It has been nearly a week since I started my unofficial second job of writing. It has definitely had its ups and downs, however in the end I think it has gone extraordinarily well.
Last week I actually did do some work but I wasn’t very consistent and it wasn’t part of the overall hours of work. I cleaned off my desk of all the random junk so that I can concentrate on the tasks at hand without the extra clutter. I then created a new user account on my computer that has restricted access to programs and the internet to try to force me to not do anything but write. I also downloaded, and since have bought, a word processor specifically geared towards writing called Liquid Story Binder XE. I have been liking it so far. It allows me to keep journals of what I’m doing, create checklists of things to do, sort my story by chapter, keep dossiers of characters, set goals for myself, keep a word count and session times, and just overall keep thoughts tracked.
I was supposed to start my actual work on Sunday evening after my daughter had left. I have a two hour block scheduled for Sunday nights, however this didn’t work out well. My roommate and I went out right after my daughter left to see the Oscar-nominated Animated shorts. This brought me home in the midst of my scheduled block and decided that for this week I would just use the time to relax, not a great beginning. I also had a pitfall yesterday morning where I skipped an hour slot due to staying up until midnight the night before. And the night before I missed about a half hour because I needed to make a meal earlier as we were going out.
My writing still hasn’t gotten to be full speed though I think that it is better than what it has been. Over the week I have done a lot of setting up and a lot of learning of Liquid Story Binder. I am also taking the time and using it to write blogs, like this one. I got my novel copied over to the program from when I was writing it previously, went through and did a quick edit of what I had so far, separated it into chapters and so forth.
I had about 2500 words written previously (I know not much), and I have since added about 750 more words to it, as well as two blog posts of about 1000 words. For my first week I don’t think this is terrible. I think I did have a pretty good test last night where I was tired and didn’t feel like writing much. I admit that I didn’t do as well as I could have normally, but I did manage 250 words and even though it is slight, I was proud of it considering my condition.
I have also added to my daily time reading time to inspire and enlighten my writing. For each block of time that I set aside for writing, I set aside 10 to 15 minutes for reading either the Bible or the Poetry Dictionary right now. The reason for this is that I feel that this time should be not just getting the work done, but also for bettering the work. I do want biblical references, and I admit that I don’t have a hugely strong grasp of the Bible so that is why that is there. The Poetry Dictionary I think is a good source for me to learn how to use rhythm better which will always help.
During my writing and reading I have tended to listen to music. I bought a brand new pair of headphones that cost me about $40. They are of the over-the-ear variety. I wanted ear phones that would be really comfortable and help me block out the rest of the world and so far I think these work great. I so far have been listening to Pandora and my own music, though every now and then I plan on listening to alternative net radio stations to try to keep up to pace on alternative music seeing as I don’t actually have much opportunity to do that.
Overall, I do think that it is going well. I definitely am still adjusting into the role, but I like that I can see the promise of what I am doing. I can see how this method might work extremely well. Even when I get the 250 words while tired, I sit and think of how easy it could be to get 1000 words in an hour. Given that my goal only has me doing 500 words an hour to get a 100,000 page book in 4 months, I am hopeful that I will be ahead of schedule soon enough.
My Goal 100,000 words, current words: 3,743. End Date: 6/14/2012.