Camy's Writing Diary

Wow, I can’t believe it’s already been over 1000 days since I started this writing blog. It has been immensely helpful to me to be able to blog about my writing productivity experiments. It has also been good accountability to blog about my word count and hours worked. I usually try to take a day of rest on Sunday, but I ended up doing a lot of marketing work, so I decided to take yesterday (Monday) as my day of rest instead and I only did the bare minimum of writing work to keep up my writing streak. I intended to only dictate 5 minutes, but it ended up being about 15 minutes instead. I also decided to try using the Dragon Anywhere app and also the text-to-speech function in the Pages app on my iPhone. I only used the microphone on the phone, but both apps performed remarkably well. Dragon Anywhere allows you to add vocabulary words so that I could add my characters’ names and record myself saying them. When I dictated the names, Dragon Anywhere correctly transcribed them. You...

It’s rather depressing that I have to work around my IBS in order to get writing done. I’m still working on adjusting my schedule so that I can continue to work on my book despite my health issues. I got a late start today because my IBS was causing me problems last night, and so not only did I go to bed late but I also got up late and had to deal with some intestinal pain. I tried to get started on work as soon as possible and not waste time in the morning. A couple days ago, I blogged about wanting to do my writing earlier in the day because I seem to write better when I do that, so I tried to quickly get started on some dictation of my Regency as soon as I finished breakfast. The dictation was a little slow, and I think it’s because I hadn’t done enough blocking of the scene. I had to spend about 10 or 15 minutes before I started dictating in order to think about the scene and figure out why and how things progressed the way they did. And even then I had a hard time with the key...

I’ve been working harder to increase the number of hours I write each day now that my IBS has been getting better lately and I have more energy. I know that it takes time and effort to build up the stamina to concentrate for long hours, so I’m trying to work up to it. My workday has been consisting of: 1) 30-60 minutes of Japanese language study, since I hope to one day translate my books into Japanese with the help of an AI translator and a human Japanese language editor 2) 30-60 minutes doing one marketing task 3) 15-30 minutes doing research reading for one of my current series 4) writing prose in my Regency manuscript 5) editing or revising my Hawaii manuscript I decided to try to make a graphic that I could post since I like making graphics in Canva. I was really surprised how long I worked today, but that also includes numbers 1, 2, and 3 above and not just writing in my two series. Still, I did about 5 hours of work directly in my manuscripts, which is more than I’...

I admit I’ve been a bit lazy about blogging lately. First I had a bad IBS flareup, although I did manage to still get work done because the pain was not so bad that I couldn’t do certain things. I did my “ frogs ” first in the morning when the pain was the worst, since I could usually do Japanese study and house chores (sometimes) even if my IBS is bothering me. Then I did marketing and editing, which I can also usually do even if I’m feeling discomfort. In the afternoon when the symptoms died down a bit, I tried to do some dictation. Sometimes the cramping was still bothering me a bit and I didn’t get to dictation, but I was always able to get at least some editing or blocking done on a book. I also only did work on one manuscript, either the Regency or the Hawaii book. If the cramping was bad, I usually only did work on the Hawaii book since right now I’m mostly doing editing and revising on old writing, and I can get at least a scene edited as long as the IBS isn’t too bad. I f...

I kept up my dictation streak yesterday, but it reminded me of why I dislike stopping in the middle of a scene and picking up the next day. It always takes me several minutes to read what I’d written before, and then read my blocking notes to remember or figure out what I need to write next. I’m always slow to start dictation, but I think it’s harder when I start in the middle of a scene. It’s quite a bit easier to start dictation when I’m also starting a fresh scene. In hindsight, what I should have done instead of writing prose is to use dictation for blocking a future scene. I think that might be easier for me to stop and start in the middle of a scene, although I’d probably need to test it out to see. The nice thing about it, though, is that on days when I’m doing only the bare minimum, I can dictate for 5 or 10 minutes and get a significant number of words written, and the editing for that only takes a few minutes. I tend to work for about 20 minutes rather than only 5. When ...

I have been re-reading Elana Johnson’s book, Writing and Marketing Systems (Indie Inspiration for Self-Publishers Book 3) . She suggests that you track your writing schedule for 60 days, and I’ve actually been doing that consistently for several months. My IBS is typically worse between 10am and 2 pm, but sometimes the pain starts earlier and sometimes it goes for longer. I’ve been trying to adjust my diet so that I don’t eat the foods that trigger my IBS, but unfortunately there are a lot of foods where I don’t know if they will affect me. Sometimes I simply avoid them, but other times I want to try them and then I pay for it later. All that to say, my IBS bothers me more days than it doesn’t. And after reading about how Elana had to figure out what worked best for her schedule, I finally decided to try something different. Instead of trying to have a flexible schedule, and writing in the morning on the days when I feel well, I think I’ll just automatically assume I’m not going ...

Yesterday, my IBS bothered me a little, but I was hit hard by a sudden headache (I think it was because of my floor mopping solution, not from the usual culprit, my allergies). So I ended up not even being able to do much marketing since I didn’t want to do much reading and risk making the headache worse. I admit I procrastinated a bit after lunch, but finally got about 2 hours of work done editing my manuscript. Today isn’t much better. I don’t have a headache, but my IBS is a bit worse today. I admit I wasted some time looking at my Amazon ads this morning, but I managed to get a bit of other marketing work done, too. I should be able to get back to editing my manuscript after lunch, since I can usually edit even if the IBS is bothering me a little. *** Okay, I have to admit, I think I need the dictation streak. What happened was that I had to pretty much rewrite a scene, so I decided to dictate since the majority would be new writing. But since I missed dictation for 2 day...

During lunch today, I was reading Elana Johnson’s Writing and Marketing Systems , because she has such good advice (at least, it really resonates with my personality) and I was hoping for reminders on how to improve my productivity. Re-reading it was a good idea, because I picked upon things I had only skimmed over before. Or maybe it’s just that my life is in a different place this time when I read the book, and so different pieces of advice were more apropos. First I made a definite goal for myself. I’ve been wanting to increase my writing time and word count, but I haven’t actually set a goal. So I set a minimum goal of 10,000 words a week, and a stretch goal of 20,000 words per week on the Regency, and then for the Hawaii book, I set a minimum goal of 2 chapters a week and a stretch goal of 4 chapters a week. I also set a couple bribes for me. When I finish a scene, I can have a piece of candy. I can only eat a small amount of it because of my IBS, but since moderation is som...