Day 904: Gamification for motivation

-

I had a bad IBS flare-up this weekend, which really set me back on my writing. I had a bunch of marketing tasks to do on Saturday that didn’t get done, so I spent about 5 hours yesterday doing all of that. It was a lot more work than I had expected, but I’m glad it’s finally done. But since that was all I did (besides the bare minimum of writing on my manuscript, about 100 words), I didn’t bother to blog about it.

My self-publishing To Do list helps me to keep track of everything that needs to be done, but it’s been really tough to coordinate the scheduling of everything when a book releases a month after the other. If I ever wanted to release a book a month, I will have to readjust my self-publishing To Do list and schedule.

I simplified my To Do list a bit yesterday. It makes self-publishing easier because I can just copy and paste a lot of stuff that needs to be written, such as newsletters and messages to my Street Team. The only thing that took a lot of time yesterday was coming up with the description for the book.

Today, I’m ready to get started on writing again, now that my marketing is out of the way. I only have four more scenes to write to finish the book, but I had been hoping to have the book done last week. I’m fairly certain I can get the book completed in a few days, but I do feel a bit anxious to announce the book will be releasing when the manuscript isn’t done. However, I had promised that book 5 will be released a month after book 4, so I have to get the book out by then.

I have to admit, looking through my questbook in 4thewords is really motivating for me. I see all the quests I’m currently working on and think about the monsters I still need to fight, and it makes me more eager to jump into writing for the day. I think this is why I find that I have been going over my questbook everyday before I start my writing work. Even if I’m feeling a bit blah, I get excited to think about defeating monsters. It’s also fun to strategize about what monsters I’ll battle next and decide which quests I’ll focus on in order to finish them first.

I realize not everyone is motivated by gamification, but I never would have believed it would work so well for me and my writing. I don’t actually play a lot of games, although my husband likes to play his PS4 in his leisure time. However, I do enjoy Lit-RPG fiction, and I like Isekai anime and light novels with a game-like fantasy world. So I guess it’s not completely unexpected.

The gamification is like an added bonus on my writing time. Not only am I making progress on my manuscript, but I get to defeat monsters and finish quests and gain virtual loot.

It also helps that these days, with my health being so bad, sometimes I’m unmotivated to write because I’m so tired. I usually have to wait until my IBS symptoms have calmed down before I can start writing work, and by then, I’m feeling tired and unmotivated. But looking at my questbook helps me get myself more excited about writing, despite feeling tired.

I also like the fact that 4thewords has a lot of events that occur during the year, so there is always new content. The game world is already quite large, so in between events, there are lots of regular quests and different areas in the world map to travel to. Then for events like holidays and NaNoWriMo, there are special monsters and quests and sometimes special map areas available during the limited time of the event. For my personality type, it’s fun to challenge myself to finish all the quests of the events. And then in between, I have been working on completing the normal quests. I still have a long way to go, but it’s fun as I complete each one and eventually conquer each section of the map.

If anyone might be interested in trying out 4thewords.com, use the referral code WQCFL76961 and I’ll be able to send you a welcome gift.

**

I got almost 3.5 hours of writing done today and about 3800 words, which is great. I finished the scene I was working on, which ended up being longer than I had anticipated. Now I only have 3 scenes left to finish the book.

Writing streak: 383 days

My takeaway for today: The gamification of my writing is motivating to help me get started on my writing, be just a little more excited about the work, and work a little harder.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 783: Evaluation 7

-
It’s been almost seven months since I wrote my last Evaluation 6 , but I finally got around to Evaluation #7! Here’s the gist of what I’ve learned over the past few months about my writing and productivity. New schedule My IBS was slowly been starting to feel better recently. I am still extremely strict with my diet, but I am also starting to experiment with what foods I can and can’t eat. I have also started a new eating and sleeping schedule, which I have dubbed my “chrono-diet” because I’m trying to take advantage of my circadian rhythm, according to the book Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life (I had borrowed a copy from the library but I enjoyed it so much I went ahead and bought it). I have started waking up at 6 am and exercising first thing, then having breakfast after exercise. I do house chores and/or work until noon, which is when I eat lunch. I’m supposed to not eat until dinner around 5:30 or 6, but I haven’t been able to break the habit of snacking in the aftern...
Read more

Day 252: Evaluation 5

-
It’s been a while since I’ve done an evaluation, so I figured I was overdue. In no particular order: Good health = good work I had some really bad health issues lately that kept me from writing entirely. However, I found it strange that I’ve been feeling very creative and motivated yesterday and today, despite getting in a lot of work hours yesterday. I think it’s because I haven’t had any IBS issues for the first time in a couple weeks. Not even a little discomfort. This is kind of duh! in hindsight, but I think I underestimated how much my IBS was affecting my energy levels. I’ve been careful about what I ate, but I was also trying to figure out exactly what I could and couldn’t eat, so it resulted in some bad IBS bouts. So now I know I really need to be strict about what I’m putting in my mouth so that my health doesn’t adversely affect my energy for work! Sprints Another sort of duh! moment in hindsight, but sprints have been helping me with my productivity. At f...
Read more

Day 21: Bullet journal, Surrender statement

-
Today was my writing Sabbath so I didn’t do any writing today, but I spent a lot of time doing writing-related things. I did some blogging, and I also reviewed my writing To Do list. I cleaned it up by checking off what’s been done, deleting what I no longer need to do, and making note of what I need to do this coming week. Before I started bullet journaling (in an electronic journal app, Day One Journal ), I had my To Do lists in a couple different places and I’d usually forget things I needed to do. Now I have them in my bullet journal, which combines journaling with task organizer, and I’m less likely to forget. I still set reminders for myself in my phone, but since I’m using my journal throughout the day every day, I’m more likely to see things I need to do. I found some of my old To Do lists today and incorporated some things in my bullet journal. One of them was my writing Surrender Statement, which is a prayer I pray before starting each day’s work. What’s a Surrender Sta...
Read more