Current word count: 28,494
New words written: 961
Words til goal: 11,506 / 338 words a day til the end of September
Ok, full disclosure here. I wrote about 800+ words yesterday, but only a couple sentences this morning. I got up really early today but just couldn’t get my brain into writing gear. I was distracted by all these other things in my head, and although that’s normal, this morning, I found it harder than usual to push them away.
I’m usually very selfish about my writing hour. It’s the only time I have to write, and I sacrifice sleep to get it. So, emails, web surfing (except thesaurus.com if needed, or the occasional research) and blogs are strictly not allowed in. I don’t even allow myself to open the programs, because I know I’ll be too tempted. And that’s where my problem came this morning. I had left my computer on standby last night, so when I started it this morning, they were already open saying, “Come, play with me.”
The big distraction was something I started yesterday, which was trying to fix my blog reader problem. I have been using iGoogle, but it isn’t really designed as a good blog reader if you’re following a lot of blogs–like I am–so iGoogle can’t keep up and my browser keeps crashing. This morning, I decided to scale back my iGoogle to just the news and weather and move all my blogs to Google Reader. And once I had made that decision, it was really hard to not just make the fix and I eventually caved.
Before I caved, however, I did go into my layout document for my current novel and sketch out the remainder of the book. I squared it all away while I was at the gym yesterday (there’s nothing like thinking about the action in my novel instead of concentrating on my workout), so this morning I put it all on paper — or rather hard drive. I have four chapters left, including the one I just started. At an average of 1,800 words a chapter, that means I probably won’t go over my 40K limit, which is great. But I know the book has lots of fluff in it, so it’ll probably end up in the low 30s after it’s all revised, which is perfect.
Before I revise, of course, I just have to stop giving in to distractions during my writing hours so I can write those last four chapters.
Anything been distracting you lately?
Write On!
2 Responses
Yes; my waistline!
At my recent annual check-up I discovered that during the past twelve months I had not only written two novels, I had gained fifteen pounds. It’s all that BIC.
So now I MUST take time out of my writing to exercise. Rats.
LOL! Sorry to hear that Vonna. But congratulations on writing those two novels. That’s wonderful.
And remember, while you’re exercising, you can be planning your next novel. I get some of my best ideas at the gym when I’m supposed to be concentrating on my muscles.