General Notes
For years, I’ve set my alarm for either 5:00 or 5:45 AM, a prompt to get up and write before the vicissitudes of the day distract me. That’s usually more effective when I’ve got a day job to get to, compared to the days when I’ve got a more free-form schedule, and it ceased being effective after we adopted a second cat and needed to ride shotgun on kitty breakfast lest food be stolen or wars break out.
One of the interesting things about tracking performance has been seeing just how efficient my practice is in terms of raw output. I can write right after I wake up, but looking back on last week’s data I was typically getting more words done in the hours between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM, so this week has been a bit of an experiment. I’m still getting up in the wee hours, but I’m not going to write. Instead, I’ll do some reading and some publishing work, then drive my beloved to their job. Only then, around 10:00 AM (or after the first mentoring session) will I log into my document and start work on the draft.
I hope that starting later will also mean the “hours on the keyboard” data that RescueTime tracks for a project is closer to the hours spent at the computer. I’ve noticed it usually takes me between 45 minutes and 80 minutes to get a half-hour of keyboard time, with the difference made up by short tasks (“I’ll just research this”), distractions (“I’ll check Facebook”), and being called away by cats or my spouse.
Ideally, if I can compress my writing time from 10:00 AM to 1:00PM, that leaves the early mornings and afternoons open for editorial and publishing tasks.
Starting around 10:00 AM also opened up doing my first writing stint of the day at the desk, on the desktop keyboard, instead of wrestling with the aging laptop on the couch. Over time, I’m hoping to borrow some writing advice from Rachel Aaron and do some real tests of where, when, and what tool is the most effective for me when it comes to writing. For now the desktop seems to have a slight edge over the laptop when I’m working in the optimal window, especially when using a Pomorodo timer with a a white noise generator built in.
That said, I’m wary of making broad assumptions here, because there’s any number of other elements including the projects worked upon and the fact I’m tracking things here which could be having an impact.
19 June
- Heavy G Hammer novella: 2,766 words | 2 hours 6 min at the keyboard
Ah, Mondays. Another week where I fit writing between two mentoring sessions, which broke up my flow a little, and my spouse lasted about 20 minutes of work before coming home sick.
Basically spent the day writing in 30 minute bursts, then dashing off to take care of my spouse, our cats, or preparing for a mentoring call. At one point I needed to stop because the rapid-fire clatter of my keyboard overstimulated my beloved.
Basically did four short writing stints between 11 and 3, then came back for a focused 45-minute dash between 5:45 and 6:30.
20 June
- Heavy G Hammer novella: 2,971 words | 2 hours 15 min at the keyboard
Interesting day. Fired up the pomodoro timer and powered through 2400 words in around two and a half hours at the computer, doing 45 minutes between 10 and 11, then nearly a full hour from 11 until 12.
I sat the computer “writing” from 12 to 12:30, but unfortunately I’d hit the end of a chapter and resistance kicked in hard because I had to decide what happened next. Heavy G Hammer has gone in a really interesting following the Nickel Novel formula—the decisions made in the 4th and 8th chapters set up a very different act that I’d been idly contemplating.
I messed around with Facebook and writing notes here, then realised how to solve the problem and went back to work, figuring I’d squeeze in the final 400 words between 12:45 and 1:30 (when I go pick up my spouse). As you can see from the word count above, I went a little harder than that, even though the “what comes next” involves doing quick research about hydroponic grow houses.
I could easily have come home and kept working on this novella after lunch—I’m getting a feel for how easy it would be to actually ramp up to 40 of these a year if you were working fast and loose—but getting everything done before lunch meant putting focus on overdue Brain Jar and PhD tasks for the afternoon.
Probably as close to an ideal writing day as I’m going to get.
21 June
- Heavy G Hammer novella: 3,159 words | 2 hours 7 min at the keyboard
Started later than expected at 10:45, and wrapped up writing around 1:17. A little over a two and a half hours of writing time, with the bulk of it focused on producing new words instead of muddling through what happens next or doing research for the setting.
22 June
- Heavy G Hammer novella: 2,953 words | 1 hours 33 min at the keyboard
A challenging Thursday. Between mentoring, a fortnightly workshop session, and chores that took me out of the house, I didn’t end up sitting down to write until 8:45 PM and kept going until 11.
Had to use the keyboard on the couch, because I’d just spent a lot of time on the desktop,, and that meant a lot of wasted time when you look at the hours spent with fingers on the keyboard. I stopped around 15000 words and debated calling it a short night, happy that I’d got something done despite feeling ready for bed at 8:30. Fortunately, I was in the final fight scene of the novella, which coaxed me into doing a little more.
Pretty sure I’ll finish this draft tomorrow, and I know what I’ll be writing next.
23 June
- Heavy G Hammer novella: 1,1160 words | 33 min 16 seconds at the keyboard
- The Gun Witch of Half Moon Bay novella: 1656 words | 1 hour at the keyboard.
As predicted, finished the first novella today and started a second hot on its heels. Writing kicked off around 10:30 AM and finished at 1:00 PM, with lots of interruptions because a) I wasn’t feeling crash hot and b) both starting and ending stories often slows me down a bit because it’s all about setting up and tying off elements from earlier in the tale.
Interested to see how the Gun Witch novella goes using this approach. Unlike the first few novellas I’ve written, which were fast-paced riffs on pulp fiction’s boxing story format, while the Gun Witch novella and the two I’ll write after part of the Crossbones & Sorcery universe set during the Golden Age of Piracy. That means a more ornate voice, more research to get period setting details right, and other things that’ll slow me down.
24 June
- The Gun Witch of Half Moon Bay novella: 3053 words | 2 Hours 3 minutes at the keyboard.
Numbers will be misleading here, as I realised I had about 8000 words of this project roughed out in a notebook and so it was less “writing” and more editing in/redrafting details I already had. Wrote over a lot of the work I did yesterday, but the upside is that I’m surer of the voice and the story now. Into the fourth chapter of the novella, pondering what I’ll do at the first act turning point.
Writing time went from 11:40 to 3:17, with breaks to look at notes and research details I wanted to get right on the page. Case in point, I spent a good chunk of my time researching Ships of the Line and the history of tools used for engraving metal (or, as I learned, burins).
