Camy's Writing Diary

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 was simply way too busy last week to get my work done, and so I broke my dictation streak. :( I just had a lot of house chores to do, and then I had office hours and homework for the book launch course I’m taking. The course has been really useful so far, but taking a lot of time because I find myself wanting to attend all the office hours in order to learn from other students’ questions. I also made a mistake and kind of? broke my website. That whole thing was really stressful and ate up a ton of time on Saturday. So rather than trying to stress myself out and try to squeeze in my dictation, I decided to just do some of the cleanup editing I never got around to doing, and then called it a day. Even though I know that skipping dictation makes it slower the next time I do dictation, it’s just a bit too difficult to try to find something to dictate every single day. It’s easier because I’m working on two projects at once, but not when one of those projects is imply editing an o...

I completely admit I haven’t blogged lately because I’ve been lazy. I also haven’t gotten much actual writing done, but I had a good excuse for that—I was visiting my parents for a month, and when I returned home, after a couple days unpacking and cleaning up the house, I had a bad IBS flare-up. But now that I’m feeling better, I haven’t blogged because I haven’t gotten much done, but I realized today that I really need to keep up my blogging in order to keep myself accountable. I wrote one scene in my new book (book 7 in my Regency series) before I left to visit my folks, but I haven’t written any other new scenes. Part of the reason is that the next scene—which ended up becoming two scenes—were not blocked well. My notes about the scene were a mess of ideas thrown together, and I didn’t have a cohesive structure for the scene at all. If I tried to dictate based off of my notes, it would end up being a bunch of prose thrown messily together, and I’d need to spend a lot of time ...

I happened to have the cover for book 5 ready, so here it is! I usually don’t write on Sundays, but I was almost done with the book and wanted to finish it, plus I wanted to get the book to my editor ASAP because I was behind on the time frame I told her it would be ready. I only had one short scene to write, so I just decided to push through and get it done. I haven’t blogged for a few days mostly because not much has happened in terms of writing productivity. I’ve had some IBS issues (as usual), but I managed to get about 3 hours of writing done each day. I even did writing on Thanksgiving by getting up extra early, but to be honest, we didn’t have a big gathering so there wasn’t much cooking do to for just my family, and my husband did the turkey, which was probably the most labor intensive. I had been hoping to develop more writing stamina and write for more hours each day, but I haven’t been able to get more than about 3 hours every day before I start feeling tired. Part of ...

I really wanted to do more dictation today, but because my IBS was bothering me off and on all day, it just seemed easier to type rather than dictate. Logically speaking, I don’t know why it’s easier. Theoretically, I could easily turn on my digital recorder or start the recording app on my computer, almost as easily as starting typing on my manuscript. I think it’s simply that it’s more mentally challenging to dictate than to type, at this point, since I’m more used to typing. I was able to type and write in my manuscript, stopping at times when the IBS gave me issues, for almost 2.5 hours today, which is great. It’s much more time than I’ve spent on my writing in several weeks, since the IBS flareup first got bad. I wrote almost 3000 words today and finished a scene. I did notice that while my writing speed was slower when I first started, it picked up in the middle, but it slowed down again at the end because I was feeling tired. But I pushed through because I was almost done ...

I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I miscounted my days and my 365 writing streak was yesterday! I didn’t notice it until this morning when I discovered I’d forgotten to count two days before. So, yesterday was 365 consecutive days of writing at least 100 words in my manuscript every single day! It was really hard, especially on days I felt sick. But even when my IBS was particularly bad, I always had at least 10 minutes here or there when the pain or nausea would subside temporarily, and so I whipped out my phone and wrote 100 words. It was especially easy to do because I write in 4thewords, and so the most recent chapter I’m working on is saved online at the website, and I can access it anywhere. It’s also easy to start a battle with a 100-word monster and then stop when the monster is defeated. 100 words a day is really not very much, so it’s easy to do, although it would take a long time to write a book that way. But just the act of getting my head into my manuscript every day ...

I wanted to do my editing first again today, before I did my other frogs, but I found that I had to check social media today. I had sent a newsletter last night, and I wanted to respond to any comments I might have received. The problem with social media is ME. I had forgotten to set a timer, and I ended up spending almost an hour on social media. At the same time, I started feeling anxious because there were so many notifications I had to check. I know that many authors say that social media is essential for forming a connection with readers, but it's extremely stressful for me. Facebook especially seems to have so much going on, and I quickly feel overwhelmed. I began posting on Goodreads again, because I enjoy that much more and it’s much more slow-paced than Facebook. However, I still feel a bit overwhelmed because honestly, I haven't had much time for reading since I've been spending more time writing. I'm also anxious because I don't really know how to...

I dictated the following during my walk as my freewrite dictation exercise, so it might ramble a bit. But at least I didn’t stop dictating and there weren’t any long pauses. *** Promotions I ended up spending too long doing marketing today. I decided at the last minute to participate in some time sensitive promotions, and so I had to get them done. I really don't like doing promotions. It is outside of my comfort zone. It also causes me anxiety for some reason. I think it's because I have to make sure I do certain things by certain times, such as making sure to send out a newsletter, or post on my blog, or remember to lower a price on Amazon. I think because so many things need to be done beforehand, I get anxious that I've forgotten to do something. I'm not sure if this promotion will do anything. However, it was free, and I had to take advantage of it before the end of the month. I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a small promotion. The promo itself is...

I’m rather disappointed, I spent too long (an extra hour) doing some marketing work. It absolutely needed to be done, but it just took too long, partly because I always take so long to make decisions about things. I don’t know how to do anything about that, but there it is. I did the cycle edit of the chapters I wrote in book 4, but I hadn’t realized that I actually hadn’t done the cycle edit on two entire chapters. It took up a little over an hour. And then my familiar enemy reared its head, and I was procrastinating in starting the final edit. Because I hate self-editing. I know it needs to be done, since I only did a cycle edit as I was writing the rough draft. Reading through the entire book in a couple sittings really is the best way to gauge pacing and check for continuity errors. But I never got to the final edit today. I thought maybe I could do my dictation exercise for today and five minutes of dictation on my manuscript (book 5), but I ended up dictating almost half an...

I had a little bit of IBS that caused me to have a slow start this morning, but I got all my “frogs” done. The only problem is that I had to do a marketing task that took over an hour. It absolutely had to be done, and I’m glad I finished it, but it did make me late to start my dictation today. Because of that, I decided to cut my dictation time a bit short. The free writing exercise I did yesterday seemed to help me practice not pausing while I dictate. Freewriting is supposed to help you to release inhibitions and just write without worrying about how it sounds. I guess I need that for my dictation, because I still had a lot of words I needed to delete yesterday because I’d dictate a sentence, then repeat it with corrections. But mostly I want to get used to just keeping on dictating without silence. Sometimes that’s hard because I have to read my blocking notes on my phone to see where I’m supposed to go. Some days will be like yesterday, where I dictated some dialogue out of or...

I admit, I have not been feeling well all day. My IBS has been bothering me on and off, and even medication doesn't seem to help much. It's hard for me to write when I have IBS pain, so I decided to try to be productive despite how I was feeling, and I did my “frogs.” I read that Elana Johnson does about one hour of marketing a day. I don't have as much marketing as she does, but she also has assistants. I thought I would try it, since I have been feeling lately that I have too much marketing work to do and doing only 30 minutes a day still leaves me behind with a lot of things. After doing my “frogs,” I wasn't feeling great, but I decided to try to walk and dictate anyway. I figured that even a few minutes will enable me to write a few hundred words. I hadn't thought about this before, but I had been dictating when the weather was nice. Now that it's very hot in the afternoon, I have to be more careful about going out to walk and dictate. I could dictate ...

I went back to doing my marketing task before my writing as one of my “frogs” , and surprisingly I found myself less stressed once it was done for the day. I realized that in doing my writing but having a task lurking that still needed to be done, it made me uneasy that I still had one more thing to do. I don’t know if it might have made me distracted while writing, but I definitely still had the idea in the back of my mind about how I still needed to do my marketing after I was done with my writing, even though I had a clear schedule of when to stop writing and get started on my marketing work. And ironically, I never did actually get to my marketing yesterday because other house chores came up. I might be just weird to be like this, to feel the need to get all my other smaller tasks done before I tackle the one big task of my day, but I think this is just part of my personality. Other people might feel less stress if they do the one big task first before doing the small tasks. I gu...

OH MY GOSH it was so hard to focus on my writing today! And I have no idea why! The day started off great. I got up early, I took care of some house chores that needed to be done. I got my “frogs” done and had lunch. I always start off my writing session by editing what I’d written yesterday. It did take longer than normal because I’d left a note for myself to look something up. I knew the research would take a long time, and yesterday instead of doing the research right then, I left a note to do it today while editing. And yup, the research took a long time. But after the research and the editing was done, I had a really difficult time focusing in order to write prose on the scene. I had such high hopes for today since I had a lot of time and I had gotten so many words written yesterday. But I spent a lot of time just staring at the computer screen. The worst part was that I had completely forgotten to try the Pomodoro method to help me focus. Finally I remembered, and it did ...

I fully admit that even though I don’t want to be superstitious, I felt kind of weird to be posting yesterday because of what day number it was, so I skipped it. In some ways that makes me feel silly because I know it’s not like there’s anything that can hurt me if I posted on day 666, but at the same time I felt uncomfortable and since it’s my blog, there’s nothing wrong with me deciding not to post. Unfortunately, maybe because I had decided not to post, I ended up being really lazy yesterday. I got the bare minimum done on my writing and blocking, just to make sure I did it and kept my streaks alive, and then I was supposed to do my taxes the rest of the day. But I ended up procrastinating by doing a bunch of house chores. Granted, they all needed to be done yesterday and they weren’t things I could put off. And they all needed to be done before dinner. When I finally sat down to work, I felt unmotivated (since I dislike doing taxes) which was probably why I got distracted with some...

I fully admit (even though I didn’t post) on Saturday, I was rather lazy. I did my bare minimum of writing and blocking, but I had an IBS flare-up in the morning that made me really tired. I took a break and thought I’d get to work later, but I never did. I’ve been thinking about it, and I honestly don’t know why I didn’t get back to work. I had fewer house chores to do than I did on the day before, but I was just mentally and physically tired. I retreated into my usual way to cope with it, which was reading. I wonder if I haven’t been reading enough the past few days and that’s why I felt rather starved for reading? Regardless, today I still have taxes to do, but I’ve developed a bad sinus headache today (the rain is probably affecting my allergies). So I just took a bunch of drugs, and I’ll need to wait for them to kick in. I’ll do my bare minimum writing and blocking, just to make sure I get them done today and don’t break my streak, but I’ll have to wait until later to do my taxes....

My editing and writing time was a bit longer today because in the middle of each I had to do house chores (laundry and cooking) and I didn’t bother stopping my Toggl timer. But then it hit me that I feel very freed in not recording my words per hour writing speed. Part of my problem was that I was conscious of the fact that my writing time and speed was being recorded. Knowing my writing speed made me want to write as fast as possible. So I would feel the urgency to write quickly during that time, even when I was trying not to vomit write but to write more mindfully. It made my writing sessions a little stressful because I was aware I was measuring my writing speed, which made me conscious of how fast I was typing and every time I had to stop to think. But what also made it stressful to record my words per hours writing speed was that if I was slower one day over another, I felt disappointment in myself. I would then think about how to write faster. But I know by now that writing faste...

I’m feeling better lately, or at least, while I still have some IBS pain, it isn’t as bad as it was for the past few weeks. So I guess, relative to January, I’m feeling better. While it was gratifying to finish a scene despite feeling so crappy, I do still want to finish this series within a couple years, which means I should try to be more productive on the days I’m feeling okay. So I thought about it and decided to try for 500 words written on those days. Previously, I’d decided to focus on blocking/outlining the rest of the books in the series as fast as possible because it was just too confusing to write a scene in one point on the timeline and then do blocking on another point in the timeline. I wanted to finish the blocking quickly so that I wouldn’t have to worry about writing in a continuity error when I’m writing a scene. So I made a goal of only the bare minimum of writing each day (100 words), and then do as much blocking as my health will allow. But today, I decided t...

I had an IBS flareup starting from Thursday last week (I had been feeling better, too!). So I only did the bare minimum, but I started feeling better today and managed to get some blocking done on book 5. I did some writing on book 4 also, but I’m still getting kind of confused about what’s been revealed in the book yet or not. I’m more and more convinced that I need to get the blocking done as soon as possible for the entire series. Until that’s done, I’m going to have to really work hard to keep my timelines straight and not make continuity errors when I’m writing. Then while I write the rest of the books in the Regency series, I’ll do the outlining and blocking for the entirety of my next series, Contemporary Romantic Suspense set in Hawaii. That way, when I start writing the Hawaii series, it’ll be completely blocked. I really, really don’t think I can write and block books in the same series at the same time. It’s just too confusing and I’m constantly worried about making errors...

I had a bit of a flare-up yesterday, but I felt pretty good today and got a lot done. Blocking/outlining and writing at the same time I’m having a hard time because I’m blocking the rest of the scenes from book 4, but at the same time I’m writing chapter 5 of the same book, and whenever I start either writing or blocking, I have a moment of confusion about where I am in the story timeline. It’s very disorienting, and I end up needing to re-read things in order to remember what has already happened and what hasn’t happened yet. I don’t have a great memory to begin with, and deliberately working on two different points in time in the same series is taxing my poor brain. Now I wish I’d done all the blocking first so that I only need to write the book. So far, I’ve been working about 30 minutes a day on writing, which is 400-500 words. But because I’m having so much trouble in orienting myself in the story timeline, I think what I’m going to try to do is do only the minimum 100 wor...

Need to do more exercise to improve energy levels I’ve been slowly feeling better, but still not enough to get 5 hours of work a day (the other 3 hours, I do my Japanese study and reading to make a full 8 hour workday). There were a few days I worked more than one hour, but most days I’m working only the bare minimum. I’m feeling a bit disappointed in myself that I can’t get more done, but lately I just haven’t had the energy to try to push myself when I’m feeling like fly-meets-windshield. I think it’s because I’ve been lazy about exercising—if I feel a bit uncomfortable, I just don’t go exercise. For a while I wasn’t able to exercise at all because my IBS was so bad, but now that it’s getting better, I can go out walking without discomfort, so I should just do it, as Nike would say. Keeping up my writing streak has improved my productivity I’ve still kept up my writing streak and made sure to do at least the bare minimum of 100 words every day. I’m actually really grateful I ...