Monday, September 17th
Sep. 17th, 2012 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinThe Daily Report
Just to reiterate... or maybe say for the first time here, I don't remember where I've been saying what... the first MU e-book will be out next week now, due to the additional work of adding the author commentaries. Some of them are fairly short, just as some of the early chapters are fairly short, but even the shortest chapter deserves proper reflection and I have a lot to say about some of them.
Today marks a shift in my writing process. I've been using timers on a 20/10 minute basis for a while now (20 minutes writing, 10 minutes off). This technique helps prevent burn-out, makes big tasks seem manageable, and allows me to adequately distract myself as needed without letting me become distracted (the right level of distraction is important for creative works). But I've found that when working offline, a lot of the time it doesn't seem worth it or necessary to turn the internet back on for 10 minutes so I end up working through the break and then petering out sometime in the second 20 minute interval. Well... if it works, it works. I got the 20/10 trick from a remedial adulthood blog called "Unf*** Your Babitat" which also advocates 45/15 intervals for situations that call for longer intervals, so I'm shifting to that. I can always go back to 20/10 on days when I don't have the focus to plow through a 45 minute interval.
This change gives me 5 more minutes of writing time every hour, but the actual benefit I expect from it is larger than that because of the matter of momentum and what for lack of a better term I'll call "groove". When I'm not on a roll I can't write for 40 minutes at a time, but when I am on a roll I can write more in 40 minutes than I can in two 20 minute sessions.
The State of the Me
Slept well. The achiness and soreness I had over the weekend are almost completely gone. It used to be that those symptoms would herald a me-flattening illness that would take me out of things for a few days and slow me down for a week or more. Take it as another sign of generally improving health that I can have a brush with death-warmed-over and bounce back from it.
Dreams From Last Night
My cat was a robot. I don't mean a robot cat, I mean I had a kind of blocky robot thing that had the same name as and occupied the same position in my life as my cat does in real life.
Plans For Today
Because I didn't feel well on what should have been the major writing days for today's chapter of MU, I'm starting at a serious deficiency, but I think I'm in good shape for it. I'll know by 3:30 central time if I need an additional day for it and I won't hesitate to take one if it's not coming together, but I think we're going to be in good shape. If I've got it in me to finish and my choice is to post the chapter today and push the commentary I was going to do today off onto tomorrow, or push the chapter off, I'll push the commentary off.
Just to reiterate... or maybe say for the first time here, I don't remember where I've been saying what... the first MU e-book will be out next week now, due to the additional work of adding the author commentaries. Some of them are fairly short, just as some of the early chapters are fairly short, but even the shortest chapter deserves proper reflection and I have a lot to say about some of them.
Today marks a shift in my writing process. I've been using timers on a 20/10 minute basis for a while now (20 minutes writing, 10 minutes off). This technique helps prevent burn-out, makes big tasks seem manageable, and allows me to adequately distract myself as needed without letting me become distracted (the right level of distraction is important for creative works). But I've found that when working offline, a lot of the time it doesn't seem worth it or necessary to turn the internet back on for 10 minutes so I end up working through the break and then petering out sometime in the second 20 minute interval. Well... if it works, it works. I got the 20/10 trick from a remedial adulthood blog called "Unf*** Your Babitat" which also advocates 45/15 intervals for situations that call for longer intervals, so I'm shifting to that. I can always go back to 20/10 on days when I don't have the focus to plow through a 45 minute interval.
This change gives me 5 more minutes of writing time every hour, but the actual benefit I expect from it is larger than that because of the matter of momentum and what for lack of a better term I'll call "groove". When I'm not on a roll I can't write for 40 minutes at a time, but when I am on a roll I can write more in 40 minutes than I can in two 20 minute sessions.
The State of the Me
Slept well. The achiness and soreness I had over the weekend are almost completely gone. It used to be that those symptoms would herald a me-flattening illness that would take me out of things for a few days and slow me down for a week or more. Take it as another sign of generally improving health that I can have a brush with death-warmed-over and bounce back from it.
Dreams From Last Night
My cat was a robot. I don't mean a robot cat, I mean I had a kind of blocky robot thing that had the same name as and occupied the same position in my life as my cat does in real life.
Plans For Today
Because I didn't feel well on what should have been the major writing days for today's chapter of MU, I'm starting at a serious deficiency, but I think I'm in good shape for it. I'll know by 3:30 central time if I need an additional day for it and I won't hesitate to take one if it's not coming together, but I think we're going to be in good shape. If I've got it in me to finish and my choice is to post the chapter today and push the commentary I was going to do today off onto tomorrow, or push the chapter off, I'll push the commentary off.