Kicking the Habit

Journal 79 23-29 Jan. 2023

Procrastination is a bad habit.

Having taken off almost three full months from regular, weekly writing; I found that it was very easy to put off a session. The previous week I got out a bunch of words and wrote 2of 3 sessions.

This week, I found myself making excuses to skip for other things.

Excuses:

Last week I wrote my blog, then I had to do a character bio/write up. The blog was near 2000 words the character bio was another 1500 words, and thus I had 3500 words for the day.

But none of those words were for the novel.

Still, I found myself saying I had written enough for the day and I moved on to lazy pursuits for the day.

Procrastination is insidious when you can make excuses for it.

What’s doubly sad is that I started making those excuses to help me feel like I had accomplished things. In the beginning of this blog, I talked about how in the old days I used to sit at my computer and write for 8- or 10-hour sessions. Often without eating or even going to the bathroom. As a teenager that was maybe ok… but in reality, it killed my back and neck. Plus, the rest of the problems of not eating and ignoring other activity.

Better Habits

Over the years I developed better tactics. Shorter sessions but more often writing. I still have days were I knock out 10k in a single day and then don’t write for days, or a week after. But more often these days I just try to write a minimum of 3 sessions a week, or 6000 words. If I make either of those goals I feel I have made my mark.

Now all of this is a preamble to say that I only managed a single session this past week, but I decent word count was still had.

Words

So, I procrastinated on my Sunday session, and I had to forgo my Monday session as I was called into work to cover a sick co-worker, but my Thursday session happened.

We started the session with a little self-loathing that we’d missed to previous two. Then we had to split the session in two to deal with normal life challenges (groceries and other chores).

Managed to knock out 3903 words in two separate sessions on the same day. The novel now sits at 120,925 total words.

But overall, I believe that I knocked out a decent chapter. I am second guessing all of my work again. I find myself constrained by my own chapter outline. I feel like I should be adding another chapter. But, why?

Chapter Limits?

I have never considered chapters to have a limit on words.

I don’t aim for my chapters to all be around 5000 words. But for some reason I tend to aim for between 4-6k words. Invariably, when I get around that mark, I start to find a good moment to end the chapter. A cliffhanger, or a moment of quiet or tension, where the chapter naturally feels like it should stop.

Then I look at my outline and I have 2 or 3 more bullet points that I was supposed to reach. And I debate whether I should write a 10k chapter or whether I should move those points into the next chapter.

In the last two chapter I wrote this month I have pushed more and more scenes into the next chapter. So, 21 was supposed to have four major scenes. I accomplished two of them and decided the other two could be the first half of 22.

In chapter 22 I finished those two scenes and then started on the main scene for the original 22 outline, but once again the chapter hit around 7k and I felt it was time to end it, but I had unfinished scenes.

Now in this example I don’t think I need to add another chapter in, I believe I have room in the next chapter to explore some of the stuff I ignored. But then my doubts creep in… I skipped a lot of action to just get the characters through their scenes. I did it in rapid cuts, lots of running, then frantic actions, then moments of quiet.

This happened earlier in the novel as well. I reached a point where I just needed an extra chapter and I had to insert one.

This is just something that happens when you are a hybrid pantser/plotter.

Story Line

I almost feel the need to rethink and re-outline the final chapters.

Mostly because my time away from the keys changed up my mind on a few things. Every time I look at my outline I feel like its good, but that the current me has some better ideas than the old me.

It’s really weird when I make some changes and then realize that I had planned them all along, and that I just introduced them at the wrong moment.

To clarify, I start writing a scene and think, “hey this would be a good spot to drop in foreshadowing and then I can have X scene happen.” But then when I check my outline I already have that scene scheduled, and worse, I did that exact foreshadowing in one of the chapters I wrote before I took 3 months off.

It just shows that my mind naturally feels out these moments.

This Coming Week

I don’t know how this week will go. I have a family member in the hospital, my coworker might still be sick, and I’m just coming off a regular cold myself.

I know, a lot of that sounds like excuses, so let’s see how I work around them.

By the outline I should move back to the A-storyline for a bit, but I might skip chapter 23 and write 24 so that I can continue writing the same action sequence and escape.

I do have some painting work I need to do, and I have some side projects that have been sitting untouched for the same 3-month period.

Since this blog is already well over a thousand words I think I’ll sign off here. Not much to talk about in hobby, TV, etc… Except that the second season of Vox Machina is great.

Be well, and thank you for reading.