Distraction

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.

Yesterday, I knew I would have to find a different way to end the scene, but I didn't try to figure it out. So this morning, when I was trying to start writing (before I got distracted), I was trying to solve the problem and ended up taking a lot of time to do it. I didn't entirely figure it out before I got distracted and went to order business cards.

It occurred to me that I need to set everything up so that I can immediately jump into dictating as soon as I enter my office. I need to make sure that the previous day's chapter is on my iPad as well as blocking notes for the next chapter or two.

I need to look ahead to the next section to write and see if there are any decisions I need to make about the scene structure. It would be better to make those decisions the day before, rather than the morning when I'm writing. I already know that making decisions is hard for me, so needing to make a decision first thing stalled my momentum.

However, my distraction wasn't solely because of my lack of preparation of my blocking notes for the next scene. I wonder if I just need more discipline.

Lack of distraction?

Regardless, I did not actually start writing until several hours later since I made lunch for myself after ordering the business cards. However, I found I was able to get into my dictation and focus pretty well. I don't know if it's because of the time of day or the fact that I had already addressed all the things that had distracted me in the morning, and so there was nothing left to distract me.

It's a little early for me to determine this, but this is making me wonder if I don't actually write all that well first thing in the morning because my brain is too distracted. Maybe I am able to focus later in the day because I'm a little tired, or because I've already taken care of all the tasks that might otherwise distract me when I'm writing.

I dictated for 91 minutes, but editing took 60 minutes. I'm not entirely sure why—there weren't a lot of errors, but I did have to add to the ending of the scene so it didn't stop so abruptly.

Dictation posture

I never noticed this before, so I don't know if I do this all the time, but after I finished my dictation, I noticed that my back and shoulders hurt. I have absolutely terrible posture when I walk and dictate into my phone, because I am looking down at it as I dictate.

It made me wonder if it will be better for my back if I dictate into my computer using my podcast microphone. It's set up on a stand so that I have to stand straight and speak into it, and my monitor is directly in front. It's set up on a standing desk, so I can pace in between dictating sentences. The walking seems to help me be able to think better when I dictate and write, so I want to be sure I will still be able to walk around my office no matter if I use my computer or my phone to dictate.

I did not get around to installing Dragon onto my computer yesterday, so maybe I will do it later tonight.

Weekly goal

I was listening to a writing marketing audiobook today and I realized that I don't really have a word count goal. Sometimes that's difficult for me, because there are some days where I spend the majority of my writing time doing my blocking for the next chapter or two, but the total number of new words written is zero.

I've been enjoying the books by Tao Wong, and he puts out two chapters a week in his current series, A Thousand Li, to his Patreon. It made me wonder if I could do write at the same pace.

So rather than having a daily word count, I will instead try to make sure that I block and write two chapters a week. I'm not sure I could keep this up because of my health, but I think I'll try.