Camy's Writing Diary

Procrastination or visualization Earlier, I was a bit disappointed in myself because it took me a while to get started writing today. I wasn't entirely sure why, but I putzed around and procrastinated a bit. It frustrated me because I felt like I just wasted time, and I really wanted to figure out why I did that. I felt like if I could just figure out what my problem was, I could get rid of my habit of procrastinating before starting. But then I realized that one of the reasons I procrastinated today was because I was starting a new scene, and I needed to take time to visualize a new character that was appearing. I also had to figure out how to start the scene, because I had not made that decision when I wrote the blocking notes. So even though I was frustrated that I was procrastinating, in hindsight, I was actually taking time to think about the scene beforehand. I think I need to stop looking at that as wasting time when it was obviously important visualization work that I...

I don't know if this is me just wanting to give up, or being lazy or something like that. But I'm starting to think that I need to listen to my instincts more. I've been trying to get a more efficient system in place for my writing so that I can be more productive. I do think it was good for me to try different things, but a lot of the things I was trying to do were very difficult for me. I kept pushing on, hoping that it would get easier but it hasn't. For example, I've been trying to get my writing done first thing after I wake up. For some people, that's the best time to write their minds are fresh and they are full of energy. I do admit that I am less tired than I am in the afternoon, but it was really hard for me to focus and get the writing done. I was easily distracted, and it was difficult to focus. It has always taken me a little bit of time to get going in the morning. I'm not entirely sure why that is, because it's not like my brain is f...

I went to a conference last week and praise the Lord! my IBS didn't act up at all while I was there. Of course, I was downing digestive enzymes like they were candy, so that probably helped. I thought I'd have more intestinal issues after I got back from the conference, but surprisingly, my bouts of pain and nausea haven't been too bad, not enough to prevent me from working for very long. I kept up my dictation streak while at the conference, although in hindsight, I probably should have just decided not to write during the days of the conference and during the travel days. However, since I was dictating into my phone, it was very easy to just whip out my phone and dictate for 5 minutes in order to keep up my streak. It's a lot easier than using a voice recorder and then taking the time to feed it into Dragon on my computer, although it's not quite as accurate. I finally got Dragon installed on my computer, but I haven't set up my profile yet since I want ...

And once again, I did not get to writing first thing after I woke up today. I knew I had to take time to pack today, and that I wasn't going to get a lot of writing done. Now that I think about it, I probably could've done a few minutes of dictation before I started packing, but it didn't occur to me. Also, considering how things on my to-do list tend to distract me while I'm writing, the thought of all my packing might've distracted me while I was working. So I took all day to pack, and then I did a little less than 13 minutes of dictation. Editing took eight minutes. So far, when I dictate using Dragon Anywhere, my editing takes about half the amount of time it takes for me to dictate. I can't get too excited about that, though, because I don't dictate as quickly when I use Dragon Anywhere on my phone, so my words per hour rate is much lower. When I dictate into a voice recorder, my words per hour rate ranges from about 2500 to 3000 words an hour, but ...

I think it must say something that ever since I decided to try to write first thing, I've only been able to do it once. I got to my office about an hour after I got up, but I found myself feeling a bit distracted again. So I took 20 minutes to do some house chores, and then went back to my office to try again. But instead of writing, for some reason, I couldn't focus on my story. Instead, I thought about a new marketing tactic that I could use for the conference that I am attending on Thursday. I needed to order business cards to do it, so I decided to do that right away so that I could have the cards rush ordered and shipped to my hotel. All that to say, I did not write first thing, even though I had intended to. Lack of preparation? I don't really know why I was so distracted and why it was so hard for me to start writing. At first I thought that part of the reason might be because I had to figure something out about the scene and make a decision about what to do. Yesterd...

I wasn't able to work first thing after I woke up this morning because I had a bad sinus headache and an IBS flareup that was causing nausea. Since I wasn't able to concentrate very well, I decided to do other things besides writing prose. I had been thinking about dictating directly into my computer using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, so I decided to bite the bullet and set that up. I should have known that getting Dragon NaturallySpeaking onto my laptop was going to be painful. First I had to renew my subscription to Parallels for Mac, and since I’m an idiot, I signed up for the Pro upgrade for higher processing speeds. I get a discount for the first year but next year Parallels is going to cost $200. And of course since I’m buying Parallels, I also have to get Windows. I thought I could get away with using Windows 10, but it turns out my MacBook Pro has a chip that can’t play nice with the ISO file for Windows 10. So I have to download Windows 11. All this to run ONE PRO...

I managed to do my writing almost first thing this morning. It took a little longer to make breakfast than usual, and I also wanted to make sure I had all the tea and water I usually have at my desk before I start. However, I did get a bit distracted while writing, and I wasted a few minutes cleaning off some junk on my desk. I suppose that’s one of the advantages of going out for a walk to dictate and write—there are fewer distractions around. When I dictate in my office, there are distractions everywhere, including my messy desk. I’m not certain why I was so easily distracted. However, I realized that just because my brain is fresher right after I wake up, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m able to focus better. In fact, I was worse at my focus this morning than yesterday, when it was after dinner. I don’t know why my focus was worse, and I also didn’t write very long—only about 75 minutes before I felt tired and distracted and decided to stop. I thought I slept okay, although...

I fully intended to start writing first thing today, but I overslept and only just made it to some online meetings on time. My meeting with my graphic designer especially was very productive. Once the meetings were done, I probably should have jumped right into writing, but I was a little brain-tired and ended up doing some light marketing work instead until I had to make dinner. I had neglected to check my email yesterday, so I spent time cleaning out my inbox, which I had finally cleared to ZERO a few days ago. I also did some work that needed to be done for the launch of my next historical romance book in (hopefully) March. I immediately started dictation after dinner. I wrote for a little over an hour and even with the time to edit my dictation after I put it in Scrivener, my words per hour rate was about 800 words, which isn’t bad. I only wrote about 1000 words, but it’s better than nothing, especially considering I also had 2 online meetings. I definitely think that I wrote...

I forgot that one of the problems I had before with dictation is that there were some days I had to do blocking before I could start writing work on the scene. I tried a few times to block all the scenes of a book before I started writing it, but I found it very tedious work, and sometimes I would change my mind about what happened in the scenes, or which scenes to include, which made my work pointless later. So today I did not get a lot of dictation done on the scene because I spent about an hour blocking it first. However, the time I spend blocking enables me to actually write the scene a LOT faster, and without as many problems. My biggest problem when writing is usually making decisions—where the conversation should go and how it should get there, what a character should do, how a character would feel, what problems the character would encounter in the scene. It’s easier to make all those decisions ahead of time before I start writing so that I don’t get sucked out of the creativ...

I decided to start blogging again because I decided to pick up dictation again. Oh, and just to fill you in on what’s happened since my last post, I made it to 714 days for my writing streak (writing at least 5 minutes every day). But then I accidentally broke it when I forgot to write on a Friday. I actually wasn’t too heartbroken about breaking the streak, because I’d been having a tough time writing on Sundays and over holidays. So this year I didn’t have to write over Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s, which was FANTASTIC. New Year’s especially would have been really hard because I was busy every day for the 4 days before New Year’s Eve, helping my mom prepare for our family’s New Year’s breakfast and dinner, which is pretty big for us. Anyway, back to dictation: When comparing my writing using dictation versus typing, I still felt that my writing while typing was better quality, although only by a small margin. I think it is because when I type, I edit as I type, and ...