Tag Archives: working at home

Revised Early Schedule Week 1 Results

These post titles are getting so boring. And confusing. They need better names.

Let’s call this one “Cordelia.”

So as it turns out, waking up at 6:00 is better than dragging my butt out of bed at 5:30. And (surprising no one) I still have trouble getting up when the alarm goes off.

Or to be more precise, I have trouble not with the getting up so much as with the not hitting snooze and getting back under the covers for cozy snoozy this-is-the-best-part-of-my-day time.

I know. That’s sad. But it really is the best. Like, to the point where I’m considering setting the alarm for 5:30 again just so I can hit the snooze three times in rapid succession and buy myself a sweet half-hour in that magical land where my brain gives not a single rodent’s heinie about productivity.

Or reality.

*sigh* I’m happy just thinking about it.

What was I saying?

Right. Anyway, it was a pretty okay week. Nothing earth-shattering in terms of productivity, but I did the best I could. I think. Mostly.

  • I tracked 14 hours of work, which included some planning on a new book for NaNoWriMo, planning and starting revisions on my YA project, inputting fixes on the book I recently sent to beta readers, getting cover art almost done for my pen name’s next book, and updating the autoresponder messages people get when they sign up for pen name’s newsletter (which I actually hadn’t done since before the first book in her series came out. Whoopsie doodle.)
  • I mostly worked on the couch this week and not at my desk, and I’m not even a little bit sorry about it. It was amazing. And cozy. Coziness is wonderful.
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And it makes Jack very happy.

  • I did yoga twice, walked Jack almost every day, and meditated for 10 minutes all seven days of the week.
  • I did homework with the kids, shrink-wrapped all of the windows on the main floor of the house (with mixed success, but I hope it will help a little with the heating bills this winter), and once again did not let anyone starve. I think.
  • I flipped my work hours to the afternoon two days this week when mornings were getting too crazy for me to feel like I could reasonably fit work in before lunch, and my work felt much easier and more flow-y. Afternoons are actually a much better time for me to work, but come with the disadvantages of it being a lot harder to stop when I need to (and me being kind of irritable about it, TBH) and not allowing me to recharge and switch gears before the kids come home. But for my next schedule experiment, I might try doing that more regularly. You never know if you don’t try, right?

Maybe after Halloween.

Which means NaNoWriMo.

Annnnnd I’m also looking at doing the Whole30 program for November. As in the eating-whole-foods-with-lots-of-veggies-and-meat-but-no-grains-dairy-added-sugar-or-alcohol thing. I’m not exactly the queen of willpower, but I might be able to do it. I want to see whether changing my eating habits could lessen the frequency of my migraines and help with my energy levels. Now, if it turns out that dairy is contributing to my acne or bread is causing brain fog, I might decide it would have been better not to know. I mean, don’t tell my husband, but I’m only with him because I found out I couldn’t legally marry a cheese croissant. This would be unthinkable.

But I think I owe it to myself to find out. And just imagine how entertaining my blog posts will be when I’m detoxing from my sugar addiction and I hate EVERYTHING!

Yaaaaaay!

What the heck is wrong with me. Seriously.

Plan for next week: Stick to modified early schedule. Continue NaNo planning during early morning hours, continue Phoenix revisions later in the morning, do pen name publication stuff in the early afternoon, then try to make time to recharge before the offspring invade the premises.*

 


* My children, not the band. And the fact that Monday and Tuesday are both P.D. days (no school) should make this week an interesting one.

 

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Godawful Early Schedule Week 3 Results

Not my wordiest week. To be fair, though, I did lose two days.

We (my family) left home on Thursday evening to head in to St. John’s. Weird timing for a trip, I know. But when one of your favourite authors/a great friend/an amazing person is in town, you make the trip. I got to see Krista Walsh again, and this time I got to show her  a little bit of Newfoundland.

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Totally worth missing a day of work for.

Two, actually. I spent Thursday packing and checking little tasks off my to do list rather than writing. So that’s two days I didn’t add anything to my draft.

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Worth it.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were split days. I drafted early in the morning, then did other work after the boys went to school.

Monday and Tuesday were all about the book that came back from my editor on the weekend. On Monday I did a quick pass accepting or rejecting the little changes my editor had made to fix sentence or paragraph flow (mostly accepting… she’s good at what she does) and dealing with minor fixes. On Tuesday I went through and did the bigger fixes that required deeper thought: looking at places where something had seemed wonky to her, where I needed to re-think blocking in a fight or bring a character in who had sort of disappeared from a group scene, questions about whether someone’s hand was inside or outside of someone else’s clothing.

And that was actually it. I usually plan on post-editor edits taking a lot longer than two days, but this time everything went smoothly.*

So on Wednesday I used my later-morning time to draft the back cover copy for that book, get the ball rolling on cover art, and format the book so I could send it to beta readers.

As for the early morning drafting, I had great mornings on Monday and Tuesday, even if it was hard to get started. Up at 5:30, writing by 6:00. More than 1,500 words Monday, almost 1,900 Tuesday. By Wednesday, though, I was already feeling burned out (after those big mornings and pushing myself to get through my edits). I slept in until 6:20 and only wrote for half an hour.

Strong starts to the week + burning out by the end seems to be a pattern for me. Actually, it’s the pattern of a lot of days, too. I think I’m scared of not using the energy when I have it because I don’t trust it (or the available time) will be there later if I try to pace myself early on. That might be something to look at in future weeks.

For now, the goal is to keep going with this early morning writing schedule. I’ll still be using early mornings for drafting, and then later mornings will be either for more drafting or for taking care of all the things I still need to do for pen name this month (post-beta fixes, cover art, proofreading in ebook and paperback, planning the next book for NaNoWriMo, figuring out promotional stuff).

I might be able to get this draft of my project (we’ll call it Phoenix here for clarity, though it doesn’t have a title) finished by the end of the week. I’m really hoping that boosts my motivation to keep going. I can feel myself getting lazy even though my deadlines are quite critical at this point.

Hours worked: 12 (3 writing, 5.5 editing, 3.5 other work-related tasks)

Words written: 4,000

Pages edited: two passes on 90K word book (no read-through, just editorial fixes)

Other stuff:

  • cover copy for Atonement written
  • cover art in progress
  • Atonement sent to beta readers
  • family stuff (trip to St. John’s, curriculum night at school, making salt crystals at home because that was a cool thing that happened at school)
  • exercised most days

Not too shabby, really.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, CANADA!

 


 

*The time it takes to do these edits and fixes also depends on what kind of edits I’m getting. My pen name Urban Fantasy stuff isn’t receiving the same kind of deep substantive edits that I’ll be getting on my current project when it goes to my other editor. That one could involve massive rewrites after I get the book back. Every book in the Bound trilogy needed big revisions and edits after that editor got his claws into them. Lots of work, but they’re far better books for it. And I learn a lot every time.

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Writing on Summer Vacation: Day One

7:00 AM – Okay. I said I wanted to start writing at 7:30. But I need a shower… I can do this.

7:05 – I know I said no social media before work, but just a quick check won’t hurt. Huh. A reviewer needs a Kindle copy of Into Elurien. Guess that’s important, since she’s booked a date on the series blog tour. *sniffs self* Shower first.

7:30 – Definitely need to let my hair air-dry today.  Better to look like a frizzy purple buffalo than to spend another 20 minutes doing that (and overheating myself in the process). Speaking of heat, I know I had shorts here somewhere…

7:45 – Excellent. Everyone’s still asleep. *stomach grumbles* Dammit. Okay, invisaligns out, make a shake with greek yogurt to keep me full a bit longer (I hope), drink that and an iced coffee. I miss being able to sit and sip while I work. Brush teeth, invisaligns back in. Snap self in face with tiny elastic. Perfect.

8:05 – Okay. Writing. Annnnnnd the dogs want out. Might as well check Facebook quickly while they OH MY GOODNESS THERE’S A RUNNING APP WHERE YOU PRETEND YOU’RE IN A FANTASY SETTING AND GET TO GO ON QUESTS?!* I must investigate this immediately.

8:15 – Oops, forgot to put the laundry in. Better do that now if it’s going to line-dry today.

8:20 – Guess I should send that email.

8:30 – Annnd one kid is up. He’s pretty self-sufficient. They both are. My brain is a far greater obstacle than my boys are. It still doesn’t want to settle in and get this chapter fixed so I can move on to fresh drafting. Maybe I’ll warm up with a blog post, see if other kid wakes up. Then I can start after breakfast…

8:45 – (Now) This is my brain on trying to work. If you’ve read “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield, you know about resistance. I get it bad every time I try to start working. My brain is scattered, no matter what I do. Pomodoro sprints, meditation, visualization to get myself excited about writing a scene, planning, not planning…they help, but not much. On days like today, when my brain is fogged up and I’m recovering from Sunday’s migraine and the world seems to be moving around me at confusing speeds, it’s hard to start. I have zero focus. I’m scattered. My head feels like it’s physically stuffed with cotton. Possibly cotton candy.

The pink kind.

So what am I going to do about it?

I’m going to go make breakfast for Thing 2, I’m going to try to forget how much I wish I had a huge cup of coffee at my desk, and I’m going to publish this post, get my ass back here, put some music on, and work.

Maybe I won’t get the two hours in that I wanted today. Maybe I won’t get this scene revised (quite doubtful, actually, given the speed my brain is working at this morning). But I’m going to try. I’m going to prove to myself, to my muse, to my family, and anyone else who’s watching that I’m committed. I am doing this.

And step by tiny, painful step, I’m going to get through this draft.

Wish me luck.

 

 


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