Work hours
Aug 20th, 2008 by Lynne
This year, I’ve been having a lot of “Doh!” moments. One of them was realizing that the alchemical correspondences in my fantasy series had a HUGE flaw in the way I’d aligned the elements of Air and Spirit. I’ve had to rearrange the order of the books, which meant putting a story that’s only a detailed outline in the second slot and moving a much closer to done book to the end of the series. Ouch.
But hey, I do have some time to get book #2 finished, and when I’m on a roll like I am now, things cook right along. I’m not worried. Mostly, I’m amused that I REFUSED to see this mismatch for so long. It was more convenient to put a closer-to-baked book right after the first one, so I just kept plugging away, vaguely aware all along that something wasn’t right.
I had another “Doh!” — probably also “Duh!” — moment this week. I’ve realized that I work much better with fixed, limited writing time. If I tell myself I’m going to write for, say, two hours on weekdays and four hours on Saturday and Sunday, then all I have to do is fulfill my commitment to myself, and after that, I am free to do whatever I want, including absolutely NOTHING. When I don’t set myself hours goals, I tend to feel bad about any so-called free time I don’t spend writing. What kind of life is that? :-)
I’ve tried setting page count goals, but for some reason, that doesn’t work as well for me. Picking a window of time during which I will write about *something* is typically enough to do the trick. Most of the time, I’ll end up meeting or even exceeding whatever page count goals I would’ve set, anyway. And then when I’m done, I can go watch History International or read a magazine or whatever — and not feel bad at all. :-)
Lynne, glad the time goal works for you. I do the page goals. I tried hourly goals but there are days where the scene is harder to write for whatever reason. So if I have a page goal, I work more hours that day. It keeps me from fluffing off.
I exceeded my goal today by 8 pages and feel good about it. Love it when that happens.
Lynne, you and me had this epiphany at the same time :) . I just wasn’t getting down to my work, and feeling bad about everything else I did because it wasn’t writing, and now, with the timed, specific slots, I’m making progress and not feeling guilty about reading etc.
Hi, Edie! I used to do time goals but then switched to page goals. I had always heard how well they worked for other people, and I honestly gave it a good shot. But I just kept finding myself tempted to make bigger and bigger targets, and then I would feel awful when I didn’t reach them. Every time I did something other than work on pages, it was like I was playing hooky! The guilt finally just got to me.
You EXCEEDED your goal by 8 pages?! Wow. For many people, those 8 pages alone are well over their daily goal.
Congratulations! :-)
That’s the same realization I had, Michelle. I was feeling increasingly pressured about everything, and the fun was getting sucked right out of my writing.
My little kitchen timer used to be my constant writing companion, and I’m so happy now to be getting back to this method.
Glad you’re making progress! :-)
So that’s my problem. I’ve been using an egg timer.
;-)
Hey, Lynne!
Great idea and one I recently started doing too. The guilt thing is awful, and not worth the effort. When I spend a few hours writing, then the movie or book I indulge in doesn’t pinch as much.
Love the look of your site too!
Hi, James! I bet you could come up with a haiku before the timer ran out of sand, though! :-)
Hi, LaDonna! Thanks for stopping by! The layout is the same as always, but the header image is one John took of the lake next to the house. (We moved last October to a nicer place.)