Camy's Writing Diary

I had an appointment today, but I got up early and managed to get a lot of work done before I had to leave. I did my “frogs” beforehand so they got done, and then got some work done on my Regency book. After the appointment, I wanted to get a couple more hours of blocking done, but I suddenly had a bad IBS flare-up. I’ve taken medicine and I’m waiting for it to kick in, but it’s pretty bad. I may have to take another dose. I think I’ll go have lunch and see how I feel afterward. *** I feel better now so I’ll try to get in another hour of blocking. When I checked my word count for the blocking, I was disappointed that the total wasn’t very high because I had been doing some extensive revision of what I’d written before, to fix some plot holes. However, that entailed deleting as many words as I’d written. So my blocking word count for today will probably not be very high again. While I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to make the 2500 word goal for blocking that I had set for myself, ...

I slept very poorly and was so exhausted on Saturday that I ended up taking another sick day, since my brain was too tired to concentrate. I tried getting more rest, but ended up not sleeping well last night. Unfortunately I got a late start this morning because I had a bunch of house chores to do, and then I got distracted by an audiobook sale! Why do I do this??? It didn’t help that I had a bit of IBS discomfort and had to take some medication and then wait for it to kick in. The distraction/retail procrastination happened while I was waiting. Why was I so distracted even though I took a sick day on Saturday and had Sunday off??? I should be focused and raring to go! Well, putting myself down isn’t going to help me, but I do wish I knew why I was so easily distracted today. Is it just laziness and I just don’t want to get to work? If that’s the case, how can I motivate myself to be more diligent in my work? Actually, I’ve been trying to eat more healthy lately and I haven’t been snac...

I don’t remember why, but I had stopped doing my Japanese study time before my writing time each day—probably so that I would prioritize the writing and get more done each day. Unfortunately, that also caused me to stop doing all but the bare minimum of my Japanese study each day. I know by now that if I don’t do these kinds of things first, I won’t get to doing them at all at the end of the day. So I decided to once again spend a couple hours doing my other work before starting on my writing each day. Aside from my Japanese study, I also want to spend more time doing research reading, so I’m going to try to do about 30-45 minutes of that each day. I prefer diving straight into my writing work each day, but I’ve realized that my Japanese and my Regency research are too important for me to slack off on anymore. So I’ll just have to knuckle down and force myself to get this done before I start writing. Yesterday, I also had a hard time getting to my Hawaii book and also checking my email...

I decided to take a few sick days because I was in so much pain. I felt a bit silly for needing sick days, but I honestly haven’t ever bitten my tongue so badly or had it hurt so much. It also made it hard for me to sleep well since I woke up every hour or so whenever I happened to move my mouth and the pain from my tongue woke me up very sharply. So the past several days have been pretty rough for me, despite how stupid it sounds when I say I only bit my tongue. On a more positive note, my IBS has not been giving me many problems at all, except for yesterday and today when I started feeling some cramping. And while I was sick, I got a ton of laundry done. As for my writing, I’m going to continue what I’ve been doing for the past week or so, which is to write the bare minimum of prose in order to have more time for blocking and get that done as soon as possible. I was really torn about whether I should do this or not, because I want to get books 4 and 5 of the series released so that I...

I started off wanting to work more today, but the pain in my mouth was simply too distracting, and I ended up not doing as much as I wanted. I intended to only do the bare minimum of writing, but I had been hoping to get more blocking done than I did. Before I started work on the Regency book, I spent some time working on the Hawaii book. It took a bit longer than I had expected because I had to set up a new Scrivener project and a new time sheet spreadsheet for the book, and I also had to reformat the original scene index to a darker background that would be easier on my eyes. I feel a bit guilty that I didn’t get that much done today, but the pain is pretty bad today. I’ll try to go to bed early and hopefully feel better tomorrow. Regency series: Editing: Time spent: 4 minutes Writing: Time spent: 8 minutes Writing: Total number of words: 87 words Writing streak: 159 days Blocking: time spent: 18 minutes Blocking streak: 153 days Hawaii series: Writing: time spent: 29 minutes Writing...

I admit that today I was really tempted to just make it a sick day, because the sore in my mouth where I bit my tongue is really painful. I haven’t bitten my tongue this badly in a long time. But my husband smoked ribs yesterday so I don’t have to cook tonight, so I thought I’d use the time to get some work done. However, I’m not aiming for as many hours as a normal day and I’m going at a more relaxed pace, since I feel a little bit like an invalid recovering from a wound. Today I’m going to devote the majority of my work time on blocking the next book. I decided this because in working on the outline of my Hawaii book, I was reminded how I do my outlining/blocking much better when I have larger chunks of time to devote to it. Also, I had been vaguely aware of it earlier, but when I start blocking each day, I usually have to spend some time reminding myself where I am in the story and where in the scene I last stopped. I think I have to re-immerse myself because I have to reorient my m...

I worked on the hero’s journey worksheet for my heroine today and finished it. I think that the majority of the work needed to be done for outlining my Hawaii book is now completed. Yay! I was going to do more work on my Regency book after that, but I got a late start, and my mouth and jaw have been really sore today after I bit my tongue really badly, plus I forgot we had Bible study tonight so I had to finish work by a certain time. So the combination of those three things made me decide to cut short my workday today. It’s partly a sick day, although it might also be a little bit of laziness because I didn’t want to have to push myself to work through the pain in my mouth. Regency series: Editing: Time spent: 4 minutes Writing: Time spent: 21 minutes Writing: Total number of words: 198 words Writing streak: 156 days Blocking: time spent: 30 minutes Blocking streak: 150 days Hawaii series: Outlining: time spent: 1 hour, 15 minutes Time spent doing other writing-related business: 29 mi...