40 Day Rush: Day 7

One week down. Things progress at the pace I need them too. After spending most of 2015 trying to write insane numbers of words a day, maintaining the 1,000 words a day I need to hit target on Float is easier than I expected.

The interesting part about this particular project is that it’s the first that I’ve done 100% on a computer since installing RescueTime, which means I can start collecting some data on what my writing process actually looks like rather than what I assume it’s going to be like.

For instance, I have spent 8 hours and 20 minutes working on Float thus far this month. I’ve spent far more time sitting at the computer, ostensibly “writing,” but RescueTime only counts the minutes where the file is active and I am paying attention to it. If I spend an hour at the computer, but spend thirty-four minutes checking Facebook, then there’s only twenty-six minutes getting attributed to Float.

My writing days are wildly inconsistent. This was not unexpected, but given that I’m largely spending the same amount of time at the computer, it does have some surprises. I was doing something right, on Sunday, but I do not exactly remember how I packed all those extra minutes into the writing shift.

Interestingly, RescueTime also does a pretty need break-down on when I’m doing the bulk of my writing by tracking the time of day when the document is open. This breaks down the data from the last week:

This time around, it’s pretty much what I’d expected. I don’t look for big blocks of time to write when I’m trying to hit a 1,000 word a day goal – I loo kfor multiple opportunities to sit down and the keyboard and get a little bit more done. I’m usually aiming for three shifts a day, doing about 300 words at a time. One when I first get up, one when I first get home from work, and one later in the evening after I’ve watched some TV and talked to people on the internet. Or, if you’d rather, roughly about the point that it occurs to me that I’m getting sleepy and haven’t yet finished my daily word count.

My suspicion is that the large midday block of hours is probably the result of Write Club on June 1st. I may spend some quality time looking at the day-by-day details tomorrow to figure out the pattern.

PROGRESS ON FLOAT