Camy's Writing Diary

I admit I’ve been a bit lazy about blogging lately. First I had a bad IBS flareup, although I did manage to still get work done because the pain was not so bad that I couldn’t do certain things. I did my “ frogs ” first in the morning when the pain was the worst, since I could usually do Japanese study and house chores (sometimes) even if my IBS is bothering me. Then I did marketing and editing, which I can also usually do even if I’m feeling discomfort. In the afternoon when the symptoms died down a bit, I tried to do some dictation. Sometimes the cramping was still bothering me a bit and I didn’t get to dictation, but I was always able to get at least some editing or blocking done on a book. I also only did work on one manuscript, either the Regency or the Hawaii book. If the cramping was bad, I usually only did work on the Hawaii book since right now I’m mostly doing editing and revising on old writing, and I can get at least a scene edited as long as the IBS isn’t too bad. I f...

I kept up my dictation streak yesterday, but it reminded me of why I dislike stopping in the middle of a scene and picking up the next day. It always takes me several minutes to read what I’d written before, and then read my blocking notes to remember or figure out what I need to write next. I’m always slow to start dictation, but I think it’s harder when I start in the middle of a scene. It’s quite a bit easier to start dictation when I’m also starting a fresh scene. In hindsight, what I should have done instead of writing prose is to use dictation for blocking a future scene. I think that might be easier for me to stop and start in the middle of a scene, although I’d probably need to test it out to see. The nice thing about it, though, is that on days when I’m doing only the bare minimum, I can dictate for 5 or 10 minutes and get a significant number of words written, and the editing for that only takes a few minutes. I tend to work for about 20 minutes rather than only 5. When ...

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 ...

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be better about my social media. Unfortunately, that also means that social media has become a distraction for me during the day whereas before it wasn’t at all, since I wasn’t on it at all. So I have to confess that I spent too long on social media today before I started writing, and so I began work a bit later in the day than I had wanted to. I know that getting away from my computer is best in order to remove the distraction of social media, so when I started my dictation today, instead of sitting at my desk to dictate like I did before, I took my digital recorder and dictated while walking around my house. Not as nice as when I walk outside, but it was raining so I had to make do. Walking around helped me to focus on the dictation and get it done without being distracted by social media, so I consider that a win. I dictated a tiny bit faster than yesterday, but I also had less to delete, and so my dictation was overall more efficient t...

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 ...

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 got a really late start today. First I woke up late because I had a hard time falling asleep last night (despite going to bed early), then I was slowed down by some IBS discomfort after breakfast (not caused by breakfast, but by something else I ate a week ago). As a result, I lost about an hour of time I could have done work before lunch. I am starting to wonder if my method of bare minimum writing each day has caused the pacing of the story to slow down. The book is already at 80,000 words and I’m only at about 60% of the way through. I’m not really worried about what the total word count will be since I don’t have to adhere to a traditional publisher's guidelines for word count (which are usually to accommodate paperback production). However, I am worried that maybe I’ve added too much detail to the scenes so that they’re a bit bloated, which will slow reading pace and make the narrative seem bogged down. I think I won’t know if that’s true until I do the overall self-editing ...

I finished blocking book 4! Woot! Now I will go on to blocking book 5. I hope it will be easier than blocking book 4 was. I’ve spent much more time blocking book 4 than I have any other book, although to be honest the blocking was more detailed than in any other book, too, which will hopefully make the writing a bit easier. I am really, really hoping that I’ll stop having so much trouble with the writing once I’m blocking a different book. It was so hard to figure out where I was in the series timeline when I was switching between writing one scene and blocking another. But I have a feeling it won’t really get better until the series is entirely blocked. I’m honestly not sure how long it’ll take to block each book. This one took MONTHS. Some of that was because I wasn’t working that many hours a day on it since I was sick for much of the last six months, but I also spent a whopping 148 hours blocking this book, compared to less than 50 hours for books 2 and 3. So I’ll have to jus...

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...

Yesterday ended up being very busy, but for non-writing reasons. I had a bunch of important house things to do, and it was late in the afternoon by the time I was done with them. I still hadn’t done my Japanese yet, either, so I decided to skip the writing yesterday in favor of doing my Japanese and then getting to bed early. I got a good night’s sleep, and got my Japanese done early in the day. I also had a scheduled coffee meeting with another writer friend, but that was only for a couple hours, and now I’m ready to start work. I actually feel pretty energetic, despite the fact I got a lot done this morning before starting my writing. The good sleep helped, I think, and also the fact that I got that non-writing business out of the way yesterday, so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I think I’m the type of personality where it significantly lowers my stress levels and helps me to focus better if I get things done and off my To Do list rather than having little things left fo...

I tried to write yesterday even though I normally don't write on Sundays, because I'm way behind on finishing this book before it's due to the copy editor (a different one than I usually use, since this is for a multi-author box set and we’re all using the same one). However, I didn’t get much done—I woke up with a particularly bad sinus headache, and even after pumping myself full of drugs, it didn’t go away until nearly bedtime. I feel much better today. I was also reading How to Write Lots, and Get Sh*t Done: The Art of Not Being a Flake and was reminded of how motivational it is to use 4thewords.com . I had stopped writing on the website because I liked the dark theme on Scrivener better. It was easier on my eyes. So I've been writing in Scrivener and then I would copy and paste into 4thewords. I was also writing in Scrivener and copying and pasting into 4thewords because for the past several weeks I've been doing outlining for the series and this book, and...

My back is bothering me a little again today. I’m really frustrated! I don’t want to be the type of writer where everything has to be perfect before I can work. But lately it’s been really hard to concentrate unless I’m absolutely comfortable—the least discomfort is too distracting. Well, I’m in the midst of some IBS issues, so maybe once that passes, I’ll have more energy and be able to work. Once my back feels better, I’ll also be able to continue my exercise. I’m still unhappy with the current scene I’m working on. I added more conflict to the scene before, but this scene still has a very slow opening and I haven’t been able to figure out how to structure it. Not much happens in the scene but there is some information that needs to be said and there are some emotional revelations that happen in the latter half. Since it’s a scene near the end of the book, the exposition is necessary to wrap up the climax events. I finally decided on something to add a little tension, and to ma...

I made a mistake and drank some juice I shouldn’t have, which I think is causing my IBS to flare. I got some editing done, but I’m feeling a little sick. I’m really close to finishing the book, only 2 more scenes to go. I hope I can finish them today, despite how my stomach is feeling. *** I was editing some scenes and figured out a way to add more tension to the last scene I’d been working on yesterday, which I worried didn’t have enough conflict to keep my interest. I spent some extra time editing the scene before that, to set up the conflict, and then spent some time editing what little I’d written of the scene yesterday. I had to do a bit of blocking first since I’d changed the scene a bit. I wanted to edit it completely and then continue writing, but I’m feeling kind of tired and I’m thinking I might go to bed early tonight. Blocking: time spent: 22 minutes Editing: Time spent: 5 hours, 18 minutes Writing: Time spent: 0 Writing: Total number of words: 0 words Wri...

My back feels a little better right now than it did yesterday, so hopefully it’ll stay that way throughout the day. I checked my email earlier today before starting work, but I forgot to start my Toggl timer so I don’t know how long that took. I also managed to get my house chores out of the way, so I’ve cleared the decks , and can now focus on my work for the rest of the day. I’ve got two scenes that need to be self-edited since I didn’t do editing yesterday, so I’ll set a timer and do a couple editing sprints. If I don’t finish the scenes in an hour, I’ll stop anyway and get to writing. That way I’ll get both editing and writing done, without the editing piling up too much. *** I ran into an interesting problem while writing a scene. I had a fight to write, and originally I just left a note for myself to do research and watch a fight to write the scene. I then tried to move on to continue writing the scene, but when I checked my blocking notes, I realized that the point of vi...

I've been pretty disciplined today so far, which feels pretty good! I cleared the decks right away. I didn’t want to get sucked into Facebook but I had to do some things today--some marketing commitments for the multi-author anthology I'm in. So I spent more time on Facebook than I would have otherwise (at least, I hope more than I would have otherwise, assuming I wasn't procrastinating) but I kept it down to about an hour total for email and Facebook, and I got done the marketing things I had to do. Since I did all my editing yesterday, I don't have any editing to do today--just the scene I'm still working on. I tend to like to self-edit entire scenes rather than only partially editing the scene, then continuing to write it. There have been times I've cut huge chunks of a scene that I'd already spent time editing, so it's more efficient if I wait until the scene is done.  Many writing books and articles suggest not self-editing until you complet...

I ended up sleeping a long time on Sunday and then getting up ridiculously early Monday morning, so I'm just going to count it as Monday starting. Since I finished blocking volume 3, I'll start writing today. I have committed to trying to get better at dictation, so I will try dictating for 10 minutes or so, then editing the transcription in Dragon. In a dictation Facebook group I joined, there was a nice Dictation Outline that one member provided, which not only has you list the beats of the scene (I'm assuming it would be the same thing as my blocking , but some writers refer to beats as larger plot points rather than smaller plot points), but also things like the purpose of the scene, the emotions, the setting, imagery, character reveal, tension/conflict, and specifics (which might be for miscellaneous stuff that doesn't fit under the other things). Having those specific things listed at the top of the list of blocking for my scene might help keep me on point w...

I'm not sure how much I'll get done today, but I don't want to call in a sick day. I woke up with a headache, although thanks to drugs that's now gone. However, my IBS is still bothering me like yesterday, and it can be distracting from the writing when it gets painful. I'm going to continue with my cycling experiment from yesterday, which is to edit the book before I start writing. I hope it'll help me be more productive with my writing, and also ease me into the self-editing, which I usually hate to do. I'll also do the editing in 4thewords.com , so at least I'll have the fun and satisfaction of defeating a monster! I don't know how much prose writing I'll do today because I have a lot of blocking to do for scenes in the Reader Magnet . Ugh! I have to come up with a name for it! I gave it like, 5 minutes thought (I know, sooooo much brainpower) and decided on The Gentleman Thief . There's 3 books with that title (I actually have one...

I almost called today a sick day, since I woke up with a slight headache and had some IBS issues this morning, but now that it's after dinner, I'm feeling a bit better and decided to try writing a bit. I'm not going to worry about writing speed, I'm just going to defeat a monster or two and see how things go. I'm still working on my Reader Magnet novella. I did a little more blocking yesterday, but I'm still not certain if I like the way the scene is structured. I'll have to see. *** Uggghhhh I wasted a lot of time! When looking for pictures for research I got caught up again in a game I had to give up last year, Memoria Freese, because it was taking up too much of my time. And now it's done it again!!! I am realizing my bad habit triggers, and one of them is certain types of games. In the case of 4thewords.com , my gaming addiction worked in my favor and helped with my productivity, but today that went down the toilet because of another of my ...

Just yesterday I blogged about using tricks to make myself get back to work, and today in her Facebook group, Elana Johnson talked about how she uses timers and Peanut M&Ms. Timers don't work for me--I've tried them before, including using a nifty Pomodoro timer that I bought and which now I barely use. I will work without stopping most of the time, but once I take a break, I just don't get back to work in a timely fashion. Even when I set a timer and it goes off, telling me to get back to work, I'll ignore it. So for me, using 4thewords.com motivates me more than just a timer since I'll lose the monster battle if I don't get my butt back in my chair to write. I'm just not as self-disciplined as other writers, because many of them on the Facebook group mentioned that they use timers, too, and when it goes off after their break, they get back to work. I'm also the sort of person who will snooze my alarm right up until the absolute last minute, ...

I'll be continuing my experiment from yesterday, writing on my Alphasmart and then seeing if self-editing after each writing session is as much of a mental hurdle as it usually is. I'm not sure why but I'm feeling a bit light-headed today, as well as headachey. I really hope I'm not coming down with something. Otherwise I feel fine so I'll try to still get some writing done today.
 *** I did a writing session on my Alphasmart, and as I expected, it was such a pain to go back and correct things that the rough draft was rife with spelling and grammar errors. My words per hour was very high, 2200 words per hour, but the piece needed extensive self-editing to correct everything and look up the notes I made for myself. I did my self-editing as soon as the sprint was done. It was actually much easier than when I leave it for the end of the book. However, it was still rather difficult to get myself to do it--I procrastinated quite a bit before I actually went to m...