Day 614: Writing prose takes more energy and brainpower
A few days ago, I changed up my writing routine a little (on days when I’m feeling well—when I’m not, I only do bare minimum on writing and blocking). Before, I had been writing only about 100 words in my manuscript each day and then spending more time on blocking. But a few days ago, I decided to increase my writing to 500 words so that I could release books faster.
So far it’s been doing well. In 4thewords, I do several 100 word monsters each with a 10 minute time limit. The short time limit for each monster forces me to keep writing so that I’m not tempted to just sit and stare at the screen, or to revise each sentence too much. I get each sentence to a good place where I’m reasonably satisfied with how it reads, and then I’m forced to move on since the time is counting down. 100 words is actually not a lot to write in 10 minutes, so it’s not a very stressful time limit.
My only concern is that it takes me anywhere from 30-60 (or more) minutes each day, and I’ve been finding that when I finish writing and then move to the blocking, my brain is already a bit tired. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but maybe (for me, at least) writing prose requires more brainpower and energy than blocking and outlining. This might explain why I spend so much time doing extensive blocking and outlining—so that the writing is a little easier by the time I do it, since it already takes more energy out of me than other writing tasks.
I think I’ll continue with the 500 word goal, though. I’m feeling better every day and hopefully soon my IBS flare-up will be over. I know from the past that I’ll have much more energy and will be able to work longer hours each day, so even if I spend an hour writing those 500 words, I’ll have more energy for several hours of blocking after that.
Today, those 500 words were especially hard. I got a late start to work because I had a bunch of cooking prep that needed to be done today before I started work. Then I spent a lot of time just staring at the computer because I was starting a new scene and didn’t know how to begin it. I actually had to spend some time doing blocking for the scene so I would know what direction I wanted it to go, so some of the blocking time recorded below is from blocking book 4, while some of the blocking time is for book 5.
Tomorrow I’ll only do the bare minimum of writing (100 words or 5 minutes) since it will be Sunday. I actually struggled over this for a while, because I want to keep a Sabbath day of rest, but I also don’t want to break my streak. In the end, I remembered that the disciples harvested grain to eat lunch, so I think Jesus would understand how my writing streak is important for my productivity.
Editing: Time spent: 6 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 46 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 674 words
Writing streak: 93 days
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 7 minutes
Blocking streak: 87 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 20 minutes
My takeaway for today: I need to be careful to manage my energy since writing prose takes more energy than blocking.
So far it’s been doing well. In 4thewords, I do several 100 word monsters each with a 10 minute time limit. The short time limit for each monster forces me to keep writing so that I’m not tempted to just sit and stare at the screen, or to revise each sentence too much. I get each sentence to a good place where I’m reasonably satisfied with how it reads, and then I’m forced to move on since the time is counting down. 100 words is actually not a lot to write in 10 minutes, so it’s not a very stressful time limit.
My only concern is that it takes me anywhere from 30-60 (or more) minutes each day, and I’ve been finding that when I finish writing and then move to the blocking, my brain is already a bit tired. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but maybe (for me, at least) writing prose requires more brainpower and energy than blocking and outlining. This might explain why I spend so much time doing extensive blocking and outlining—so that the writing is a little easier by the time I do it, since it already takes more energy out of me than other writing tasks.
I think I’ll continue with the 500 word goal, though. I’m feeling better every day and hopefully soon my IBS flare-up will be over. I know from the past that I’ll have much more energy and will be able to work longer hours each day, so even if I spend an hour writing those 500 words, I’ll have more energy for several hours of blocking after that.
Today, those 500 words were especially hard. I got a late start to work because I had a bunch of cooking prep that needed to be done today before I started work. Then I spent a lot of time just staring at the computer because I was starting a new scene and didn’t know how to begin it. I actually had to spend some time doing blocking for the scene so I would know what direction I wanted it to go, so some of the blocking time recorded below is from blocking book 4, while some of the blocking time is for book 5.
Tomorrow I’ll only do the bare minimum of writing (100 words or 5 minutes) since it will be Sunday. I actually struggled over this for a while, because I want to keep a Sabbath day of rest, but I also don’t want to break my streak. In the end, I remembered that the disciples harvested grain to eat lunch, so I think Jesus would understand how my writing streak is important for my productivity.
Editing: Time spent: 6 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 46 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 674 words
Writing streak: 93 days
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 7 minutes
Blocking streak: 87 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 20 minutes
My takeaway for today: I need to be careful to manage my energy since writing prose takes more energy than blocking.
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