Monday, April 15th
Apr. 16th, 2012 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinTHE DAILY REPORT
I had a couple of breakthroughs regarding writing this past weekend.
One of them was pretty simple. I had the Tales of MU chapter for the day more or less finished. It was the right length. All the stuff that was supposed to happen in it, happened. But I had the sort of nagging doubt that I've had in the past that's made me tweet "I'm keeping this one for another day, it needs to be more awesome." so I could sleep on it and reflect on it and then figure out what I'm missing.
I really didn't want to do that, though, because I'm just getting back onto the four day cycle, with the new free-floating schedule, and it's been going well. I will never regret the practice of holding back a chapter in general... I think it's been worthwhile to do so in the past, and I'm sure it will be worthwhile in the future. But Business Manager AE was saying "This is not a good time to do that."
So what I did was instead of putting up the "soon" tweet (which usually means I'm down to figuring out a title and subtitle, and then actually posting the thing), I said it would be done in about an hour, and I walked away to eat dinner and think about things.
It's not unusual for me to take breaks in the middle of writing, to stop and consider something or refresh my batteries, but I don't think I've ever done this when I have the chapter seemingly finished and ready to go.
And when I came back to it, I knew how to fix what was bothering me. I re-arranged a couple of things, I re-wrote a couple of things, I put on a new ending that's going to make the next chapter both better and easier to write.
Ideally, my writing cycle will give me a whole day to do this kind of reflection and adjustment, and often it does... but even in cases where I'm doing the bulk of the work of finishing a chapter on the day it's due, I think it can pay to just stop and take a step back when it's "done"... something I usually don't do because if I'm doing that much writing on a publishing day, I'm feeling harried and pressed for time.
But if I don't mind taking an extra day for polish when it really needs it, I think I can spare an hour or so for polish on general principle.
The other breakthrough came about while listening to the soothing sound of Bob Ross's voice. I'll post more about that in the future. For now, I'll just say that I think I've found a new way to conceive of my writing style in general.
THE STATE OF THE ME
Sleep has been kind of iffy the past several days... some nights I'm getting four or five hours, but then on Saturday I was basically asleep for twelve hours in a row. I attribute this to cough medicine interrupting my otherwise carefully regulated cycle. I don't foresee any longterm difficulties. I have been drinking caffeine in the early P.M. again, too... something I'd stopped.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
None memorable.
PLANS FOR TODAY
Got a newsletter to finish up and send out, and some behind the scenes tinkering to do.
... Huh, I started this post this morning and then forgot to actually post it. Ah, well! Newsletter's mostly done, but in keeping with my custom I'm going to sit on it a bit and see if I figure out anything that's missing, or could be said better.
I had a couple of breakthroughs regarding writing this past weekend.
One of them was pretty simple. I had the Tales of MU chapter for the day more or less finished. It was the right length. All the stuff that was supposed to happen in it, happened. But I had the sort of nagging doubt that I've had in the past that's made me tweet "I'm keeping this one for another day, it needs to be more awesome." so I could sleep on it and reflect on it and then figure out what I'm missing.
I really didn't want to do that, though, because I'm just getting back onto the four day cycle, with the new free-floating schedule, and it's been going well. I will never regret the practice of holding back a chapter in general... I think it's been worthwhile to do so in the past, and I'm sure it will be worthwhile in the future. But Business Manager AE was saying "This is not a good time to do that."
So what I did was instead of putting up the "soon" tweet (which usually means I'm down to figuring out a title and subtitle, and then actually posting the thing), I said it would be done in about an hour, and I walked away to eat dinner and think about things.
It's not unusual for me to take breaks in the middle of writing, to stop and consider something or refresh my batteries, but I don't think I've ever done this when I have the chapter seemingly finished and ready to go.
And when I came back to it, I knew how to fix what was bothering me. I re-arranged a couple of things, I re-wrote a couple of things, I put on a new ending that's going to make the next chapter both better and easier to write.
Ideally, my writing cycle will give me a whole day to do this kind of reflection and adjustment, and often it does... but even in cases where I'm doing the bulk of the work of finishing a chapter on the day it's due, I think it can pay to just stop and take a step back when it's "done"... something I usually don't do because if I'm doing that much writing on a publishing day, I'm feeling harried and pressed for time.
But if I don't mind taking an extra day for polish when it really needs it, I think I can spare an hour or so for polish on general principle.
The other breakthrough came about while listening to the soothing sound of Bob Ross's voice. I'll post more about that in the future. For now, I'll just say that I think I've found a new way to conceive of my writing style in general.
THE STATE OF THE ME
Sleep has been kind of iffy the past several days... some nights I'm getting four or five hours, but then on Saturday I was basically asleep for twelve hours in a row. I attribute this to cough medicine interrupting my otherwise carefully regulated cycle. I don't foresee any longterm difficulties. I have been drinking caffeine in the early P.M. again, too... something I'd stopped.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
None memorable.
PLANS FOR TODAY
Got a newsletter to finish up and send out, and some behind the scenes tinkering to do.
... Huh, I started this post this morning and then forgot to actually post it. Ah, well! Newsletter's mostly done, but in keeping with my custom I'm going to sit on it a bit and see if I figure out anything that's missing, or could be said better.