Every day you have 86,400 seconds.
Neat huh?
Now, let's make that a week. In a week you have 604,800 seconds.
I'm at work 8.5 hours a day, 5 days a week. So that's 153,000 seconds.
I drive an hour (total) a day to work, 5 days a week. That's another 18,000 seconds
I'm not the best sleeper, but sometimes splurge. I'll be generous and say I get 7 hours a night on average, so 49 hours of sleep total or 176,400 seconds.
Lunch happens at work 5 days a week, so we'll say 2 hours total for Saturday and Sunday including prep, eating, and cleanup time. Another 7 hours will go into dinner every day of the week. I'm not a big breakfast person. 9 hours total, or 32,400 seconds.
At present we've gone to work, been at work, slept, and ate. We're at a total of 379,800 seconds of the 604,800 we have for the week. The next numbers are estimates and likely vary from week to week depending on need and energy.
Another 5 hours goes into grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, and general house maintenance. That's 18,000 seconds.
7 hours for self care, changing, and some odds and ends works out to: 25,200 seconds
Finally, about 10 hours a week is spent on regular social commitments. That's another 36,000 seconds.
My total weekly time spent in seconds: 426,600 seconds.
The total amount of time in a week: 604,800 seconds.
That means I have 178,200 seconds a week not taken up by necessities or pre-planned social engagements.
That's 49.5 hours. That's another full time job. Even allowing for some of the time points I list here to be off, there's still a lot of time...so where does it all go?
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Sunday, November 1, 2015
NaNoWriMo...but not for me
About an hour and a half ago it became November 1st, the official beginning to NaNoWriMo for 2015. I love NaNoWriMo. I've done it several times, and it was responsible for the first three 50k+ word count stories I ever wrote. My first novel was written during NaNo, and while it was horrible it was very important to get done. My second was done during NaNo as well.
NaNoWriMo has been good to me. And yet, this year I won't be doing it. Why? Well, several reasons.
For one, October has been a very long month and November is going to be just as busy if not worse. Among other things, I may be moving and ending up in a house, and work has been busy to say the least. That's not all though.
Among other things, I'm already in the middle of a work I'm writing. For another, I have three or four other manuscripts that need editorial love and re-writing. Effectively, for this year, I'm basically booked up with writing, so NaNo is going to have to wait until next year.
I hope you have fun though, if you're doing it.
NaNoWriMo has been good to me. And yet, this year I won't be doing it. Why? Well, several reasons.
For one, October has been a very long month and November is going to be just as busy if not worse. Among other things, I may be moving and ending up in a house, and work has been busy to say the least. That's not all though.
Among other things, I'm already in the middle of a work I'm writing. For another, I have three or four other manuscripts that need editorial love and re-writing. Effectively, for this year, I'm basically booked up with writing, so NaNo is going to have to wait until next year.
I hope you have fun though, if you're doing it.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
The Year So Far
This is the last week of summer as far as my job is concerned. This coming weekend I work both Sunday and Monday despite it being labor day as college students move into their dorms and start classes on Tuesday. It makes this a good point to look back on the year so far, and honestly - at least as far as writing is concerned - I'm pretty excited.
Somehow without realizing it I've written three (3) novels so far in 2015. To be clear, none have been edited. All are just rough drafts, but still, that is a lot of work. Two of them I know for a fact need a lot of editing, and the third I'm not sure (so probably yes.) Still a lot of work to go on them, but as far as raw content goes it is not bad. Most people write a novel once every never. Even a lot of writers don't do more than a single full manuscript in a year, and here I have 3. It works out to about 260,000 words written, and closer to 300,000 if you include prep work and plotting.
I'm not sure if I'll ever even try to publish one of these three novels, but each one has taught me things. I'm getting closer to having my own style of prep that works for me. I'm learning how to start off stronger and with a plan that will carry me through the whole work. I don't want to say I have any of those skills particularly down now, 3 works isn't enough to test that, but it is a grand improvement over the previous couple years.
Going forward, I'm hoping to write a fourth rough draft in 2015, and perhaps a couple short stories. Fireside is open to submissions this month, and I think I have a couple works I'd like to dust off, wipe down, polish, and submit.
That's my year. How is yours going?
Somehow without realizing it I've written three (3) novels so far in 2015. To be clear, none have been edited. All are just rough drafts, but still, that is a lot of work. Two of them I know for a fact need a lot of editing, and the third I'm not sure (so probably yes.) Still a lot of work to go on them, but as far as raw content goes it is not bad. Most people write a novel once every never. Even a lot of writers don't do more than a single full manuscript in a year, and here I have 3. It works out to about 260,000 words written, and closer to 300,000 if you include prep work and plotting.
I'm not sure if I'll ever even try to publish one of these three novels, but each one has taught me things. I'm getting closer to having my own style of prep that works for me. I'm learning how to start off stronger and with a plan that will carry me through the whole work. I don't want to say I have any of those skills particularly down now, 3 works isn't enough to test that, but it is a grand improvement over the previous couple years.
Going forward, I'm hoping to write a fourth rough draft in 2015, and perhaps a couple short stories. Fireside is open to submissions this month, and I think I have a couple works I'd like to dust off, wipe down, polish, and submit.
That's my year. How is yours going?
Thursday, August 13, 2015
12 Chapters, 20 Days
With my recent writing pace I've been averaging about a chapter a day (less or more on weekends depending) and about 40 chapters to a story. It is a system that works for me. The progress is nice to have. The number of chapters makes me feel accomplished. Best of all, the momentum is keeping me going.
However, the other day I got bit by the bug. You know the one. The bug that tells you what you're working on now is crap and that you should switch gears to this other story. The bug bit me pretty hard. Ideas and scenes flashed before my eyes. I could smell parts of the world. Hear the scrape of steel on steel. It was quite the vivid moment. I was tempted to give in. Thankfully, I've messed up enough times in recent memory to recognize some of the faults. What I had were random ideas and glimpses, not an idea for a plot or even a solid premise. Sure, I had plot points. And yes, I had character elements. But I didn't have full characters, nor a coherent idea. Still, the idea did seem fun.
Looking at my current WIP at the time I had about 15 chapters to go before hitting chapter 40 and the end of my first draft. That made one solution easy to try.
See, last year at GenCon among other things I grabbed a copy of Michael Stackpole's 21 Days to a Novel. I've flipped through the PDF, stolen some of the ideas, but I've never run through the thing whole hog. This, I decided, was my chance to give it a shot.
How does it work? Simple. Every day I need to finish the work on my WIP for the day (finish a chapter, begin the next.) After that, I can follow that day's step for 21 days to a novel. The book works by slowly stepping you through fleshing out one, then two, and then finally three characters before cementing them in the world (and the world around them) and gearing up towards a story. The idea is that by 21 days you have 3 interesting and realized characters who can interact and be at cross purposes with each other.
So far I've done 3 days and am working on chapter 28 of my current WIP. The first character coming out of the 21 days pdf is interesting. Maybe interesting enough to be in the next WIP?
I guess we'll see.
However, the other day I got bit by the bug. You know the one. The bug that tells you what you're working on now is crap and that you should switch gears to this other story. The bug bit me pretty hard. Ideas and scenes flashed before my eyes. I could smell parts of the world. Hear the scrape of steel on steel. It was quite the vivid moment. I was tempted to give in. Thankfully, I've messed up enough times in recent memory to recognize some of the faults. What I had were random ideas and glimpses, not an idea for a plot or even a solid premise. Sure, I had plot points. And yes, I had character elements. But I didn't have full characters, nor a coherent idea. Still, the idea did seem fun.
Looking at my current WIP at the time I had about 15 chapters to go before hitting chapter 40 and the end of my first draft. That made one solution easy to try.
See, last year at GenCon among other things I grabbed a copy of Michael Stackpole's 21 Days to a Novel. I've flipped through the PDF, stolen some of the ideas, but I've never run through the thing whole hog. This, I decided, was my chance to give it a shot.
How does it work? Simple. Every day I need to finish the work on my WIP for the day (finish a chapter, begin the next.) After that, I can follow that day's step for 21 days to a novel. The book works by slowly stepping you through fleshing out one, then two, and then finally three characters before cementing them in the world (and the world around them) and gearing up towards a story. The idea is that by 21 days you have 3 interesting and realized characters who can interact and be at cross purposes with each other.
So far I've done 3 days and am working on chapter 28 of my current WIP. The first character coming out of the 21 days pdf is interesting. Maybe interesting enough to be in the next WIP?
I guess we'll see.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Heading to GenCon
This time next week GenCon will be in full swing, and I will be there. I'm pretty excited. It is my second time going, and somehow I'm even more excited than I was last year. My housemate says it is because I don't have the anxiety about the unknown. Maybe she's right.
Last year I also had more of a plan for when I was there. The Writer's Symposium was a big draw for me, and I attended a good 10-12 hours of lectures given by Michael Stackpole. Considering how much that advice improved my own writing, I'd say it was worth the trip for that alone.
This year the writer's symposium is also a big draw and will be featuring two of my favorite authors in the guise of Delilah S. Dawson and Chuck Wendig. The only problem is, when we made the plans to go last year I made the decision that my focus this time around would be more on gaming. That doesn't mean I can't go to one of the Writer Symposium events (or several) but I do want to get my game on while there.
I suppose we'll see what happens. Last year my friend and I had more fun the days we had vague notions of what we wanted to do and just walked around with generic tickets than we did the times we had specific things we wanted to be a part of. We also tended to stray towards the more professional games. Demos run with WotC sponsorship for D&D 5th, an Edge of the Empire game run by Fantasy Flight Game, stuff like that.
This year, well, we'll see.
Either way I'm excited.
Last year I also had more of a plan for when I was there. The Writer's Symposium was a big draw for me, and I attended a good 10-12 hours of lectures given by Michael Stackpole. Considering how much that advice improved my own writing, I'd say it was worth the trip for that alone.
This year the writer's symposium is also a big draw and will be featuring two of my favorite authors in the guise of Delilah S. Dawson and Chuck Wendig. The only problem is, when we made the plans to go last year I made the decision that my focus this time around would be more on gaming. That doesn't mean I can't go to one of the Writer Symposium events (or several) but I do want to get my game on while there.
I suppose we'll see what happens. Last year my friend and I had more fun the days we had vague notions of what we wanted to do and just walked around with generic tickets than we did the times we had specific things we wanted to be a part of. We also tended to stray towards the more professional games. Demos run with WotC sponsorship for D&D 5th, an Edge of the Empire game run by Fantasy Flight Game, stuff like that.
This year, well, we'll see.
Either way I'm excited.
Sunday, July 5, 2015
What You Know. What You Don't Know
For the Fourth of July a good friend of mine invited me out to the cape to enjoy the fireworks in his hometown while partaking in a friends and family barbecue on his father and brother's lobster boats. The trip was a lot of fun. Enough so that it made the 4 hour drive there and 6 hour drive back (fatigue + traffic slowed us down) more than worth it. It also was an enlightening experience for me. So much of what I saw was knew, and yet much of it was also things I already knew, just made obvious to me in that way that makes them feel so relevant and meaningful.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Progress & Check In
Despite best intentions it's almost been a month since an update here. In May I talked about making small steps towards progress. Today I'm happy to report that things are still on track.
I am not sure how far I have made it from my starting point, but I know I have made progress. Some is small ways. I'm increasing my average amount of steps taken each day using a step tracker. I'm still far from the recommended 10,000, but I am doing better than I was before. I have been writing nearly every day. In fact, a story I started on May 13th is 4 chapters from having a draft done right now. Today I am scheduled to write chapter 36, and yes that means I am averaging more than a chapter a day if only by a little. My living area has recently taken a step back, but not in a large way. I started it back on track just yesterday.
The best part of all this though is that by focusing on small steps I am not feeling daunted by anything. I'm not looking at the large goals and judging my progress to them, I am looking at the small goals. I have expectations for my day, and people (or person) to help me meet them and keep on task. Every day I have a feeling of progress, and that also is helping my mental state and keeping me move forward, at least so far.
For anyone out there mired in a rut and not sure how to get back on track, try doing it in small steps. You don't need to clean your whole house. Just clean one corner of one room. Tomorrow clean another corner and take a minute to maintain the previous corner if it got dirty. Do it in small steps and enjoy the progress. Don't let the enormity of the final task confront you. Had I told myself on May 13th that on June 15th I would have written Chapters 1-36 of this story I don't think I'd have ever done it. 36 chapters at even just 2k words a day is 72,000 words.
So how did I do it? Well, for starters when I say I intend to write chapter 36 today what I mean is I intend to finish chapter 36 today. I've already written the first 300-600 words of the chapter. I don't need to write 2k words, I need to write 1.5k words. Once that 1.5k words is done and the chapter is finished, I'm done. Except that the blank page is scary and what is another 300 words at that point? So I'll get some amount of words done on Chapter 37. Then, tomorrow I'll just have to finish Chapter 37.
I help myself with this in other ways to. Every chapter has to end at a point that draws the reader into the next chapter. You know what draws the reader? The same stuff that draws the writer. That means my daily writing consists of building up to something and ends with a resolution and the start of the next thing. Resolution and start is easy after buildup, it has a flow, but that also means that when I start writing that the start is already done and I just have to do the next build up.
Small steps are key. Small steps make a big journey manageable. Give it a try. It works, at least for me.
I am not sure how far I have made it from my starting point, but I know I have made progress. Some is small ways. I'm increasing my average amount of steps taken each day using a step tracker. I'm still far from the recommended 10,000, but I am doing better than I was before. I have been writing nearly every day. In fact, a story I started on May 13th is 4 chapters from having a draft done right now. Today I am scheduled to write chapter 36, and yes that means I am averaging more than a chapter a day if only by a little. My living area has recently taken a step back, but not in a large way. I started it back on track just yesterday.
The best part of all this though is that by focusing on small steps I am not feeling daunted by anything. I'm not looking at the large goals and judging my progress to them, I am looking at the small goals. I have expectations for my day, and people (or person) to help me meet them and keep on task. Every day I have a feeling of progress, and that also is helping my mental state and keeping me move forward, at least so far.
For anyone out there mired in a rut and not sure how to get back on track, try doing it in small steps. You don't need to clean your whole house. Just clean one corner of one room. Tomorrow clean another corner and take a minute to maintain the previous corner if it got dirty. Do it in small steps and enjoy the progress. Don't let the enormity of the final task confront you. Had I told myself on May 13th that on June 15th I would have written Chapters 1-36 of this story I don't think I'd have ever done it. 36 chapters at even just 2k words a day is 72,000 words.
So how did I do it? Well, for starters when I say I intend to write chapter 36 today what I mean is I intend to finish chapter 36 today. I've already written the first 300-600 words of the chapter. I don't need to write 2k words, I need to write 1.5k words. Once that 1.5k words is done and the chapter is finished, I'm done. Except that the blank page is scary and what is another 300 words at that point? So I'll get some amount of words done on Chapter 37. Then, tomorrow I'll just have to finish Chapter 37.
I help myself with this in other ways to. Every chapter has to end at a point that draws the reader into the next chapter. You know what draws the reader? The same stuff that draws the writer. That means my daily writing consists of building up to something and ends with a resolution and the start of the next thing. Resolution and start is easy after buildup, it has a flow, but that also means that when I start writing that the start is already done and I just have to do the next build up.
Small steps are key. Small steps make a big journey manageable. Give it a try. It works, at least for me.
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