Camy's Writing Diary

I had intended to work today, which is Sunday, but I sat down and was about to pray my Surrender statement , and felt God’s conviction not to work today. Even though logically I could probably finish the book today or tomorrow and I could just take my sabbath rest day right after that, I felt God telling me that I should rest today. Not because it's logical, not to be legalistic about my sabbath, but because it’s a gesture that puts God first in my life. I suddenly feel like that is more important than getting the book done. So, to my editor and the authors in the multi-author box set, sorry, the book will be a day later. I admit I am also influenced by the Deep Work audiobook I’m listening to. I just finished the chapter talking about how the subconscious mind needs time to process all the information we’ve inputted in order to make decisions. It's like the subconscious is a big supercomputer and you input your data and then wait for it to compute the answer for you. All su...

I usually don’t write on Sundays, so instead I read a book, then listened to some marketing podcasts and took notes. Surprisingly, it was in one of the (secular) podcasts that I realized I feel guilt and shame in not being able to work because of my health. I don’t need to feel that—I need to take care of myself. And these feelings may also be spiritual warfare. Tomorrow is a new day, and I can start work again because Aunt Flo left today. I’ll focus on doing my best with what I’ve got, and not feeling like it’s somehow my fault that my body has problems that are out of my control.

Like yesterday, I got up early today, but despite the fact I was bone-tired, I didn’t sleep very well last night. I’m pretty frustrated—what’s the point of trying to get up early when I’m not going to have a good night’s sleep? Anyway, I’m STILL working to finish Snowflake step 6 (expanded synopsis) on volume 10 of my series. *** WOW I finished Snowflake step 6! It gave me so many problems and took so long! There was one plot point that gave me the most problems, and I only was able to figure out a solution after I’d also tweaked the spiritual conflict in the scene to reflect the gospel message a bit more. So maybe God wasn’t letting me move forward because He wanted me to fix that spiritual conflict. The rest of the plot points also took time to solve, but nowhere near as much time as that first one. Now I’ll try to do the spiritual and romantic arcs for the volume. I already did some of it, but now I’ll go through and make sure they’re all completed. *** My brain is ...

I’m getting a late start today since I had home chores to do, but my email took less than five minutes since I didn’t have many messages. While I was walking today, I also realized that since I’m writing this diary as a public blog, I’ve been much more disciplined and productive because of the accountability. Even if no one reads this, it’s still out there in the blogosphere and I don’t want to slack off on my work since I’d have to confess to it in my daily blog entries. I’m really glad that this blog has helped me to work harder and be more productive in finishing my plotting of this series. I hope it will also help me to finish writing the books quickly too. Also, in blogging about my antsy-ness and distraction, it made me stop and try to figure out why I was feeling that way. If I hadn’t been blogging about it, I might not have even paid attention to the antsy feelings, and I wouldn’t have actively looked for a way to combat it. I’m still trying to figure out how long I need to...

Today was my writing Sabbath so I didn’t do any writing today, but I spent a lot of time doing writing-related things. I did some blogging, and I also reviewed my writing To Do list. I cleaned it up by checking off what’s been done, deleting what I no longer need to do, and making note of what I need to do this coming week. Before I started bullet journaling (in an electronic journal app, Day One Journal ), I had my To Do lists in a couple different places and I’d usually forget things I needed to do. Now I have them in my bullet journal, which combines journaling with task organizer, and I’m less likely to forget. I still set reminders for myself in my phone, but since I’m using my journal throughout the day every day, I’m more likely to see things I need to do. I found some of my old To Do lists today and incorporated some things in my bullet journal. One of them was my writing Surrender Statement, which is a prayer I pray before starting each day’s work. What’s a Surrender Sta...

My email took very little time today, but I did have to wrestle a bit with Safari and Adobe.com to get my password changed. I still have a few house chores to do, but then I’ll be continuing to work on Snowflake step 4 (one-page synopsis) on volume 8 of my series (which used to be volumes 8/9 before I combined them). Looking over my diary entry yesterday, I realize that as I progress through this series and my original plots change, the later volumes are taking longer to plot because I have to redo Snowflake step 2 (1-paragraph summary) to accommodate for the changed plots, so I shouldn’t be so frustrated that the plotting is taking longer than I’d like. However, I would still like to work faster. In my quiet time with God today, I realized that I don’t depend on God enough when I’m doing work like this. I pray for help when I’m not feeling well physically, or when I’m rushing to meet a deadline, but when figuring out plotting problems I don’t even think to ask God for help. And w...