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Archive for the ‘Writing Efficiently’ Category

Writing with Distractions

Monday, October 11th, 2010

I decided to challenge my preconceptions these past few weeks and try some experimentation–writing with and without music or the TV playing in the background.

By far, I’m more productive without any noise in the background (beyond the sound of my typing).

My writing goal for each day on my current novel-in-progress is to write around 500 words each day.  I decided to try measuring how much time I spent each night writing, and how many words I was able to generate.

For my first week, I used my normal routine; writing while a movie or some music played in the background.  I found it took around 2-2.5 hours to write my 500 word quota (which would often include trying to get the phrasing right).

For the second week, I tried turning off all distractions.  I found I wrote more (averaging about 750 words) and spent much less time: 1-1.5 hours.  This left me with time to really enjoy a movie, or go to bed to get some more rest.

While I wasn’t exactly surprised that I was more productive with silence, I was a little surprised at the amount of difference–1.5 times more words, in about half the time.

I also found one productivity boost in the third week:  listening to music I find inspiring immediately before I started work.  This boosted my average to around 800 words in the 1-1.5 hour time frame.

It will remain to be seen in the editing stage whether writing more words has made a difference in quality.  Still, I expect it’s not any worse than my work while there are distractions in the background.  Actually, I’d guess I’ll find it’s better since I can keep everything in my mind more easily.

What are your experiences?  Have you seen similar boosts in productivity?  How has it affected your quality?

Word Count Quotas vs. Dedicated Writing Time

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Lately, I’ve been testing out two methods of making myself more productive.  I’ve been struggling with ways to help myself succeed and beat my word count each day.

Here’s what I’ve discovered as I’ve been working my current novel-in-progress.

There are two main methods of measuring progress:  word count quotas, and dedicated writing time.

Word count quotas:

Benefits:

  • Easier to plan when your work will be complete
  • Psychological boost when you beat your quota significantly
  • Easy to measure whether you’re on track with your goals
  • Others can measure whether you’ve met your goal for the day–and help urge you on

Disadvantages:

  • When you’re struggling, it can take a significant amount of time to hit your quota
  • This doesn’t take into account editing/rewriting time
  • Word counts don’t take into account the quality of your writing.  Anyone can write 500 words, but making those 500 words fit into a larger manuscript or article can take much more time.

Dedicated writing time:

Benefits:

  • Fixed time box, so you limit how much time you are required to work
  • If you’re struggling, once the time has finished, you can stop guilt free
  • Allows you room to edit your work, take out scenes, or add in new ones
  • Writing at the same time every day helps you develop writing as a habit

Disadvantages:

  • Harder to plan when a work will be complete
  • If you’re on a roll, you may not have enough flexibility to continue working beyond your dedicated writing time

My take:

Ultimately, I’ve decided to go with a blend of dedicated writing time and word count quotas, with a slight twist.

I focus on writing scenes instead of purely using word count quotas, and try to dedicate time from 10pm-12am to focus only on writing.  This allows me to avoid the trap of only paying attention to the number of words I write, while still helping myself to continue making progress every day.  Using a scene as a measurement helps me to avoid checking my word count every few minutes, and focus on writing usable prose.

Since switching over to this blended method, I’ve found that I can easily hit my quota of 500 words a day, often doubling that number.  With a little luck and continued dedication, my first draft of this novel will be done in about 2 months.

What do you think?  What has worked for you?  What methods do you use to help yourself make more progress every day?


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