Tag Archives: procrastination

3Q19 Update

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Another quarter is down the drain (or up in smoke or has passed us by or insert your favorite saying here). Let’s see how I did.

  • Words written = 7383
  • Submissions = 32
  • Rejections = 44
  • Acceptances = 1
  • Holds = 1
  • Publications = 1
  • Awards = 0
  • Withdrawals = 0

You’ll see I added the new “Holds” category, since I receive my first of those this quarter. The words are down again (for the third straight quarter). The submissions are down slightly, but the rejections are up. I did finally have my first acceptance and publication of the year.

If you’ve read my (infrequent) posts this year, you know I’ve struggled to find the time to write. I’ve struggled to blog this year too. I find the two related. The more I wrote last year the more ideas that writing generated for blog posts.

After beating my 2018 words goal, I am no where near the pace needed to finish with that amount again with a fourth of the year left. I’ve gone from 1100 to 9300 to 7400 over the last three quarters. The numbers show that whatever I was doing before no longer worked, so I’m trying something new.

I’m attempting to steal 15 minutes a day to get 100-200 words down. I realize that’s not even a page a day, but it’s something. And I’ve made progress.

To get motivated, I reread the novel I started during last year’s NaNoWriMo. First, I had the disheartening discovery that I lost about 1600 words due to an errant backing up procedure. Once I cried a little, I set out to give the manuscript a once over. It needed it just to be readable. Due to the speed required to attempt NaNoWriMo, I had left numerous character and place name blanks simply because I couldn’t remember what I’d used before and I didn’t want to spend the few seconds to go back and look.

That initial polish also served as a reminder of what I’d written, which had mostly escaped me. It got me excited about the story again as well.

I’m happy to report the 15 minutes/100-200 words a day has worked pretty well. I still haven’t managed it every day, but I’ve managed to add about 5000 words already. I even managed to rewrite the lost 1600.

My goal is to sustain the 100-200 words at a time up to this year’s NaNoWriMo, and then see if I can do another 15,000-20,000 during NaNoWriMo like last year. I know some people write that in a week or two, and I say more power to them. I’d love to have time and motivation for that. I lack both currently, but I’m alright taking the tortoise approach. I’m only racing myself.

How have your goals gone with 3/4 of the year behind us? Let me know in the comments.

1Q19 Update

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The first quarter of the new year is done, so it’s time to check on the ole productivity.

  • Words written = 11,070
  • Submissions = 26
  • Rejections = 32
  • Acceptances = 0
  • Publications = 1
  • Awards = 0

Not terrible, but not great. A fourth of my 2019 word goal of 60,000 would be 15,000. I fell short of that one, but I did better than I thought. I found it difficult to write this quarter.  Free time was not abundant, and when I had it, I felt unmotivated to write. I even had two business trips–my favorite writing opportunities–and still got very little writing done.

So what did get done? About 4000 of those words were the result of flash fiction stories. I finished three of roughly 1000 words and then another four that were some amount less than that. In addition, I added a little to the WIP novel (1600 words) and about 450 words to various existing stories I edited before sending out again. I also wrote the first 600 words in a story I’m collaborating on with a fellow novice speculative fiction writer.  I hope to have the opportunity to keep adding to the word total in that work.

The largest chunk of writing went toward finishing my long suffering novella. That was another 4200 words. I am pleased to report that project is now done! Well, the first draft is done. This was a weird one. Most of the novella is in final form already having finished it last summer. However, the consistent critique from my beta readers was it lacked a proper ending. So that’s what I’ve worked on adding intermittently for the last six months. I’ll have to see what my beta readers think now.

My goal was to finish the novella and then break it up into its three component short stories. That way I could include all three stories in the short story collection contest I plan on submitting to by the April 15th deadline. The rules for that contest limit any one story to 15,000 words. The problem is, even with breaking the novella into three stories, the third story now clocks in at 16,200 words. Whoops! Don’t worry, I have plenty of other stories to include in the collection. Besides, the newly written part needs editing anyway before it’s ready for submission.

I also was disappointed not to have an acceptance this quarter. Admittedly, I didn’t maximize my chances, having taken several stories out of circulation, so they’d be available to include in the contest collection. Still, I’d really like to get to where I’m receiving at least one acceptance a quarter. Those are huge motivators.

I did have one publication in Issue 8 of Broadswords and Blasters. Buy the issue here!  It’s a noir detective story with a sci-fi twist.

So that’s it. How’d your first quarter go? Let me know if the comments if you had any triumphs or failures.

Bouncing Around

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I’ve been bouncing around a lot these days. I’ve lacked focus on any of my writing. I’ve even put off submitting those works that have received a rejection. So what gives? Good question. I don’t know.

According to Word, I haven’t worked on my WIP novel in over a month. I’ve finished three flash stories though, and I’m one scene away from finishing the novella I thought I’d finish last summer. That’s some progress, I guess.

I feel like I’m waiting for something, which is probably the wrong approach. If there is any upside, it’s by not resubmitting my stories, I have a catalogue worth I can combine into a collection for the contest mention in Submission Dilemma III. Needless to say, I’m going for it. I’ll spend the $25 on the submission fee and take my chances.

But, first, I need to finish the novella. The submission guidelines say no story should be longer than 15,000 words. The novella is longer but already broken down into a couple stories. I estimate the longest of those stories will come in just under 15,000 words. Regardless, I plan to spread the individual stories out in the collection to build tension.

Collecting my stories into a single work will reduce my number of submissions for the year while I wait to hear back from the contest, but I’m okay with that. I like the idea of having a collected works manuscript. Now I just need to finish the novella and organize the collection before the April 15 deadline.

How has your writing focus been lately? Have you been productive, or are you finding distractions? Let me know in the comments.

Procrastination

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1/24/19

Some call it writer’s block, but I just call it procrastination. It seems to be on a lot of people’s minds. The Writer’s Path recently had an interesting post about writers block, and The Green Room had a post about procrastination yesterday. Is it a winter thing? I’d think being stuck indoors would lead to more writing when compared to the distractions caused by nicer weather. Maybe my own experience is indicative of this phenomenon.

After getting 17,000 words down in my WIP novel for NaNoWriMo in November, I did very little in December. I sent the usual batch of submissions as rejections came in for the various short stories I have out, but I did next to no writing, especially in the WIP novel. I maybe added 1000 words there the entire month.

So what gives? Honestly, I felt a little burned out after writing every day for a month in November. I’d never done that before. I’ve read, and I believe it, that writing is like any other endurance activity. The more you do it, the more you build up your ability to do it. However, too much can still burn you out. I’m an avid runner, but I don’t run every day. I never have. I’ve never wanted to run so much I get sick of it or risk injury.

I opened the file for my novel in mid-January and saw I hadn’t worked on it since December 19, over three weeks at that point. I needed motivation. I’d continued to plot the storylines during my runs, but that hadn’t driven me to put anything on the screen yet.

On one of those runs, I came up with the idea for a flash fiction piece. I immediate hammered that story out in the hopes the process would reignite the fire. It was to no avail, though that piece turned out fine and will start making the submission rounds soon after a quick edit.

Then a snow day hit on a Sunday, the day I reserve for my long run. With a snow storm forecasted, I decided to move my run up to Saturday afternoon, thus freeing up my Sunday morning. I took advantage. While the family slept, I got up and wrote.

It still took me awhile to get back into the story. I had to reread the last chapter to remember where I was and to fix some things in that chapter. I only ended up with about 300 new words before the family got up, but it felt good to get those down. Now I’m feeling better about continuing. I’ve since added some more totally about another 1000 in the novel. At that rate I’ll finish in four years. I’ll reserve figuring out how to increase that productivity for a later post.

The longer I was away from the WIP, the more likely I was to stay away. I’d find any excuse to do something else rather than work on the novel, even if the distraction was writing related. While I think a short break was needed after NaNoWriMo, the break I took was too long. It just made things harder.

What has been your experience with burnout, procrastination, or writer’s block? Are they all the same for you, or do they manifest themselves differently? How did you combat them?

Post #13 – Am I Procrastinating?

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3/22/18

I realized I titled several recent and forthcoming posts as questions.  But unlike an author writing a character, my audience does not have any insight into my thinking to answer.  Also, unlike many of those posts, I’m not sure I know the answer to this one.

Long time readers (those of you who’ve been with me for all of 2-3 months) may recall that I have an idea for a sci-fi novel.  I’ve jotted down notes about this novel — characters, major plots points, settings — but haven’t written anything yet.  In the interim, I’ve written 12 short stories and children’s picture book manuscripts, all of which are out for submission.  I also have three more short stories in various draft form.  Long time readers also will know my first writing goal is qualifying as an Active Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  There are a couple ways to qualify.  I selected publishing three short stories in a SFWA-qualifying market, but another way to qualify is by selling a novel to a SWFA-qualifying publisher.

Am I pursuing SFWA membership through short story sales, and writing those stories, as a way to procrastinate from writing my novel?  Good question.  I’m glad you asked.  I don’t think so because I’m not certain I know how to write a novel, though that may be procrastination-inducing self doubt right there.  I’ve long believed I needed to start with short stories to learn how to write.  Don’t forget, before last year, I’d never done this before.  I don’t have an MFA, and I never took creative writing at any level.  Overall, I think I’ve succeeded.  I believe my writing has come a long way in less than a year.  I attribute that not only to the amount of writing I’ve done in that time but also to the books about writing I’ve read in that time.  I couldn’t imagine having focused on my novel, written half of it, and then realizing I needed to go back a fix so many rookie writing mistakes.  Actually, I can, and it involves crying.  But that’s essentially what I’ve had to do with several short stories.  However, revising a 1000-6000 word short story is way less depressing than fixing a 100,000 word novel.  So I plan to keep plugging away at short stories (and children’s books, which are more for my kids) until I feel comfortable tacking the novel.  I’ll get there, but I believe I still have plenty to learn.

BUT (I bet you thought this blog post was over) am I procrastinating finishing one of my short stories?  In Post #10 – Inspiration, I mentioned reading two different calls for submissions and being inspired to write new stories for each.  Well that’s happened two more times since then.  I’ve written one of those subsequent stories already and am in the process of finishing the other.  The submission deadline for that last story is one week away.  Not my best idea—to decide to meet this deadline.  The idea for the story is awesome—and funny.

Before and while writing these other stories, I’ve worked on a sequel to an early story.  I’ve had the idea for this story since last year, even before I’d finished writing the story to which it’s a sequel.  At some point this year, I opened the file containing the first couple of lines I wrote back when sometime and realized since then I’d jotted down numerous notes.  It’s eerily similar to how the file with my novel’s notes looks.  That realization motivated me to finally tackle the sequel, and I made great progress.  In fact, I’m maybe a scene or two from completion; I estimate another 1000 words at most.  I could knock that out in one or two sittings.  So why haven’t I?

Another fine question.  Thank you again for asking.  This is the part I don’t know.  Ostensibly, it was to write these other stories matching calls for submissions with approaching deadlines.  This sequel has no deadline.  Maybe, I’m afraid I don’t know where the story is going.  That was true for a long time before I got past those first couple of lines.  Since then, though, I’ve pretty much had the story mapped out.  Indeed, the missing one or two scenes are in the middle of story, and I intend them to plug a couple of information holes.  I already know what info to plug in, so it can’t be that.

I think it’s a combination of two things.  First, it’s true these newer stories have approaching deadlines, but I think it’s more that they are shiny and new.  Usually, a story loses that shiny, newness once I complete the first draft.  Somehow, I think my sequel story lost that shiny, newness even before then.  Part of that I attribute to reason two.

When it was time to go back to writing the sequel after each interruption, I couldn’t just pick up where I left off.  I’d need to reread the entire story and get back in that mindset.  Unlike a story I’ve completed multiple drafts of, meaning I’ve edited it who knows how many times, I don’t know my sequel story well enough to jump into the middle and start writing.  I need to re-immerse myself in that world.  I need to get back into my characters’ heads.  All of that takes time, probably more time than I have to devote in a single sitting.  Anything more than a single sitting, I risk being distracted by life—or another call for submissions.

I do have a cross country flight coming up, where I’ll have a chunk of time on the airplane to devote to knocking the rest of the sequel out.  That is if I’m not working on my shiny, new story with the deadline one week away.