Day 828: Dictation, day 32 - Morning writing: FAIL
I had bad IBS yesterday, and I woke up a little late. I had wanted to do dictation earlier in the morning, but because the IBS was really bad, I decided to do other things instead. What I should've done was get some marketing done, but instead I ended up doing house chores.
I was trying to do the dictation in the backyard yesterday, since I had been distracted by cars and pedestrians when I went walking, plus I’m getting a bit of plantar fasciitis from walking too much and wanted to rest my foot.
Unfortunately, it was really difficult for me to simply get started on the dictation. I putzed around and got distracted by various house chores. I must have wasted at least 45 minutes.
And then once I finally did get started on writing, the dictation was absolutely terrible. It was a combination of factors, but the biggest one was probably because I got called away right after I did my dictation exercises to do some house chores, so there was a break before I started dictating my Regency novel. And I think I could really tell that I’d gotten “cold” because the dictation was almost as bad as the first day of dictation, lots of silence and I had a hard time figuring out what to say next.
But there is also a heat wave this week and the temperatures were soaring yesterday (and still are, today). I drank lots of iced water and even had my feet in a tub with water cooled by a frozen water bottle, so I didn’t feel as hot and uncomfortable as I could have. But it was still really unpleasant. The heat was the reason I’d wanted to do my dictation earlier in the morning, if my IBS hadn’t prevented that. So I only dictated my book for 1 hour and went inside.
I was going to do the cleanup editing after the transcription, but maybe because the heat was making me tired, or maybe I was just plain lazy, but I ended up reading the rest of the afternoon and evening and not getting any work done.
So yesterday was a combination of health issues and regular procrastination.
I think I know why I procrastinated starting my dictation. When I go out walking, it’s like my brain instantly goes into dictation mode since I’ve been doing this for about 30 days now (on and off). Plus, I can’t do anything else when I’m walking.
But I have no such trigger when I simply go out into the backyard. So I wasn’t in the “dictation mindset.” I realized I need to train my brain to go into dictation mode when I go into the back yard, too.
***
Today, I got up early this morning. However, I noticed that I do tend to move a little bit more slowly in the morning, so I don’t immediately get started on what I need to do.
I nearly did not do my dictation this morning because I had IBS issues. It's always so tempting for me just to throw in the towel on the entire day when I'm not feeling well.
However, I read my Bible this morning and prayed a bit, and somehow got the energy and motivation to just push through the pain and discomfort in order to do a bit of dictation in the morning. It's very frustrating because I think that my mind is fresher in the morning, but my intestinal tract tends to have issues in the morning. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
I'm still doing my experiments to see if my dictation is better in the morning when my mind is freshest. At the very least, since it's been a very hot summer, doing dictation the morning is a bit more comfortable than doing dictation in the afternoon when it's hotter. And I know from yesterday that the temperature makes a huge difference in terms of my productivity. I hope to get more work done today, especially once my IBS calms down.
I again decided to do the dictation in the backyard, but since I had procrastinated starting work yesterday, I was very focused today and tried to just get everything together and go out to the backyard to write. It helped that I was starting work much earlier than yesterday, so the temperature was a lot cooler.
I took a little extra medication and the IBS calmed down a bit, but the IBS was still bothering me off and on.
I'm going to continue to do my dictation exercises before starting work on the Regency novel, although I did consider that should make more of an effort to cut them short. I don't want to spend half an hour doing dictation exercises if I only need 15 minutes to warm up to get started with the dictation. I think I'll have to experiment with the amount of time I spend on dictation exercises in order to see what is the bare minimum I need in order to feel comfortable with dictation. I don't want to make myself think that I need a long time of dictation exercises before I can start work on my writing. I don't want to get into the habit of thinking that it has to be that way, when I know that it's possible to simply sit down and write for 15 minutes without this type of warm-up. Maybe once I get more used to dictation, I won't need this kind of warm-up it all.
***
I got two hours and 20 minutes of dictation done in the backyard, and it wasn’t too bad. I could tell that I had a lot of silence as I thought about what to say next, but I was focusing a lot on trying to think in longer phrases, and I think I managed to do that more. My dictation speed was 2700 words per hour, which is slower than what I’ve been capable of before. However, I still managed to dictate over 6000 words, which was my daily goal.
It felt really good to have done my dictation all before lunch. However, after lunch, I really had to battle procrastination to do my cleanup editing. Why am I like this???
This is really becoming a problem. The only way I know how to deal with myself when I procrastinate like this is to do the work first thing in the morning, before I do any of my other “frogs.” It always seems easier to start work when it’s the first thing I do.
But I’ve been trying to do my dictation first thing, to compare how my writing is when I do it before lunch versus after lunch.
However, my procrastination is becoming more of an issue. I wish I were like normal writers who didn’t have these kinds of issues with editing!
I might need to scrap this experiment in order to do my editing first thing in the morning, just to make sure it gets done and I don’t procrastinate.
Also, I haven’t seen a HUGE difference in my dictation words per hour speed for the few times I’ve dictated in the morning. I think if I were going to see any difference, I’d see at least something, but so far, my morning speed is actually about the same or a little bit slower than my afternoon speed.
I’m also a bit concerned because even though I have done dictation in the morning, every single time I was also battling some discomfort from my IBS. So far, I simply haven’t had a morning where my IBS hasn’t bothered me. And in fact yesterday, the IBS was bad enough that I couldn’t dictate as early as I wanted to. The slower speed of my dictation may be because I was also distracted by the pain of my IBS.
The easiest thing to do would be to simply stop trying to dictate in the morning and accommodate my IBS. A part of me feels like I would be losing if I gave in, but at the same time, I want to be as efficient and productive as possible. If that means writing in the afternoon when my IBS is not bothering me, then maybe I need to do that rather than trying to work during a time when my IBS usually bothers me. I can hope that my IBS will get better and I will be able to write in the morning consistently, but right now, that’s not happening.
Anyway, I battled the procrastination but didn’t really overcome it. I did a small amount of cleanup editing, but didn’t complete the cleanup for my dictation from yesterday (9/6), and I didn’t do the cleanup for today’s dictation at all.
So I am essentially throwing in the towel in terms of writing in the morning.
Tomorrow, I have a doctor’s appointment and also a lot of house chores, so I’ll spend an hour or two working on my Hawaii serial novel instead of the Regency, and then the rest of the time doing marketing work. I have a lot of marketing to do, especially if I end up releasing book 4 next month, which I am hopeful I’ll be able to do. I’ve been complaining about my dictation speed, but the reality is that I’m already at 48,000 words in book 5, and I had been planning to release book 4 once book 5 is nearly done. It’s entirely possible that I might finish book 5 within the next two weeks, and I set a personal deadline of September 14th. If I can get to the 75% mark on book 5 by then, I’ll start work to release book 4 in October, with plans to release book 5 in November.
I’ll do the cleanup editing first thing on Friday. I feel like I’m wimping out, but I know that I’m less likely to procrastinate if I do the editing first thing.
Writing streak: 305 days
My takeaway for today: Go back to doing the writing in the afternoon because (a) the IBS has been preventing me from doing the writing in the morning without discomfort and pain, and (b) doing the cleanup editing first thing is the only way I know how to prevent procrastination.
My battle report is a lot of words, but that includes my dictation from both yesterday and today, and includes the words from my dictation exercises.
I was trying to do the dictation in the backyard yesterday, since I had been distracted by cars and pedestrians when I went walking, plus I’m getting a bit of plantar fasciitis from walking too much and wanted to rest my foot.
Unfortunately, it was really difficult for me to simply get started on the dictation. I putzed around and got distracted by various house chores. I must have wasted at least 45 minutes.
And then once I finally did get started on writing, the dictation was absolutely terrible. It was a combination of factors, but the biggest one was probably because I got called away right after I did my dictation exercises to do some house chores, so there was a break before I started dictating my Regency novel. And I think I could really tell that I’d gotten “cold” because the dictation was almost as bad as the first day of dictation, lots of silence and I had a hard time figuring out what to say next.
But there is also a heat wave this week and the temperatures were soaring yesterday (and still are, today). I drank lots of iced water and even had my feet in a tub with water cooled by a frozen water bottle, so I didn’t feel as hot and uncomfortable as I could have. But it was still really unpleasant. The heat was the reason I’d wanted to do my dictation earlier in the morning, if my IBS hadn’t prevented that. So I only dictated my book for 1 hour and went inside.
I was going to do the cleanup editing after the transcription, but maybe because the heat was making me tired, or maybe I was just plain lazy, but I ended up reading the rest of the afternoon and evening and not getting any work done.
So yesterday was a combination of health issues and regular procrastination.
I think I know why I procrastinated starting my dictation. When I go out walking, it’s like my brain instantly goes into dictation mode since I’ve been doing this for about 30 days now (on and off). Plus, I can’t do anything else when I’m walking.
But I have no such trigger when I simply go out into the backyard. So I wasn’t in the “dictation mindset.” I realized I need to train my brain to go into dictation mode when I go into the back yard, too.
***
Today, I got up early this morning. However, I noticed that I do tend to move a little bit more slowly in the morning, so I don’t immediately get started on what I need to do.
I nearly did not do my dictation this morning because I had IBS issues. It's always so tempting for me just to throw in the towel on the entire day when I'm not feeling well.
However, I read my Bible this morning and prayed a bit, and somehow got the energy and motivation to just push through the pain and discomfort in order to do a bit of dictation in the morning. It's very frustrating because I think that my mind is fresher in the morning, but my intestinal tract tends to have issues in the morning. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
I'm still doing my experiments to see if my dictation is better in the morning when my mind is freshest. At the very least, since it's been a very hot summer, doing dictation the morning is a bit more comfortable than doing dictation in the afternoon when it's hotter. And I know from yesterday that the temperature makes a huge difference in terms of my productivity. I hope to get more work done today, especially once my IBS calms down.
I again decided to do the dictation in the backyard, but since I had procrastinated starting work yesterday, I was very focused today and tried to just get everything together and go out to the backyard to write. It helped that I was starting work much earlier than yesterday, so the temperature was a lot cooler.
I took a little extra medication and the IBS calmed down a bit, but the IBS was still bothering me off and on.
I'm going to continue to do my dictation exercises before starting work on the Regency novel, although I did consider that should make more of an effort to cut them short. I don't want to spend half an hour doing dictation exercises if I only need 15 minutes to warm up to get started with the dictation. I think I'll have to experiment with the amount of time I spend on dictation exercises in order to see what is the bare minimum I need in order to feel comfortable with dictation. I don't want to make myself think that I need a long time of dictation exercises before I can start work on my writing. I don't want to get into the habit of thinking that it has to be that way, when I know that it's possible to simply sit down and write for 15 minutes without this type of warm-up. Maybe once I get more used to dictation, I won't need this kind of warm-up it all.
***
I got two hours and 20 minutes of dictation done in the backyard, and it wasn’t too bad. I could tell that I had a lot of silence as I thought about what to say next, but I was focusing a lot on trying to think in longer phrases, and I think I managed to do that more. My dictation speed was 2700 words per hour, which is slower than what I’ve been capable of before. However, I still managed to dictate over 6000 words, which was my daily goal.
It felt really good to have done my dictation all before lunch. However, after lunch, I really had to battle procrastination to do my cleanup editing. Why am I like this???
This is really becoming a problem. The only way I know how to deal with myself when I procrastinate like this is to do the work first thing in the morning, before I do any of my other “frogs.” It always seems easier to start work when it’s the first thing I do.
But I’ve been trying to do my dictation first thing, to compare how my writing is when I do it before lunch versus after lunch.
However, my procrastination is becoming more of an issue. I wish I were like normal writers who didn’t have these kinds of issues with editing!
I might need to scrap this experiment in order to do my editing first thing in the morning, just to make sure it gets done and I don’t procrastinate.
Also, I haven’t seen a HUGE difference in my dictation words per hour speed for the few times I’ve dictated in the morning. I think if I were going to see any difference, I’d see at least something, but so far, my morning speed is actually about the same or a little bit slower than my afternoon speed.
I’m also a bit concerned because even though I have done dictation in the morning, every single time I was also battling some discomfort from my IBS. So far, I simply haven’t had a morning where my IBS hasn’t bothered me. And in fact yesterday, the IBS was bad enough that I couldn’t dictate as early as I wanted to. The slower speed of my dictation may be because I was also distracted by the pain of my IBS.
The easiest thing to do would be to simply stop trying to dictate in the morning and accommodate my IBS. A part of me feels like I would be losing if I gave in, but at the same time, I want to be as efficient and productive as possible. If that means writing in the afternoon when my IBS is not bothering me, then maybe I need to do that rather than trying to work during a time when my IBS usually bothers me. I can hope that my IBS will get better and I will be able to write in the morning consistently, but right now, that’s not happening.
Anyway, I battled the procrastination but didn’t really overcome it. I did a small amount of cleanup editing, but didn’t complete the cleanup for my dictation from yesterday (9/6), and I didn’t do the cleanup for today’s dictation at all.
So I am essentially throwing in the towel in terms of writing in the morning.
Tomorrow, I have a doctor’s appointment and also a lot of house chores, so I’ll spend an hour or two working on my Hawaii serial novel instead of the Regency, and then the rest of the time doing marketing work. I have a lot of marketing to do, especially if I end up releasing book 4 next month, which I am hopeful I’ll be able to do. I’ve been complaining about my dictation speed, but the reality is that I’m already at 48,000 words in book 5, and I had been planning to release book 4 once book 5 is nearly done. It’s entirely possible that I might finish book 5 within the next two weeks, and I set a personal deadline of September 14th. If I can get to the 75% mark on book 5 by then, I’ll start work to release book 4 in October, with plans to release book 5 in November.
I’ll do the cleanup editing first thing on Friday. I feel like I’m wimping out, but I know that I’m less likely to procrastinate if I do the editing first thing.
Writing streak: 305 days
My takeaway for today: Go back to doing the writing in the afternoon because (a) the IBS has been preventing me from doing the writing in the morning without discomfort and pain, and (b) doing the cleanup editing first thing is the only way I know how to prevent procrastination.
My battle report is a lot of words, but that includes my dictation from both yesterday and today, and includes the words from my dictation exercises.
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