Writing in Public Weeks #4, #5 and #6

Oh how slack Christmas, New Years, heatwaves and family visitors have made me! Excuses, excuses.

I was too ashamed to post my Week #4 results. A big fat ZERO. For the entire week. Really not good enough, and I am disappointed in myself.

Week #5 was a bit better. But nowhere near the goal. 2571 total words for the week, spread over three writing days.

Week #6 I started getting back into the grove.

January 5th: 545
January 6th: 0
January 7th: 158
January 8th: 300
January 9th: 4251
January 10th: 1254
January 11: 505

Weekly total: 7013
Month-to-date: 9584

Obviously I need more days like the 9th. I wish every day was like the 9th! I need to work up to that. Looking over the day I didn’t even work that hard. There was still a lot of procrastination going on, and I was done by the time The Lovely Boyfriend got home from work at 3pm.
I intended to repeat the process the next day. I got up early, with The Lovely Boyfriend (5am), and put bum in chair…. but… as you can see it didn’t work that well. Sure, I hit my target, but nothing spectacular. I found that being sleep deprived doesn’t really help me be creative. There was a lot of blankly staring at the screen, fantasising about napping, drinking coffee, trying to nap to refresh myself but being to buzzed up on caffeine… anyway, it wasn’t a very productive day. Lesson learned: be refreshed, get enough sleep.

I also noticed that I struggle to write much when people are around, or if I know I’ve got to go and do something within the next hour. It’s something I will have to actively work on. Mum’s been visiting for a few days, and my brother was in between jobs for a week and a half, so the house has been full and I’ve been finding it harder to focus. The 4251 day happened to be when the brother went to our hometown to spend some quality time with Mum before he starts his new job overseas.

So, relatively empty house for the next 6 weeks while the brother is overseas. I must make the most of the peace and quiet!

The last thing I’ve noticed that makes me less productive is the heat. We’ve had a few days over 40 degrees, with a few nights that didn’t get under 30… and we don’t have aircon. The last thing I felt like doing on those days was sitting at my desk and writing. Naps and reading was all I felt up to! We’ve have some nice cool, 20 degree days and I find I’m usually more productive on those days.

Now that I’m identifying my weaknesses, the next step will be to work around them or cure them! I’d love to get up to writing 4000-5000 (or more) a day, most days. It’s only a chapter. I should be doing it.

But, baby steps. First I’ve got to maintain a minimum of 1000 words a day! That hasn’t happened yet…