Archives for posts with tag: productivity
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Go Home On Time Day

October 30, 2009 //
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Regular readers will notice I have skipped my regular blog posts this week. This is because I have been busy. Though not in the good Las Vegas way.

Which leads me to mention that The Australia Institute has declared November 25 to be national Go Home On Time Day. It is, and I quote, “in recognition of the more than 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime that Australians work each year” and “is intended to be a guilt-free way of raising awareness of the nature and extent of unpaid overtime in Australia and the important economic, health and social consequences it often has”. Check out the Go Home On Time Day website.

This has only the most tenuous link to writing, except that I will point out that:

  1. the more hours you work, the less productive you are,
  2. the more hours you work, the fewer hours you have to do your writing (no, really?), and
  3. work-life balance makes for happier person, which makes for more creativity, mental energy, focus and discipline left over for the things that really matter to you, like writing your novel.

Go Home on Time: try it sometime.

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Categories The philosophy of writing, Writing news

How I did

September 5, 2009 //
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I got a couple of hundred words written – nowhere near my target, but it is clear to me now that the target needs adjusting. The fact of the matter is, I’m currently trying to:

  • market my new release
  • edit my manuscript from last year
  • re-write my NaNoWriMo novel from several years ago
  • do my paying freelance technical writing
  • start a small business (a small Australian ebook publisher, more on this some other time)
  • deal with some life stuff

Should I be surprised that I can’t keep up with one WIP, let alone two.

So for starters, reluctantly, I’ve got to drop the second work, the one that was going quite easily. I didn’t really think it was wise to try to write two at once; I thought I could handle it, but I can’t; and if I drop the one that’s isn’t going easy, I think I’ll never get back to it.

And I will have to return to the mode of operation I used when I worked a full-time office job. I think I’m busy now, but hey, I wrote two novels in my spare time back then, so I should surely be able to handle it now.

So it’ll be smaller targets, and time devoted on weekends until I get this awful first draft finally finished…

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Categories The writing life

How I did

August 28, 2009 //
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As with yesterday, this is a scheduled post because I’ve been away on holiday since Tuesday. So I can only give a report for the first few days of the week. I can say I was doing pretty well on Monday but then was plunged into the depths of despair because of distribution problems and the overwhelming nature of trying to market fiction.

But as I have said over and over (and over and over) again on this blog, measuring yourself by sales is dispiriting, even for mainstream authors with physical books in a bookstore. That’s why I’ve always been wary of getting involved too much in marketing. Certainly it has had a damaging effect on my writing and my motivation this week.

Anyway, after a nice break away, back to it next week, keeping firmly to the forefront that I have never written with a big audience in mind, and certainly not with sales in mind.

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Categories The writing life

How I did

August 21, 2009 //
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This week, fiction had to take a back seat to other projects; I did not work on either WIP. I always feel bad when this happens, especially when, as has been happening recently, I have been struggling to maintain discipline. Paradoxically, this time I don’t feel bad – I had fallen so far behind on other projects that I feel very accomplished and pleased with myself for clearing off my backlist and overdue items. Some of it was even related to fiction, so it wasn’t a dead loss.

I’ll try to do a little this weekend, and get back to it next week, but I’m not sure that’ll happen either. At the rate I’m going, I might have to cut my losses until October…I really don’t know how people manage to write a book while spending the time promoting their currently published ones, and also hold down a paying job. Maybe my trouble comes from trying to do those three things AND start up a small business…where does the time go?

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Categories The writing life

How I did

August 14, 2009 //
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Moving slowly forward on both works. I’m at just over 29,000 words on the Augusta work, and wrote a pretty satisfactory scene within that 2,500 words – I also impatiently skipped a couple of scenes just to get to that one, so next week I’ll go back and fill in the missing scenes.

I don’t think there’s a huge problem writing out of order – I do it sometimes when I need to get a particular scene down on paper, to stop thinking about it and turning it over in my head – but I tend to like to write consecutively so I can keep better track of where the character development is at. Since I don’t really plot beyond a vague idea of what I think will happen, it’s vital I keep track of where characters and events are at, and writing in order helps with that.

The Rana work is only at 48,000, but there’s been deleting and re-arranging this week, so the advance of 1,500 words is not reflective of the steady daily word count I managed to produce.

I’m pleased with both the product this week and with being able to work around my other commitments and get my targets achieved. Slow progress is still progress. I’ll have at least the Rana book done this year, and be at least halfway to next year’s draft (the Augusta work) before next year even starts…

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Categories The writing life

Backing up your work – test your system

August 13, 2009 //
1

We all know how important regular back-ups of your work are. Don’t we? Well, we all learn pretty quick the first time a harddrive fails us, a virus wipes our files, or our laptop gets stolen, anyway.

But religiously doing back-ups does not guarantee you’ll actually save your work if something were to happen. That’s why you not only need to do back-ups, you also need to test that your back-up system achieves what you want it to achieve.

My back-up system is meant to not only preserve my files but also allow me to keep working should my laptop become unavailable. Recently, it went to the shop for a cooling fan replacement, and I had a chance to see if my system really worked all that well.

I use Mozy to do online back-ups, usually twice-daily – once after I’ve finished my freelance work for the day, once after I’ve finished my fiction. Mozy is a secure online back-up service which gives 2GB free storage for home-users. Its simple advantage is that it runs automatically but can be manually started any time, and it preserves your data off-site, which is insurance against something like a fire which could wipe out both a computer and any back-up devices kept with the computer.

Disadvantages? 2GB will only store your most important files but probably not manage the entire contents of your computer now that digital photos, music and video is the norm (it’s only $4.95 per month for unlimited storage). Your account is accessed by username and password – which is all very well when you’re on your own computer and have those details stored – but if you don’t have your own computer, you might find you’ve forgotten your log-in details. Another factor which I see as an advantage (it saves space) but others might see as a disadvantage is that Mozy will remove a file from your online storage a few months after you’ve deleted the file on your own computer – so if you accidentally delete something but don’t notice for a time, you could lose it.

Secondly, I use a SanDisk USB geek stick which contains CruzerSync U3 Edition, a mobile desktop style program which picks up your email and personal files and allows easy access to them on any computer, plus sychronised return to your main PC/laptop.

This is the part of my back-up system which is meant to let me keep working if my laptop becomes unavailable, and it is the part of the system that failed me when my laptop did become unavailable.

It has either a quirk or a bug where newly created folders are not picked up by the synchronisation process (unless you remember to go in and manually tick the new folder). Which meant that my newly created folder for some new freelance work was not picked up, and was therefore absent when I plugged the USB stick into a borrowed PC to keep working. To be fair, it’s more for tranporting your email inbox around than for use as a back-up system.

Luckily at the last minute I had used a second spare USB drive to manually grab the needed files off the laptop, just in case – and of course, I could have got the files from Mozy (if I had managed to remember my log-in details, stored so securely on my now-absent laptop…)

Other disadvantages include that you have to remember to do a back-up (I’m supposed to do it daily, and end up doing it maybe twice a week), that again, storage space is limited, and that USB drives, like any other harddrive, can wipe suddenly. You can also lose them.

Thirdly, once per week, I do a full back-up to an external harddrive. This picks up all the files that Mozy and my geek stick get, as well as the big stuff – new music, videos and photos. Since they don’t change very often, I won’t lost much if something were to happen. On the downside, it’s a physical hard-drive stored near the laptop, so theft or fire could wipe both out. That’s a pretty big downside when I think about everything I could lose in that event. Even without catastrophe, physical harddrives fail.

Another issue that came up when I was without my laptop was compatibility issues. I’m on the new Word – docx. The PC I was borrowing only had the old Word – doc. Microsoft have been kind enough to provide a free add-in for the old Word to allow it to read docx…except I was on a workplace PC that would not allow exe download and install without administrator permission, which had to come from an IT Dept located halfway around the world. I was just lucky that in this case that I was working in doc format since my employer also is still in the old format.

You can see that despite having a three-fold system, I still have gaps in my armour – but I only realised that when I went without my laptop. For writers, when you need to work every day, just preserving files is not enough – you also need to be able to keep working.

Turn off your main working computer and pretend it isn’t there. How are you going to keep working? Is there a different computer you can use? If so, go use it – stick in your back-up drive or CD or however you do it. Can you get to your files? Can the borrowed PC manage the format? What if you use specialised software like InDesign or drawing programs? Think properly about what you need to do, and test to see if your system can handle it. If it can’t, make adjustments.

My main adjustments so far have been to download the Microsoft compatibility patch and add to to the USB stick, just so I at least have it handy (it doesn’t mean a PC will be set to allow me to install it, of course). I’ve added my Mozy username and a password hint to the USB stick so that I can more readily access my files on the remote Mozy server; I think Mozy is stronger than the USB stick as a solution for being able to keep on working. I’ve also started storing my external hard-drive separately from the laptop – this is a temporary solution. Ultimately, I will probably upgrade to the Mozy unlimited plan. There’s not much I can do right now about losing access to my specialised software…but once this laptop needs replacing, I will keep it as a spare for temporary use if the new laptop goes down. It will already have the software I use, and Mozy or the USB stick will transfer my relevant files.

No system is entirely foolproof, but by simulating a computer loss, you can at least test your system out.

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Categories Writing tips and techniques

How I did

August 7, 2009 //
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***shameless self-promotion***
You can get my latest book, The Frog Prince’s Daughters, for only $1 until mid-August. After that, it still costs less than $4. And it’s DRM-free. Check it out.
***shameless self-promotion***

I managed the 500 words a day for the Rana sequel, so that’s at 46,500. It’s crawling in painful page-length graduations into worse and worse territory. I know I forget how bad (and difficult) first drafts are, but this must be far and away the worst I’ve written.

Meanwhile, the continuation of the 195,000 Augusta/Simon/Hal story from last year is chugging along happily, at 27,000 words. The only way I could force myself to work on the Rana one was by not allowing myself to work on this one until I fell over the 500-word line on the Rana one.

I wrote last week about the need for discipline. It is essential. Discipline is what gets me to open the file and start typing even though I’d rather go read on the couch. However, when, week after week, I’m finding no inspiration in the story, I can’t see how it supposed to get where I want it to go, the characters are not acting like themselves…well, that’s when I know I’m on the wrong path.

It takes experience to know when the little blocking voice in your head is just being lazy and can’t be bothered, and when it’s actually got a point. Today I admitted it has a point – nothing could bring that home to me more than how easily the Augusta work is going compared to the Rana work. I start off lazily reluctant to do either (that’s discipline’s job) but once I start on Augusta, it flies along. Once I start on Rana, I pull the words like I’m pulling teeth.

I’m not going to abandon it. It’s just that things have gone very badly wrong somewhere. And I think that somewhere is with Rana herself. Her strength is in action, and she can’t take any in the current storyline. I’ve also divided her attention between two major problems, when she only has the time to tackle one. So I need to decide which is the more important problem. Jannin can deal with the other problem – which has the bonus of giving him more to do than just completely and utterly fail at everything he’s meant to be doing. It will also let them interact a little more, because at the moment they are almost entirely separate for three full days, which makes no sense and also loses the charm of their flirty interactions.

As my new starting point, I’m going to stop trying to make Rana fit in around what Jannin was doing during his three days (their stories run parallel during this time while they work on their separate goals) and just write whatver she tells me she would actually be doing. If she crosses paths with Jannin or takes longer than she should or whatever, then I can re-write Jannin’s half to better account for that.

I’m also going to re-write the roles of some of the supporting characters, which will change the tenor of their interactions with the two mains and hopefully re-direct the plot. In particular, I’ve made Rana’s chief annoyance a smarmy and lecherous prince. But she’s dealt with open arseholes before, they don’t bother her – and they don’t fool her. If I make the prince a nice-guy-complex guy (you know, the type of guy who assumes women owe them something just because they’re “nice” and then they go out and shoot up a women’s aerobics class when women don’t fall over themselves to sleep with them), then I give her a different challenge and he will make the same point a different character I now need to eliminate was going to make.

That’s the plan. That’ll be a major leap back in the word count, but that’s OK. That word count wasn’t ever going to get anywhere…

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Categories The writing life

How I did

July 31, 2009 //
1

My discipline’s gone out the window. Any writer (who has managed to finish a book to publishable standards) will tell you that yeah, yeah, talent and wordcraft and story ideas and blah blah, but none of that’s any good unless you actually sit down and apply it in a sustained fashion. In the words of Eric, a tennis champion in Lionel Shriver‘s book Double Fault, “What you ‘could’ do is infinite. You’re capable of what you actually do.” Discipline is not the only thing needed for success in writing, but it is the only thing needed to finish writing.

Okay, so I didn’t have my laptop this week, and my limited, borrowed, computer time was focused on getting my paid non-fiction freelancing work done. But I did have a pen and paper. I had no excuse to lie around on the couch pretending I couldn’t keep writing fiction, just because I wanted to read and generally slack-off instead.

I don’t know what’s going on with me. I do know I found the reminder in this week’s Book Show’s segment on writing young adult fiction very helpful: first drafts are always crappy and need a lot of work to turn them into publishable material. I know this, but the reminder was helpful.

I think the problem is that my good habits have been broken. I am sitting here waiting for my good habits to reestablish themselves, when I should know better – bad habits establish themselves, insidiously. Good habits take concentration and work. I’ve fallen into the trap of wanting to have written, forgetting that means I have to write.

I’m taking a step back. I will stick with my 500 words a day goal, but now in ‘must do’ mode, not in, ‘oh it’ll happen I’m sure’ mode. That’s the only way to have written.

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Categories The writing life

How I did

July 24, 2009 //
0

***shameless self-promotion***
You can get my latest book for only $1 until mid-August. Check it out.
***shameless self-promotion***

An interesting week. 44,000 words on the Rana book…which is precisely 0 words more than when I stopped for my holiday, plus or minus 50 words or so. I did make progress though, I went back and fixed scenes and reordered and generally tinkered, while taking out the notes to myself, which is why any increase in the word count was promptly wiped out. The plot has not progressed from where it was sitting, so next week it has to be a concentrated effort on pushing forward. Character motivations are getting clearer.

Over on the other project, the one I shouldn’t be working on, I’m making a steady 500-1000 words a day, and am at 21,500 words. It’s a lot more fun than the Rana book (immoral characters are always more fun than the moral ones…)

Because the second project is going well, I’m not going to force myself to stop working on it. I don’t like dividing my attentions but I don’t like being too rigid, either, so I’m going to let it ride for a while. Therefore, my 2000 word a day target for the Rana book is unrealistic. I’m looking at doing a minumum of 500 words a day on each project. (I might adjust it upwards once other committments ease off). If I can manage something consistent, I’ll have two first drafts by the end of the year.

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Categories The writing life

How I did

July 3, 2009 //
0

44,000 words. That’s not quite 2000 words a day – I did only 8000 words for the week, not 10,000. It wasn’t that I skipped a day, it was just that on a couple of days I didn’t quite manage 2000, and then couldn’t quite catch up for the rest of the week.

The writing itself began to improve later in the week, as plot lines and character motivations became clearer. Certainly, the instant I got to writing Rana’s first day (Jannin and Rana spend three days doing separate activities in the cursed palace before they reunite), I saw what Jannin was supposed to be doing on his own first day, and had to go back and fix that up.

This is by far the messiest first draft I’ve ever written, with notes to myself everywhere about changing scene order and deleting characters and switching outcomes. But then, I rather suspect I always forget how hard a first draft is, once I’ve done the second and then the last.

I also managed to write 6000 words on a different project. I don’t normally split my attention, but I figured if I wrote out what these other characters wanted to say, they would stop talking to me and let Rana and Jannin have a turn.

And my last writing-related activity for the week was doing the final edits to the first Rana book, to be published soon.

So in all, though I didn’t make my target word count, I had a pretty productive week. Next week, though, I’m looking forward to having a bit of a break.

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Categories The writing life
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