Day 968 - A change in how I record my writing time

-

I woke up yesterday with another IBS flare up, but I managed to get some marketing work done in the morning, which is stuff I can do despite the pain. It got only a little better in the afternoon, but I wanted to try to get some work done on the manuscript, so I decided to dictate a bit. I realized I needed to block the scene better, so I dictated my blocking notes and managed to get that done. I didn’t write any prose, but I was ready to start writing the scene today.

Unfortunately I had some IBS pain this morning, and so I did a little bit of marketing instead. But the IBS didn’t decrease much by the afternoon, so I ended up doing dictation while still being a bit uncomfortable. I thought I’d only do a little dictation, but I ended up dictating about half the scene, approximately 3000 words, which took 75 minutes. My dictation speed wasn’t too bad, about 2500 words per hour. The cleanup editing took a little less time, 65 minutes.

I made a decision today to change how I recorded my writing time and word count. Until now, I’ve been counting both my dictation time and the time it takes to cleanup the dictation as writing time. This is because when I type and write, the editing I do in the cleanup time is essentially what I do as I type.

But today I decided to classify the cleanup time as editing time instead. This is because a lot of my cleanup editing time is making corrections and doing research, not writing.

Another reason I decided to classify my cleanup time as editing instead is because I’m considering not doing my cycling edits. The reason is because I’m just getting way too far behind on doing my cycling edits. They take up a significant chunk of my day, and at the moment, I’ve been aiming to dictate at least 3000 words a day. That usually takes me 60-90 minutes of dictation and then 60-90 minutes of cleanup editing. At the end of the day, I’m absolutely exhausted and I haven’t been doing my cycling edits. It doesn’t help that I don’t really like doing edits to begin with, and I have to force myself to do the cleanup editing right after I finish the dictation or else whenever I come across something Dragon misunderstood, I won’t know what I was trying to say.

I haven’t decided for sure if I’m going to stop doing cycling edits, because I still hold hopes that I can increase my writing stamina so I can get more hours of work done in a day. Unfortunately I can still only do so many hours of writing a day before I get too tired. It hasn’t helped that I’m more fatigued because I’ve had IBS flareups the past several weeks. When I have IBS, I tend to do marketing tasks, and I’ve had a lot to do since I decided to spend more time on social marketing and since I started experimenting with Amazon ads. I still try to prioritize the writing, but it’s often at the end of the day when the symptoms die down a little, but when I’m more tired.

Anyway, I classified my cleanup time as editing because it’s become a combination of cleanup and doing cycling edits at the same time, since I’m doing the same types of research as I do when I do the cycling.

What will happen is that the amount of time I spend in editing each book will increase compared to books 4 and 5. My writing time for book 6 will also be less than books 4 and 5 since the “writing” time for book 6 won’t include the cleanup editing.

Come to think of it, I haven’t yet done another analysis of the time taken for books 4 and 5 yet. I’ll try to do that this week.

Writing streak: 447 days

Dictation streak: 23 days

My takeaway for today: I need to remember to do an analysis of the time taken for my Lady Wynwood books and compare them.

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