"Okay, just another minute of Twitter, then I'll get back to that novel."
I signed up for the writing-time log experiment for two reasons. I thought it would be fun. And, I thought I’d learn something.
Here’s my log for the past week:
- Sept. 27 4 hours
- Sept. 28 3 hours
- Sept. 29 2 hours
- Sept. 30 5 hours
- Oct. 1 5.5 hours
- Total 19.5 hours
I logged the times I left my writing to do other things for more than five minutes. So, October 1st’s entry looks like this for writing time:
- 5:00 to 5:20
- 5:30 to 6:20
- 6:30 to 6:50
- 7:30 to 8:15
- 10:45 to 11:40
- 12:45 to 2:30
A couple things I learned:
- Twitteruptions last longer than I thought they did.
- When I know what I’m writing toward, I stay at the keyboard longer.
The middle of my week I had some very light writing days. I’d lost my way in my story and needed to find it again. I spent more time on Tuesday and Wednesday walking, running, and doing other life chores that I knew had to be done anyway.
I do think you have to put in the time in order to produce the words.
But sometimes backing off and giving the story some space is more productive than pushing forward.
Friday was my longest writing day, but it felt like my shortest because I knew where I was going. I think backing off on Tuesday and Wednesday helped me to see more clearly where I was going.
My word count on Friday: 4200.
I’m pretty sure that Friday’s words made up at least a third of my word count for the week.
If you want to see more writing log blog entries go to Patti Neilson’s blog. She has a list.
This week I hope to finish this first draft I’ve been plugging away at since mid-May.
What are you working on this week? And, have you ever kept a writing-time log? If so, what did you learn from it?
