Changing Channels

I’d been slowing down on one project (the one with a deadline), finding it harder to produce more words each day.  I’d only been working on it for the past ten days, since I’d had limited writing time.  Tonight I had a little more time, so I decided to hop between it and another story.  Eureka!  Things started flowing more easily.  I really should have at least two projects in rotation.

I don’t know why it took me so long to try this technique.  I’m never content with one thing when it comes to entertaining my brain.  I always read at least three books at a time.  I prefer listening to music on my own because I’ll start listening to one song, then decide to skip to the next.  I should have known that the output of my brain would function better on multiple channels, since that’s how I prefer my input.

Writing Work-Out (cue theme from “Rocky”)

Writing is a lot like exercise.  Who am I kidding, it’s EXACTLY like exercise (except I’m FAR more likely to write than work out).  During the month of July I’ve written every day, with July 4 being my only day off.  That is the most regular I’ve written since before I gave birth, almost 3 years ago.  Over the past couple months, I’d started writing again, but it was irregular and the words weren’t always coming.  Lately, though, three things happened. 

First, I found a project with a deadline.  Deadlines are ALWAYS good for me.  That’s why I love work-for-hire projects so much and why I ended up with three degrees in writing: I blossom under a deadline.  Self-imposed doesn’t work, but give me something that someone ELSE gave me (someone in the writing world; alas, my husband or friends or family won’t work!), and I will meet it. 

Second, I found not just one, not two, but THREE projects to work on!  Only one has a deadline, so that’s getting my full attention, but for a few days, I was actually working on three books at once.  That wasn’t nearly as confusing as it could be, especially since all of them were very different.  I actually found it refreshing: if I got stuck on one, I’d just flip to another one, write a bit on that, and then switch to yet another once I got stuck, and then keep bouncing around.  I doubt that would be a good process for me all the time, but for a few days it was fun.

Third, I committed myself to writing EVERY day.  100 word minimum.  Hard on some days, but I seem to be able to count on getting a bit of writing time every evening, either after hubby gets home and can watch the Wyrmling, or just after Wyrmling goes to sleep.  Many people swear by writing first thing in the morning, but that does NOT work for me.  Never has.  I’m finding that the more I write every day, the easier the words come.  I’ve set a 100 word min, but, as you can see by my writing spreadsheet below, I exceed that almost every day by more than double.  I scheduled out the deadline project to write 100 words every day so I’d be finished by Oct 1 (which would give me time to revise), but, as you can see by the numbers, I’m currently at 2,347 words and min goal by this date was 800.  Whoohoo! 

Not sure how long I’ll be able to keep this up, but it’s working for now!

 

 

Date	Beginning Word Count	Ending Word Count	Words for Day	Goal	Worked On
07/02/13	0	810	810	100	Notes, Chapter 1
07/03/13	810	1038	228	200	Chapter 1
07/04/13	1038	1038	0	300
07/05/13	1038	1272	234	400	Chapter 1
07/06/13	1272	1480	208	500	Chapter 1
07/07/13	1480	1613	133	600	Chapter 1
07/08/13	1613	1819	206	700	Chapter 2
07/09/13	1819	2347	528	800	Chapter 2