night. But I still think I should have been able to squeeze out another couple hours of blocking! I’m pretty frustrated right now.
I did the minimum for my Japanese study and in checking email/social media.
Tomorrow
I had forgotten tomorrow is Sunday. I will do at least one writing sprint so that I can keep up my writing streak, and similarly I will also check email to keep up that streak, but I may hold off on more blocking since I’d like to keep the day as a work sabbath.
I am hopeful that I’ll feel better soon. I’m pretty sure I know what I ate that caused the current flare-up, and once that passes, I think I’ll have more energy.
***
Writing: Time spent: 27 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 791 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 1760 words/hour
Writing streak: 7 days
Editing: Time spent: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Email/Social Media streak: 5 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 33 minutes
My takeaway for today: The aromatherapy and CBD might have also kept me calm enough to not be so easily distracted by worries about things I need to do.
My second takeaway for today: Try writing at my standing desk tomorrow with my Alphasmart to see if that had an impact on my productivity and writing speed yesterday.
My third takeaway for today: Try editing at my Alphasmart as much as possible, leaving anything that needs to be done of the computer for after you transfer the file.
My fourth takeaway for today: Some other day, try writing at my sitting desk with my Freewrite and try editing in the Freewrite.
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