There are no fewer than eight clocks in our downstairs area: bedroom clock-radio, bathroom shower clock-radio, stove, coffee-maker, microwave, computer, VCR, and kitchen counter. None of them, NONE of them display the same time. The discrepancy varies from one minute to eight from the bathroom to the computer. Normally, I wouldn’t think eight minutes is that big of a deal. It is, however, the difference between ambling out to the garage at a leisurely pace and cruising to work like a sane person, and screeching like a chipmunk out of purgatory down the driveway and careening up 400 at breakneck speed to arrive eight minutes late. It doesn’t help matters that the clock in my car is several minutes faster than the fastest of the house clocks. Glah.
Project for this weekend: synchronize all the clocks in the house.
Writing Stuff:
A graduate student is doing his master’s thesis in Behavioral Psychology on writing productivity and looking for volunteer subjects through Critters. That, paired with my Club 100 efforts has made me take a closer look at my writing goals. (It has also piqued my latent psychology researcher interests.) Anyway, Club 100 has shown me that 1K/day was not a good goal for me at this point because I couldn’t meet it consistently, and the dejection I felt about slacking off made it harder for me to approach each new writing session with a sense of purpose and accomplishment. 100/day is much more manageable. Of course, I haven’t hit my 100th-day goal, but I’m finding 100/day not to be arduous, and it has really helped me pull out of a few writing bumps. If I get stuck, I barrel through a hundred words. If I’m still stuck after that, I quit for the day. The next day, I hammer out another hundred. After a few days of this, I find I’m past the scene I was stuck on, and back into flow. I read over the methodology for this psych. study and it got me thinking about what my goals actually were with regard to productivity. I’m mulling over setting myself a goal of 10K words/month. That’s pretty close to what I’ve managed these last few years, with a slight push to challenge me.
Going to try to implement that as a secondary goal in tandem with my Club 100 efforts. That’s five-hundred words a day, giving myself weekends to catch up and/or rest. If I get stuck, I’ll go back to one-hundred with a pat on the back for managing that many, and if I do significantly more than five-hundred, well maybe I’ll treat myself to an ice cream cone at the end of the week or something.
In other writing news, my story didn’t make it into this batch of Critters manuscripts. This wouldn’t be a biggie, except this is a two-weeker. Dangit.
New words: 1000
And my princess fantasy is done! At zero draft in any case. It’s hovering right at novelette length. Did an editing pass on it and cut out a couple hundred words here and there. It needs several more passes before I hand it off to Matthew to first reader, but I’m thrilled to betsy to have finished another story.
Club 100 for Writers
13/100
# of Sequential Days Achieving 500/day
1
500 a day works great, says I.
Hi Eugie!
My name is Nick; I’ve been keeping up on your blog for a few months now (found it through Critters).
Just wanted to lend you my support for your new 500 words per day goal, as that’s exactly the method I’ve been using for many months, and it has worked very well. It’s an attainable goal, and it makes you write enough to “get into the flow”, so to speak. I usually find myself creeping over into the 600 word range anyway, so I don’t have guilt issues if I can’t get past 200-300 on a yucky day.
Best of luck!
In other writing news, my story didn’t make it into this batch of Critters manuscripts. This wouldn’t be a biggie, except this is a two-weeker. Dangit.
If you want, you can e-mail it to me privately, and I’ll critique it before it bubbles up to the top of the Critters queue. I should have plenty of time for reading and critiquing next week, alas.
You totally rawk, you know that?
I want to make a few tweaks to it today, but expect an email with attachment from me on Monday. Thankyouthankyou!!
RE: clocks
If you have a cellphone, sync your clocks to its time. I used to work for a wireless company and learned the services are linked to the atomic clocks in Washington, D.C. They HAVE to be accurate. (For money, of course.)
Joel