Week 2 Analysis of Making Writing A Habit I Can't Kick Blog Challenge

I know – it’s late – heck, Claire has had her Week 2 analysis up since Sunday and she added another awesome blog on Writer’s Block on Wednesday.

For me, I was avoiding the analysis because I wasn’t clear how to look at it all. I decided to finally suck it up and get the work done so I could have it off my to do list.

Looking at my requirements, as defined by Claire J. Monroe for Week 2, I actually did very well.

1)    Commit 30+ minutes each day to writing by:

a.    Minimum word count: 500 words added to manuscript by any means necessary, or

b.    Minimum page count: 2 pages added to manuscript by any means necessary, or

c.    Minimum plot notes for minimum one scene added by any means necessary to any
       manuscript.

2)    Redefine your goal list for this challenge and submit it to me (Claire) by Friday, July 22,
       2016 at midnight EDT

a.    I will need this to help support you doing next week’s analysis

3)    Submit via email to me the answers to the same blog questions answered in week one:

a.   I want them every day after daily writing session is complete while it’s still fresh in
      your mind how you felt about what you accomplished

b.  Again, necessary to help you do next week’s analysis and SEE what your subconscious
     has been trying to tell you

4)    Social media ban and requirements are lifted – UNLESS I don’t get that email from #3 on a
       daily basis

a.    Miss this and you lose social media privileges and chocolate rights. (Oh yeah, I went
      there, because this is important. To YOU. Doesn’t hurt me one bit if you don’t make it
      through the ‘I got nothing’ syndrome phase…just means one less author for me to
      compete with at the marketplace. And now, you may call me an evil bitch who excels
      at getting blood from turnips.)

Going through each item:

On #1, considering the least amount of time I spent writing was 45 minutes and I added a total of 23,480 words to the manuscript – that goal was definitely accomplished. I even added some hand written notes on another manuscript one day, although I didn’t list it in my spreadsheet.

#2, I did a rough redefining of my goals for week three and sent it to Claire just before midnight on Friday, so I got in under the wire on this one. See the rough list below:

Revised goals as I think about them are:

1.      practice learning the story through the 14 scenes using the Poker Posse books.

2.      complete the rough draft of RM by 7/31 (only 40K words more to go)

3.      Establish a solid writing schedule.

4.      Extra if possible - create a visual-kinesthetic-auditory goal plan for my writing
         career.

I didn’t quite go through all the goals, and Claire pared it down so I could truly focus on the main goal of completing the ugly rough draft of Rogue Master. I’ll post the completed list of goals at the end of this blog.

#3 – submit emails to Claire, yup, did this with only one delay – my Thursday post was combined with my Friday post.

#4, social media ban was lifted, which was nice, but I honestly didn’t spend a lot of time on the social media sites.

I can safely check off each of the items on my list as being complete and I have to send a big thank you to Claire for helping me SEE things better.

Date	Day #	Word Count	Time (min)	Rate (wds/min)	Manuscript	Transcribe/ Free Write?
7/16/16	8	652	45	14.5	Rogue Master	Free write
7/17/16	9	1024	75	13.9	Rogue Master	Transcribe
7/18/16	10	8208	330	24.9	Rogue Master	Transcribe
7/19/16	11	2595	98	26.5	Rogue Master	Transcribe
7/20/16	12	4969	320	15.5	Rogue Master	Transcribe
7/21/16	13	5264	321	16.4	Rogue Master	Transcribe
7/22/16	14	700	60	11.7	Rogue Master	Transcribe
WEEK 2 TOTALS:		23430	1249
AVERAGES:		3347	178	17.6
RUNNING TOTAL:		35141	152	16.3

Now, for my analysis – this week actually went much better than the last week.

As you can see, my focus has been on transcribing scenes from the other manuscripts into this new one. There were only two days when I did just over my minimum requirement, but my words per minute didn’t drop. In fact, one of the those days was a freewrite day (14.5 wpm), the other was a transcribe day (11.7 wpm) showing there wasn’t much difference between the words per minute on those days.

While the word count and the time committed are all really great to see, the biggest change was something I only shared with Claire. The daily questions I sent to her showed, in my opinion, a marked improvement over those of the first week. After actually seeing the destructive way I’d treated myself in those first posts. I think I was hyper aware of what language I used and taking a step back and not allowing emotion to leak into the responses. I kept it very analytical and non-judgmental. Which allowed me to think about the progress I was making – and it was good progress…hell, it was fucking great progress. I more than doubled my word count from the first week.

Each day of transcription made me aware of the running notes in my head that I would jot down in the story to remind myself how the scenes would need to be altered to fit the new story. I have to say, it was exciting to see the word count climb and see how what I’d written before could be made to fit. (Which honestly made me feel good because a part of me could no longer rail at me about all the time I wasted on writing the wrong story so many times.)

Now for the new challenge going into week three.

Remember the one I sent to Claire? Claire being the evil bitch wonderful friend and scientist that she is spent a good two hours on the phone with me Sunday night. I’m sure she was ready to snatch me bald as I talked around and rationalized everything yet didn’t give her any firm confirmation that the goals I’d sent her for week three were achievable.

That’s her big thing. Helping people set achievable goals so they don’t set themselves up for failure. Yet, she also makes sure that the challenges aren’t too easy. After more discussion though, she came up with a simple list that aligns with my goal to complete the ugly rough draft of Rogue Master (which has been whittled down to 75,000 for 90,000 since the 90,000 is the publishable final draft goal.)

We also discussed the fact that I was becoming somewhat anxious over the fact that I hadn’t posted anything to my blog for the week, since it wasn’t a requirement for me. Add to that the realization that if I’m going to work toward writing becoming my career, and since I have time during the remainder of the summer due to my day job, then I need to commit to some serious hours for writing.

Which resulted in a simple 2 element goal for Week 3 of the Making Writing A Habit I Can’t Kick Challenge.

1)    Add a minimum of 6,000 words per day to the ugly rough draft of Rogue Master:

a.    To complete the 75,000 word ugly rough draft, or

b.    Spend at least 6 hours per day working on the manuscript, either writing, editing,
       transcribing, etc. to help meet the 6,000 word per day goal.

2)    Post two blogs each week:

a.    One would be the weekly analysis of my Making Writing A Habit I Can’t Kick results

    i.    Due by Sunday, July 23, 2016 (quite obvious I missed this goal, but I’m making it 
          up with this post)

b.    A second post on any subject of interest I have on that day – writing, cooking, books,
       baking, sewing, etc.

    i.    Due by Wednesday or Thursday, July 27 or 28, 2016. (Will be pushing this one
          back to Wednesday August 3rd since I wasn't able to get my analysis post for week 
          2 done until today, and I'll be doing week 3 on Sunday or Monday. This way there’s 
          some time between analysis post and new one.)

Blog post analysis done – check that one off!

Until Monday, have a great day!!

Q