Camy's Writing Diary

On Sunday, I was again put in a position where I didn’t have blocking notes for the next scene to dictate. I had been thinking I would simply dictate some brainstorming for my Hawaii book, but I realized that wouldn’t be dictation practice for writing prose. I ended up doing more blocking work yesterday than I had intended. There were a couple co-op battles (multi-player monster battles) on 4thewords.com , and since the type of monster being battled is usually up to pure luck, I decided to jump into the battle since I needed to fight those monsters to complete a quest. I don’t usually do long hours of writing work on Sundays, which is supposed to be my rest day, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to fight those monsters. I have found that 4thewords is usually more active on weekends than weekdays, and I need other players in order to participate in co-op battles. So I ended up working on the blocking for the next scene for almost 2 hours. I did the co-op monsters I needed for...

Since I have been having such issues with procrastination for the past few days, I decided to nip it in the bud. When I leave the house and write in a different location, it always forces me to get work done, so I went for a walk with my digital voice recorder. It worked really well. I dictated for about 90 minutes. My dictation speed was a bit slower because I was outside and I often had to pause and wait for a car or some chatting old ladies to pass by me, but I still managed to get a lot of words written. I usually walk before my other “ frogs ” are done, but today was a little unusual because I slept badly last night. Because of that, I actually was awake and did some of my frogs in the early morning hours, so I didn’t need to do them when I finally woke up. So my schedule was even more free than usual and I had fewer obstacles in my way to prevent me from immediately going out for a walk. I also avoided doing anything that might sap my energy before I started my writing—I di...

I really thought I’d have more time to write today, but it seemed like it was just one thing after another this morning. I had a lot of technical difficulties today—an app I use daily on my phone suddenly stopped working, and I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what happened. Then I had issues with an alarm coming from our external hard drive, and I had to see what the problem was and figure out how to turn off the alarm. And finally I had issues booting up my dictation software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Granted, it’s version 13 and my ancient Mac Mini is coughing and sputtering, but it had worked fine the last time I did dictation a month ago. I was shocked to realize that I last dictated on March 1st and it’s now April 12th, so it’s been 6 weeks since I did dictation. No wonder it felt so rusty. But I’m very glad that I managed to get about 30 minutes of dictation done today on my Regency book. Unfortunately, because of the technical problems, it took over an hour to get i...

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 finished book 6 in my Regency series! I actually took a nap in the middle of the day and then I felt a lot more refreshed afterward and got the last two chapters dictated. I finished doing the cleanup editing in the early hours of March 2nd, but I’m going to count it towards my writing for March 1st. This book took a lot less time to write than the others, and I think it’s because of the dictation. I dictate into a digital voice recorder and then have Dragon transcribe it, and I am able to focus much more intently when I dictate because I can’t see what I wrote so I’m not distracted or trying to edit it. If I forget what I just dictated (which unfortunately happens a lot) I just repeat it and keep going. Often I’ll pause or repeat myself until a sentence comes out the way I want, but I think I’ve been doing that less often lately because the cleanup has taken a little less time lately, too (but the cleanup still takes, in general, the same amount of time it took me to do the dictat...

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 didn’t sleep well last night, I woke up with IBS pain, and I also found a huge plot hole in this next scene I was going to write, so I’m not sure how much writing I’m going to get done today. I intend to dictate a brainstorming session to try to fix my plot hole. I think that I tend to brainstorm better while dictating, but it might also partly be because I’m moving around while dictating, and that probably helps me to think better, too. *** Well today ended up being rather terrible in terms of word count. My IBS didn’t get any better despite taking medication, which only made me sleepy. I did manage to get some marketing done while I wasn’t feeling well, so it wasn’t completely wasted time. When I finally felt better in the late afternoon, I had technical difficulties. First my digital voice recorder set up had issues. Then our external hard drive started beeping and I had to figure out what was wrong. Then I decided to set up a different headset for recording to see how that ...

I woke up a bit late this morning, and I wasn’t feeling 100%, but after doing a few of my “frogs”, I got started on work as soon as possible. I wanted to have as much time to get writing done as I could while I didn’t have too much IBS discomfort, just in case some flared up later in the day. That didn’t happen, thank the Lord, but I was still glad I was conservative with my energy today. I haven’t been spending as much time on my “ frogs ” lately because of my health. I usually try to do exercise, email, my Japanese study, and house chores. I’ve been cutting short the time I spend on my email and Japanese (my exercise is already only 45 minutes of walking and I don’t want to go less than that). Eventually, I’d like to spend more time on my Japanese in the morning before I start work, but since I’m still in that stage where I’m not sure if my IBS will flare up later the day, I’ve been rushing my “frogs” to prioritize the writing. Now that I’ve moved my marketing to Thursdays and Sa...

I’m feeling much better today, but I didn’t bother to try to do dictation. As a result, it was very easy for me to simply sit at my desk and start writing. No procrastinating, I didn’t have to fight myself to get started on the dictation. I still don’t know why dictation is so much harder for me than typing, but at the moment, I’m more interested in finishing this book on time. I also hope that typing will enable me to write for longer and longer hours each day until I can get back to writing 6 or 7 hours a day, assuming my health keeps improving. My writing today was slow, however, because I found a couple plot holes that needed to be fixed. I could have left them to be fixed later, but I felt that it would be better to fix them now, while I knew where exactly in the manuscript I needed to revise the text. I worked longer hours today than I have recently, about 4.5. I got about 3900 words done. I had been aiming for 5000 words, but writing was taking a long time today and I was ge...

4thewords.com was down for maintenance yesterday, and for some reason I was too lazy to blog. I also had some IBS issues yesterday, and afterward, I realized that while each bout of discomfort likely adds to my stress levels, it might be possible to dissipate some of my stress with a walk, assuming I was feeling better by then. So I took a walk and found that I did indeed feel like I had a bit more energy than before. Taking advantage of that, I did a bit of editing on the manuscript. I had intended to do more, but I was feeling tired, and I admit I was a little lazy. I did not do any dictation yesterday. I am hoping to have more self-discipline today. However, I’ve been distracted all morning for some reason by little house concerns, which has caused me to procrastinate starting work. Argh! I don’t know why I do this! So I’m going to fall back on the Pomodoro Method for a little while to see if that helps me focus better. I need to do the cleanup editing of my dictation that ...

Exercise before writing I FINALLY felt well enough today to not only exercise but also do some dictation writing on my book! I can’t believe how good that feels! I considered doing the writing before exercise, but in the end I chose exercise first since my brain is usually firing at half-speed right after I wake up. The exercise helped me feel a bit more alert when I got back. Microphone setup I also have to admit that I did procrastinate a little bit before I started work. Part of the reason was my dissatisfaction with the setup of my microphone at my desk, but after I fiddled around with that, I think I’ve got a good setup down. Plan to slowly increase writing stamina I did 1 hour, 43 minutes of dictation, which I think was really good considering I haven’t done much dictation in the past several weeks. Eventually I’d like to do as much as 3 hours of dictation, but I’m also trying to slowly build up my writing stamina since it’s been so long since I’ve had a day where I w...

I wasn't feeling very well when I woke up this morning, but I wanted to try to get some dictation done today regardless. I've been wanting to try to do dictation first thing, not only because it helps me not to procrastinate doing it, but also because my brain tends to be freshest in the morning. However, if I'm in pain or queasy, it's really tough for me to do my dictation. So even though I have the desire to try to do the dictation first thing, my body doesn't always accommodate me. I'm always hoping I’ll be well enough to be able to do the dictation first thing, to see how well it goes, but I'm starting to realize that I simply cannot count on that happening, even though I tried to be really strict about my diet. I simply never know when I'm going to wake up and not feel well. Instead, I need to try to work around my IBS. With that in mind, I think I need to give up or postpone my hopes to try to do dictation first thing. I almost always feel wors...

Productivity while sick:   For the first time in a long time, I'm finally feeling well enough to be able to write for any length of time. My IBS was really bad for several weeks, mostly because I couldn't figure out what I was eating that was causing the IBS flareup. I think I finally figured out what food it was, because I'm feeling much better today than I have for the past several weeks. I did a little bit of writing every day, just to keep up my streak. I also did about five minutes of dictation on four different days since I last blogged. However, most days, my nausea was especially bad, and so I just did 100 words on my manuscript through typing. I also adjusted my microphone set up at my desk, and I am hoping that this will make it easier for me to start dictation every day. I know from experience that in order to get myself to stop procrastinating, I need to make it very easy for me to start work. I'm hoping that this new desk set up will help me so that I...

I was very bad about keeping to my schedule today. I let myself get distracted by various house chores. They were important, but 20 minutes here or there adds up, and I ended up starting my writing work later in the afternoon than I wanted. I should have expected this because I had skipped my frogs for several days, but my marketing and my email took longer than I wanted. I cut my marketing a little short also. I started off doing the cycling edit on the scene that I had finished a few days ago. Unfortunately, the editing took a lot longer than I had expected. That seems to be the common theme. All these things seem to take much longer than I expect. I am vastly underestimating how long these tasks should take. I don't know how long I thought the cycle edit would take. I probably thought it would only take a few minutes, like it used to when I did the cycle edit before starting writing (via typing) every day. But I had forgotten that when I do the cycle edits at those times...

My IBS is kind of bad today, but I took medication and decided to go out walking and dictating anyway. I have been wanting to try to walk and dictate earlier in the day, partly just to try it since most of the time I dictate in the afternoon, and I wanted to compare how my dictation goes in the morning versus the afternoon. But I also wanted to try dictating in the morning because walking in the afternoon is very hot, and I thought maybe the dictation might go better if I went walking in the morning when the weather is cooler. So I had planned to go walking not too long after I woke up, but I had forgotten that my IBS tends to be worst in the morning. I have been trying my best to control my diet, but I am also at a phase where I'm trying to figure out which foods I can and cannot eat. Sometimes I try something and it causes issues. The problem is that if I eat something and my IBS reacts to it, it will bother me for a full week after I've eaten it. So I ended up not bein...

My thoughts on the dictation so far: This is the third or fourth time I'm trying dictation. The past times I have tried this, I read lots of dictation books, so this time I know which books I found most useful and can re-read them. That has helped me to refresh my memory about the most important and useful tips and techniques for dictation. I think that because I tried dictation before, even though I quit, the experience of trying dictation and practicing it seems to have been useful. The first day I did dictation this time (a week ago), it was terrible and awful. I wasn't used to hearing my voice talking out loud to myself, and it felt awkward both physically and mentally. My brain simply didn't think in the right way to be able to dictate anything, whether it was a blog post or fiction. This was exactly the same as the other times I tried dictation. Starting out was terrible and awful. The other times I tried dictation, I can't really say that I dictated that mu...