You know, sometimes I miss the days when I would churn out 1,000+ badly written words and throw up a badly written blog post, still reeling in awe from a white-hot creative heat.<\/p>\n
Well, I think those days are coming back! \u00a0Except hopefully, my writing has improved since then. \u00a0Today was the first day I hit my four hour writing goal, and it was\u00a0awesome<\/em>. \u00a0Also, I wrote over a thousand words in two different projects:\u00a0The Sword Keeper<\/strong> (which is my primary project right now) and\u00a0Star Wanderers: Benefactor<\/strong> (a secondary project, though that may change in a month or so). \u00a0Not bad!<\/p>\n The really cool thing, though, is that when I woke up, my brain was actually wordsmithing. \u00a0It was weird–I was actually crafting sentences in my sleep. \u00a0Of course, being an idiot, I didn’t actually sit my butt in the chair until around 11:00 am. \u00a0Still, the words came out all right, and they didn’t stop coming all day.<\/p>\n I think my new time tracking goal is going to work out really well. \u00a0For most days this week, I managed to get at least 3:00 hours in. \u00a0Also, I noticed a lot of interesting things about the way I write. \u00a0Starting is the hardest part, especially first thing in the day. \u00a0Frequent short breaks can help, but the internet is a huge trap and should definitely be cut from my writing computer. \u00a0If I can’t manage 500 words\/hour, chances are I’m not going to stay put for very long, but once I hit 800 wph, it’s smooth sailing.<\/p>\n Keeping a daily time goal also makes me conscious of a lot of things. \u00a0For example, when I first wake up, I look at the clock and think “if I do my full four hours right now, I’ll be finished by XX:XX.” That motivates me to start earlier, since it means I can finish earlier (or at least have less pressure later when I’m tired). \u00a0Also, it motivates me to write for longer lengths at a time, rather than writing in short, less productive bursts. \u00a0And even though I’m still keeping track of how many words I write, the pressure to hit a certain word count is less, since once the four hours are up, the goal is accomplished no matter what’s on the page.<\/p>\n Of course, all this mean I’m actually writing more. \u00a0Even on the days when I didn’t hit the full four hours, I wrote a lot more than I otherwise would have. \u00a0And the neat thing about writing is that the more you do it, the easier it comes. \u00a0It takes a while to build momentum, of course, but if you can just ease back on your inner editor and let the words come, they really will come.<\/p>\n So the next few days are going to be interesting. \u00a0I’m leaving Massachusetts on Sunday, to take the train across the country. \u00a0That will give me plenty of writing time, I’m sure, but once I arrive in Utah, things are going to get tricky.<\/p>\n My first priority will be finding an apartment, then a job–probably a crap job, though in this economy even those can be hard to find. \u00a0From what I’ve heard, things haven’t changed much since I left. \u00a0My writing is starting to take off, though, so I’m not too worried about the long-term–it’s the short-term that’s going to be a challenge.<\/p>\n I don’t know how long I’ll stay in Utah this time, but definitely until the summer. \u00a0There’s a lot of old friends to look up, and writing conferences to attend. \u00a0If I’m not totally broke by August, I’ll do my best to attend Worldcon as well.<\/p>\n That’s just about it for now. \u00a0I’ve got a lot of chores tomorrow, so I’d better get some sleep. \u00a0Later!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You know, sometimes I miss the days when I would churn out 1,000+ badly written words and throw up a badly written blog post, still reeling in awe from a white-hot creative heat. Well, I think those days are coming back! \u00a0Except hopefully, my writing has improved since then. \u00a0Today was the first day I… Continue reading 4:04 hours and 2.8k words. Not bad!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Few things are more satisfying than a good, productive writing day. #amwriting","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[857,650],"tags":[371,46,147,248,232,778,251],"class_list":["post-8009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sw","category-sk","tag-creative-process","tag-goals-and-plans","tag-momentum","tag-motivation","tag-why-we-write","tag-worldcon-2013","tag-writing-habits","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-25b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8009"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8011,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009\/revisions\/8011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}