Tag: word count

Writing again…sort of

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I think it’s time to start writing again. The itch to do so has been constant lately.

Even though I’m working on Theadia (and doing a soft-start for the remaster of The Persistence of Memories), I’ve been itching to just write something new. I’m not sure what just yet, and I’m not going to force it. That, and I’ve sort of resurrected some of my writing habits again — noting word count in the small black moleskine calendar notebook, for instance. I’m not doing it every day of course, I’m merely entering it every now and again when the thought and the temptation strikes.

I know I talk about this here every now and again, and I admit sometimes I’m like a broken record (a skipping cd? a corrupted FLAC?) but it’s been an ongoing process that needs constant adjustment and tweaking. We writers sometimes get all meta about our process and it’s usually because we’re trying to figure out why our processes are the way they are, why they sometimes no longer work, and what we need to do to change them. That kind of thing never ends, I’m afraid, but it’s something I’m used to at this point.

As always, it’s just a matter of doing it. Once I start, the rest comes easier.

Keeping track of the days…or not

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I’ve realized that I haven’t been logging my words and creative output in my calendar notebook lately. Not that I got rid of it or don’t have the time for it, simply that I just haven’t thought about it. I’m not all that bothered by it, as I’ve been doing it primarily as a way to see how much I’ve done, and I’m well aware of my own creative output at this point.

But let’s be honest here: over the last couple of years, the entries have been pretty much the same: blog entries written and posted, daily 750Words written, and word count logged when I’ve actually been working on a completely new project. It can be interesting, but it can also be quite distracting and disconcerting, especially whenever I get that time-honored writerly anxiety of feeling like a failure for not getting any work done despite completing multiple things almost every single day.

I started logging those numbers around 2002 when I was writing the trilogy, because I was curious: when I was writing The Phoenix Effect longhand I’d get about five pages done, which would then be transcribed to about two and a half single-space pages typed — basically around five hundred words. By the time I was writing A Division of Souls directly into the PC, I wanted to see how much I could do, and if it was possible for me to write even more words each session. (And to be aware of how often I’d get distracted by various things). Soon I was writing about a thousand words on a nightly basis. I’d finally figured out what was a comfortable word count goal for me.

These days, however, it feels more like a distraction or an assignment than anything fun or helpful. Not that I hate doing it, I just feel as though I don’t need to do it now, at least not until I’m back to working on a completely new project. It’s all a part of my changing creative habits as we continue to settle into the New Digs. In its own way, the continual focus on word count goals and logging project updates had become a distraction itself; my creativity had started feeling more like a chore or an assignment than a joy. I kind of knew somehow that this constant logging was only adding to that stress, but I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to get rid of it just yet.

Again, moving to our new home was a perfect way to cut those ties once and for all. I feel less chained to the keyboard, less stressed out, less inclined to feel guilty if I don’t get a lot of work done. And that, in itself, is one of the creative goals I’ve been trying to reach for some time now.

Hrrmm…

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Yeah, I think I’m more than a bit out of practice when it comes to writing bigger stories. It’s been far too long since I’ve written in this style, I think. But I’m being patient and hoping that it all works out eventually. It’ll come back to me.

Over this past week I’ve been trying to write an all-new chapter for Theadia that introduces an important secondary character, but I know that this very rough draft is coming out a little, well…rough. I know I could do better, and I’m thinking I might need to give this another go-round before I move on to the next chapter. I think I’m more annoyed that my word count plummeted to about three hundred words a session when usually they’re an easy eight hundred or so. [It doesn’t help that I’ll find myself easily distracted by music and, er, blogging things like this.] But I’m not giving up.

I’m reminding myself that I’ve been in this situation several times in the past, where my word count can fluctuate at any point in time, where I might struggle to get a single scene done one day and breeze through another one the next. It’s just how the writing biz is. And no, I’m not going to use AI to help me, as this is actually my favorite part of writing! Heh.

I’ll get through it, one way or another.

Slowly getting there

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I’m definitely not hitting any huge numbers or even finishing scenes as of yet, but I’ll hit those goals once again, soon enough. I’m not going to push it. Right now, my only writing goal is to get something written. The other day it was a little over six hundred. Tonight it’s probably more like two hundred.

Again, this is how I remember writing A Division of Souls: at the beginning of the project, it was about forward motion, even if it was a little at a time. This allowed me to take my time absorbing the scene and the characters within it, really get to know them a bit. These are mostly all new characters I’m introducing right now, the main cast that will take over where the original gang left off, and I’m learning about them as I go. This has already paid dividends as I’m getting to know one of the new mains more intimately, flaws and all. Which lets me figure out what’s going to happen next.

So yeah, that’s all I have to report here right now. Here, have a new groove from Unknown Mortal Orchestra that’s been playing on my PC lately!

Counting On It

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September’s writing work: 57,111 words across three novels, twenty personal journal entries, eighteen blog posts (including this one, written last night), and eighteen rough-draft poems. And having enough time left to send out a few resumes, upload pictures to a stock photo site, occasionally play (and retune) my guitar, and do fifteen quick sketches in preparation for Inktober.

It’s been a super busy month, but this is exactly how I want it.

I’ve always noted my word count in some kind of moleskine pocket calendar. I’ve done it since the Belfry days. I’ve never used it for self-defeating purposes — you know, the ‘I only got 1000 words today, why couldn’t I make 2000?’ — because that never works. It’s more about figuring out my personal metrics, really. What word count am I comfortable with? What count do I think is good but could be a lot better? Which days are my worst, and which are best? Where can I do better, and when am I just phoning it in? I’m curious about these things.

About halfway through September I said to myself, okay: let’s try to make at LEAST a thousand words each for the three novel projects. I noticed, thanks to my word count notes, that I was hitting about 800 for Project A (which I’m doing on the 750Words site), roughly the same for Project B, but lagging on Project C at around 500. I knew it wasn’t because of burnout, though. It was because it was midafternoon and I’d start getting distracted. Whether it was comics, social media, cat gifs, or whatever, the problem with Project C was that I just wasn’t taking it completely seriously. And the last thing I wanted to do was let that one fall by the wayside. Or any of them for that matter.

So instead of saying okay let’s hit three thousand words today, I said let’s hit one thousand for each project. Very big difference there. It forced me to think that no, I wasn’t trying to Do All The Writing. I had three assignments due that day, all of them with specific word count. As soon as I hit one, I’d take a break (writing a blog post, sketching, practicing guitar, etc), then jump onto the next one. And if I didn’t quite hit it, then I could use some post-dinner time to catch up. And as for the journal, poem and sketch: all three notebooks for those are across the room on the (Not So) Hidden Bookshelf and I do all three in one go, taking no more than maybe a half hour at most. I don’t take them entirely seriously, and that in itself is part of another goal: stop trying to be so f***ing perfect from the get-go. And all of this is finely scheduled for most of the day.

See? There is a method to my madness! Heh.

Anyway — I’m quite happy that I managed to get that many words done this month, and I hope to do more. I’ll continue the journal entries, poems, sketches (it being Inktober and all). Keep up my daily creativity, and expand and elaborate on it. Reach out further with submission and freelance.

Let’s see where this goes.

Numbers

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I’ve always tried not to focus too much on hitting a specific word count, though it doesn’t always work out that way.

Back in my Belfry days, I’d assigned myself a daily word count of 500, if only to ensure that I wasn’t just turning on the computer, typing a paragraph, and spending the rest of the time playing FreeCell and faffing about with my music library. Once I got into the groove, however, the daily word count goal shifted to 1000. This was around the time I was writing The Persistence of Memories and I knew that with the schedule I had, I could hit it easily.

The downside to that run, which lasted until 2004 while writing The Balance of Light, was that hitting word count started becoming a sport. I’d been so excited by that incessant creative drive that I was pushing 1200 on a daily basis, even weekends. So when the Day Job was getting to me mentally and physically (not to mention a budding long-distance relationship that would soon change my life significantly), I was burning out. And that caused my productivity to suffer.

Nowadays I keep tabs on my word count, but I no longer see it as a sport. I see it more a series of small achievements, like the KonMari cleaning system: a little at a time adds up to quality work as a whole. I keep tabs on the numbers in a little calendar notebook, purely for reference and curiosity. Between the 750 Words site, revision work, and new words for new projects over the course of a day, it adds up. I could hit a few thousand pretty easily on any given day, but I rarely think about it.

For a while I used to take these numbers and crunch them on a spreadsheet, but I soon realized that the actual numbers didn’t interest me in that format. While it was interesting to see how productive I could get during various parts of the year, I’d also get frustrated because I knew I wouldn’t be able to hit the same numbers during a heavy fourth quarter. Besides, I’d completely forget to update the spreadsheet for months on end, so I figured…maybe recording metrics is not what’s needed here.

I just want to write, and enjoy the process. I love having a busy and extremely productive day, especially when I finish off a chapter or a major scene. Adding metrics to my productivity only causes me to think maybe I’m not doing enough. [The Former Day Job may also have something to do with that.] It’s not how my brain works, because numbers don’t mean all that much to me in that context. I’m more focused on schedules anyway. It’s why I have my whiteboard, why I have those ‘assignments’ I hit every day. It all adds up to the same productivity goal I want to hit.

I don’t focus on the solid numbers; I just focus on getting it done.

Another day, another few hundred or so words

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Courtesy of Makoto Shinkai, of course.

Starting a new project can often provide its own set of obstacles and trip-ups. My first few chapters are always a hot mess, primarily because I’m still feeling my way through it all. There’s the fear that I won’t be able to expand on this new idea past a couple of flashy scenes. There’s the reminder that I’m proud of my last project and that I really want this new one to be just as great. There’s the nagging reminder of past goals I’ve reached, such as hitting over a thousand words a day, every day, or writing two novels in tandem, and wanting to immediately recapture those goals again with the new project.

Instead what I’m doing is ignoring those trip-ups. It’s hard sometimes, but it’s doable. I remind myself that this is a Brand New Project that can’t and shouldn’t be personally compared to anything I’ve done in the past. If that means that I’m only hitting maybe two or three hundred words a day instead of eight hundred or a thousand, so be it. I gently remind myself that I’ll get back up to that count soon enough, once I feel more secure and confident about the project.

Each project creates its own mood, its own set of habits and goals, which are different from those of the past. Because of that, and unless I’m writing a sequel or a story in an already created world, I have to treat this new project as its own entity. It’s part of why I make mixtape soundtracks for them. It’s also why I’m my own worst enemy when I feel like I’m not writing enough or as strongly and fall into the trap of “why can’t this be as fun as Lidwells or as easy as In My Blue World?” Those are questions I should not be asking myself.

I should be asking better questions: Who are these new characters? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What would they do in this particular scene I’m about to write? And once they do it, what are the consequences? And instead of focusing on the word count, I should be focusing on nailing the arc of the scene I have in my head. I have to relearn the process every single time, because the process is different for each story I write.

It surprises me how often I need to remind myself of all this, every single time I start a new project. I understand that it’s part of wanting to repeat a personal success, and sometimes that’s the right way to go, but not always. Every project starts off with its own unique rules and creates its own paths to completion.

If that means I’m only hitting a few hundred words instead of a thousand or more for the time being, so be it. As long as it gets done.

Keeping Metrics

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I have a small calendar notebook on my desk that I update on a daily basis; it’s where I log my word counts, blog entries, journal entries, and anything else creative.  It’s something I’ve done off and on for years since the Belfry days.  There’s no real reason for it other than I’m curious to see how much work I’ve done over the course of a certain stretch of time.

I do this because, like most creatives, I feel like I barely get anything done on any given day!  This logging of work actually gives me a little dose of reality to combat that.  I may grouse that I only got four hundred words done on a novel project (I’m not happy unless I get at least 500), but when I look at the day’s progress, I see that I’ve also written 800 words on the 750Words.com site relating to another project, maybe a few hundred words on writing blog post that’s not due until next week (like this one, for instance) plus a few hundred more for a music blog post, and cleaned up emails.  And maybe noodled around on my guitar for a bit as well.

And it all adds up, because I’m pretty consistent about it.  Hitting 500-600 novel words nearly every day for six months got me finishing Meet the Lidwells in record time.  And with all those outtakes and notes on the 750, I’ve got a serious amount of worldbuilding done for the Next Project already.

So yeah.  Sometimes I need a slap upside the head to show that I’m doing a ton of work, it’s just spread out over five or six different things.