Camy's Writing Diary

My IBS wasn’t terrible when I woke up, but it was just uncomfortable enough that it was very distracting when I tried to do my writing. I managed to write about 480 words, but I also copied and pasted some old text I’d written for this scene, so the word count is higher than that. I decided to stop there since I was feeling more uncomfortable by that point. I think I’ll take a break and see if I feel better later. *** I actually didn’t feel much better later, and I had to take more medication and then wait it out. Finally after dinnertime, the discomfort died down enough that I could sit down at the computer to do some blocking. I felt kind of tired by then, but I wanted to get at least a little bit of work done while I felt better, and I didn’t know how long that would last. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, thank God for 4thewords. I kept needing to take breaks while I was blocking, not as much from the IBS discomfort at that point, but instead mostly because I was...

For some reason my IBS is really bad today. When I woke up, I was feeling so awful that I just wanted to do the bare minimum of work and crawl back into bed. I tried to take medicine and then just wait until I felt better, but I never seemed to feel better. I ended up trying to work through it. As usual, the discomfort and pain was very distracting and kept pulling my attention from the writing, but I would just take a break, take more medication, and wait a little while until I felt a little better. Sometimes I was tempted to throw in the towel and finish quickly, but I tried to just be patient. Sometimes I waited almost half an hour, but I eventually felt a bit less uncomfortable and could go back to work, even if only for 15 or 20 minutes. Because I did a lot of stopping to rest, I took longer to get my writing done today, and I didn’t get as much work done while blocking. But I’m really proud of myself that I decided to try to get some work done. I felt terrible when I woke u...

My motivation to work has been terrible today, and it’s frustrating that I really don’t know why. I did have some IBS discomfort earlier, and so I waited a little while until I felt better, then got some writing done. But ever since lunch, I’ve been feeling terribly lazy and unmotivated. But I have to force myself to get work done. After all, if I don’t write, I don’t get paid. To give myself a kick in the pants, I started a 700 word count monster on 4thewords with a 3.5 hour time limit so that I’ll have to write at least 700 words to beat the monster. On days like this, I’m so thankful for 4thewords as an external source of motivation. It helps that it’s something I can’t cheat at. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit how lazy I can be. However, confessing it in my blog post does spur me to do work so that I’m not a total loser. *** I did spend more time working, but I didn’t feel like I got a lot of work done. I was really distracted, my mind kept wandering, and I kept having t...

I’ve blogged before about how gamifying the writing has really improved my productivity. Today I was again reminded how 4thewords has really helped to prod me to write more even on days I don’t feel all that great. I had taken a quest that has you write 4000 words in 48 hours. I had already written 2000 words for the quest when I started writing today. I wrote 1500 more words, and then I started feeling tired, but I needed to write only about 500 more words to complete the quest, and I had only a few more hours left before the deadline. So I pushed myself to work a little longer to finish the quest in time. I definitely would have just quit once I started feeling tired today. I’m still feeling a bit of discomfort from the IBS, and the intermittent queasiness is extremely distracting when I’m writing. I always end up not being able to get much done because my brain gets pulled away from the writing when the discomfort gets above a certain level. It always dies down after a few minut...

I haven’t blogged recently even though I probably should have, for accountability. But honestly, not much has happened. My IBS is better although not entirely under control—I still get some bouts of discomfort and pain at random moments during the day. However, they’re mild enough that some medication can clear them up within about 30 minutes, and I’ve been able to get some writing done every day. Most days I get about 2-3 hours, although there were a few days where I only did the bare minimum. I’ve realized that trying to work while battling this IBS has forced me to be patient and flexible. If I’m not feeling well at the moment I sit down to work, I try to remember just to take some medication and wait a little while before trying again. Granted, there were some days I was so unhappy that I just threw in the towel and did the bare minimum for the day, and then didn’t look at my computer for the rest of the day. That happened about 25% of the time. But the other 75% of the time,...

I had a bit of a flare-up on Saturday and only got the bare minimum done both then and on Sunday. Earlier, I had blogged about trying to get work done in small bursts even on days I wasn’t feeling well. After all, there are always small pockets of time where the IBS pain dies down and I can spend a little bit of time working. It’s especially easy because my manuscript is online on 4thewords.com, so I can access it even on my phone. However, I had forgotten how much the IBS discomfort takes a toll on my energy, not just physical but also mental. I tried to be aware of when the flare-up started dying down so that I could perhaps get more done when that happened, but by the time I felt better, not only my body but also my mental state was exhausted. I absolutely couldn’t get more work done on Saturday and ended up going to bed early. I had been a bit too optimistic about being able to get work done even on days I wasn’t feeling well. I had forgotten that sometimes even if I’m not ph...

One of my (many) writing weaknesses is that I don’t like doing research. It’s especially hard to make myself do it when I’m anxious to start writing the book. For previous books, I could usually get away with putting off research until the editing stage. Then I’d do any research that needed to be done and edit the prose as necessary. But right now I’m blocking a book while writing another one. While blocking, I’m reaching a point where I really ought to do more research, and unlike previous books, now I don’t have to choose between research and writing the book. I don’t have to set aside the research in favor of the urgency of writing the book because I’m already writing one. So after spending a little time blocking today and feeling a bit lost, I decided to instead devote some time solely to research. I think it will help with not just this book I’m blocking (volume 5), but also the one I’m currently writing (volume 4) and the other books in the series. I had never expected th...