So, it’s not midnight yet but I have stopped trying to write. I made it to 23,705 words and I still plan to open it every day to at least write something (even 200 words moves it forward) until I have a workable draft.
I have no idea though if the stats will still update after tonight. Hmm. I may need an app for that.
So what did I learn?
- I write best at night. 9 pm – midnight is prime creativity for me.
- My best day of writing produced about 1500 words.
- On days I had off (vacation, flex time, weekends) I almost always wrote less than on busy days. (I’m calling this my Productivity Paradox.)
- I didn’t really use the notes and plot draft I’d written. At some point I was concerned that I was “off target” but the story, so far, seems to work so unless I get really stuck, I am not going to look at the outline until after I am done the draft. Then I can laugh about my earlier ideas.
- Writing on Google Docs worked pretty well — I have used more than one coffee break to add to my book.
- I write best with headphones on and music playing. Ideally, instrumental so I don’t sing along.
- Surprisingly, the visual stats tool really motivated me whereas I expected it to annoy me.
- When I needed to focus (i.e. I was fighting the procrastidragon), a timer did the trick and the perfect fit for me was the timer tab for Chrome.
- Probably obvious to most, one month is not enough to write a draft novel if eating, working, sleeping, friends, and family are important to you.
That stats thing tells me at my current rate I will finish (i.e. reach 50K words) by January 2, 2012; as I am aiming for 60K or better for the first draft, I figure end of January to be more likely, especially considering the holiday chaos bearing down on us.
Of course to get even as far as I did, something had to fall off the bottom of the priority list and for me it was sadly easy: the other shiny thing I signed up for online, the Stanford Introduction to Databases course. I could still catch up and get half credit for the quizzes and assignments but … well… I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.
