Day 565: Changes to writing and time tracking
Need to do more exercise to improve energy levels
I’ve been slowly feeling better, but still not enough to get 5 hours of work a day (the other 3 hours, I do my Japanese study and reading to make a full 8 hour workday). There were a few days I worked more than one hour, but most days I’m working only the bare minimum.
I’m feeling a bit disappointed in myself that I can’t get more done, but lately I just haven’t had the energy to try to push myself when I’m feeling like fly-meets-windshield. I think it’s because I’ve been lazy about exercising—if I feel a bit uncomfortable, I just don’t go exercise. For a while I wasn’t able to exercise at all because my IBS was so bad, but now that it’s getting better, I can go out walking without discomfort, so I should just do it, as Nike would say.
Keeping up my writing streak has improved my productivity
I’ve still kept up my writing streak and made sure to do at least the bare minimum of 100 words every day. I’m actually really grateful I pushed myself to do it even when I wasn’t feeling well, because when I do feel better, I can just jump straight into writing and I don’t have to read the scene and my blocking notes to remember where I am. I think I’m a lot more productive on those days when I feel better.
Ignoring writing speed
I’m still in the process of figuring out how NOT to care so much about my writing speed. I think that writing more slowly and cleanly has helped me to do a better job self-editing, but it’s hard to remember that when I’m writing less than 1000 words an hour.
Still, if that’s the writing speed I need to have, that’s the writing speed I need to have. Someone who’s much better than me at self-editing can write as fast and messy as they want and still do a great job self-editing the mess, but I know myself by now that I simply can’t do that.
In fact, I decided today that I’m going to delete the column on my writing time log that calculates writing speed. I’m only going to show the number of words and amount of time it took. That way, maybe I won’t fixate so much on how fast or slow I’m writing. I thought about simply hiding the column, but I might still fixate on it and unhide it because I want to know, so I decided to simply delete the column entirely. I can always create it again.
I think that if I delete my words/hour column in my writing time log, it will force me to instead look more at the number of words I write each day and the amount of time I spend, and that might induce me to push myself to write more words or write for a longer period of time. And neither of those would be bad.
Leaving notes during writing
Lately, I’ve been leaving notes for myself when I need to research something, but I’m considering just looking things up when I write. That way, when I self-edit later, I won’t be distracted by the notes and looking things up, and instead I’ll be able to focus on the prose, making it clear and visceral and strong.
Just today, I was self-editing the words I wrote yesterday, and since I didn’t have any notes to myself, I didn’t need to spend any time looking things up. However, I found myself being able to rearrange the sentences a bit to make things clearer and to adjust the pacing so that it flowed more smoothly. This made me think that my suspicions were correct, and having really clean prose helps me make the most of my poor self-editing skills.
A cleaner rough draft and better self-editing will ensure the final product is the best I can make it, and that’s what I should focus on. I shouldn’t ignore the quality of my writing just because I want to get books out faster.
So today I think I will look things up rather than just leaving notes for myself, and see how the self-editing goes tomorrow.
***
Editing: Time spent: 8 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 38 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 463 words
Writing streak: 44 days
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 46 minutes
Blocking streak: 38 days
My takeaway for today: I need to exercise to improve my energy levels.
My second takeaway for today: A cleaner rough draft and better self-editing will ensure the final product is the best I can make it, and that’s what I should focus on. I shouldn’t ignore the quality of my writing just because I want to get books out faster.
I’ve been slowly feeling better, but still not enough to get 5 hours of work a day (the other 3 hours, I do my Japanese study and reading to make a full 8 hour workday). There were a few days I worked more than one hour, but most days I’m working only the bare minimum.
I’m feeling a bit disappointed in myself that I can’t get more done, but lately I just haven’t had the energy to try to push myself when I’m feeling like fly-meets-windshield. I think it’s because I’ve been lazy about exercising—if I feel a bit uncomfortable, I just don’t go exercise. For a while I wasn’t able to exercise at all because my IBS was so bad, but now that it’s getting better, I can go out walking without discomfort, so I should just do it, as Nike would say.
Keeping up my writing streak has improved my productivity
I’ve still kept up my writing streak and made sure to do at least the bare minimum of 100 words every day. I’m actually really grateful I pushed myself to do it even when I wasn’t feeling well, because when I do feel better, I can just jump straight into writing and I don’t have to read the scene and my blocking notes to remember where I am. I think I’m a lot more productive on those days when I feel better.
Ignoring writing speed
I’m still in the process of figuring out how NOT to care so much about my writing speed. I think that writing more slowly and cleanly has helped me to do a better job self-editing, but it’s hard to remember that when I’m writing less than 1000 words an hour.
Still, if that’s the writing speed I need to have, that’s the writing speed I need to have. Someone who’s much better than me at self-editing can write as fast and messy as they want and still do a great job self-editing the mess, but I know myself by now that I simply can’t do that.
In fact, I decided today that I’m going to delete the column on my writing time log that calculates writing speed. I’m only going to show the number of words and amount of time it took. That way, maybe I won’t fixate so much on how fast or slow I’m writing. I thought about simply hiding the column, but I might still fixate on it and unhide it because I want to know, so I decided to simply delete the column entirely. I can always create it again.
I think that if I delete my words/hour column in my writing time log, it will force me to instead look more at the number of words I write each day and the amount of time I spend, and that might induce me to push myself to write more words or write for a longer period of time. And neither of those would be bad.
Leaving notes during writing
Lately, I’ve been leaving notes for myself when I need to research something, but I’m considering just looking things up when I write. That way, when I self-edit later, I won’t be distracted by the notes and looking things up, and instead I’ll be able to focus on the prose, making it clear and visceral and strong.
Just today, I was self-editing the words I wrote yesterday, and since I didn’t have any notes to myself, I didn’t need to spend any time looking things up. However, I found myself being able to rearrange the sentences a bit to make things clearer and to adjust the pacing so that it flowed more smoothly. This made me think that my suspicions were correct, and having really clean prose helps me make the most of my poor self-editing skills.
A cleaner rough draft and better self-editing will ensure the final product is the best I can make it, and that’s what I should focus on. I shouldn’t ignore the quality of my writing just because I want to get books out faster.
So today I think I will look things up rather than just leaving notes for myself, and see how the self-editing goes tomorrow.
***
Editing: Time spent: 8 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 38 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 463 words
Writing streak: 44 days
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 46 minutes
Blocking streak: 38 days
My takeaway for today: I need to exercise to improve my energy levels.
My second takeaway for today: A cleaner rough draft and better self-editing will ensure the final product is the best I can make it, and that’s what I should focus on. I shouldn’t ignore the quality of my writing just because I want to get books out faster.
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