How 2014 Changed Me

Today is the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere - a day that feels sacred to me, deep in my bones. In many ways, this day feels like the end of the year to me, far more so than December 31 ever has. From here the year turns around. The photo above wasn't from today, but I did take it on the winter solstice a few years ago. The brilliant light in it encapsulates exactly how I feel about the implicit promise of solstice.

This week, appropriate to winding up the old year and looking ahead to the new, we're evaluating three ways our writing has changed or evolved over the last year.

Regular visitors to the Bordello know that I keep pretty detailed metrics on my writing. That helps me get an objective measure on evaluations like this. (Can't shake that scientific training!) So, a few of those measures from the last year, as of this Solstice Day.

Words written in 2014: 558,396
Highest wordcount month: August, with 68,050
Lowest wordcount month: September with 22,402
Monthly average overall: 46,533
Highest week: 2nd week of August with 20,922
Lowest week: 4th week of July with 1,105
Weekly average: 9,144
Daily average:  1,573
Works published: 5 (10 release dates, counting the six episodes of Master of the Opera)
Longest work written to date: The Talon of the Hawk, 132,377 words

So, three ways that my writing changed?

I wrote more, faster

I took to heart my own advice to treat increasing wordcount the same way I approach physical training - by gradually increasing the volume and intensity of what I did. At times I worked with a 3,000 words/day goal. Part of this was knowing I'd need recovery time and factoring that in. It's no coincidence that my lowest wordcount month followed the highest. Overall, I increased my average daily wordcount by 200 words/day from 2013. That might not sound like a lot, but cumulatively it is. And is a gradual increase that shows an overall improvement in my writing endurance and condition.

I wrote longer

When I first began writing novels, switching over from the short essays I had been writing to creating longer works was a huge challenge for me. It took a lot for me to learn how to contain a longer story in my head and work on it incrementally. I am naturally a concise writer. My editors always ask me to add, never to cut. Edits always involve embellishing, explaining, delving. This year saw me write my two longest works ever. The other was Rogue's Paradise at just over 102,000 -  it's probably significant that both it and The Talon of the Hawk wound up trilogies. They're good-longer, too, judging by reader reactions. Not fatty, but strong stories that needed to be that long.

I got better

Maybe all writers feel this way, but I live in fear that the next book will suck. With each book, I'm getting better attention - better critical acclaim, amazing awards and singular notice - all of which is wonderful but also makes me fear that I won't be able to sustain it. Especially as I write more, faster and longer (see above). I'm knocking on wood as I write this, but so far, I'm continuing to improve as a writer. The two books I have coming out in 2015 so far - Under His Touch on January 19 and The Talon of the Hawk on May 26 - are, according to my editors and early feedback/reviews, the best I've written so far. I think I'm, like that Olympic athlete, hitting my stride.

I can't wait to see what 2015 holds!

Solstice blessings on you all - may the next year be full of wonder, beauty and joys, both great and small.

Increasing Word Count and Training for #NaNoWriMo

This seemed like an appropriate photo for the topic of the new week - Managing Your Time: If You've a Deadline, You've a Schedule. How Do You Get Back On Track When Your Schedule Goes To Crap?

I'm in this place right now, getting back on track on a number of levels. My schedule didn't really go to crap. But I did take a huge step back in September and now, it's turned out, a good portion of October. It's been deliberate in some ways and very likely much needed. Also weird.

See, in August I wrote 68,050. The most I've ever done in one month. It was a lot for me. More, that followed a straight run since the previous August when I wrote at least 41,000 words every month. In 2013 I wrote just over 497,000 words and so far for 2014, I've written 455,000. To do the math for you, that means I'll likely have somewhere around 550,000 by December 31.

Once I get back on track, that is.

Because, in September, I only wrote 22,402. So far, for October I have 16,831. These are my two lowest word count months since May of 2013. I haven't been doing nothing, precisely. I edited the novel that comes out in January, Under His Touch - developmental edits up through proofreading - and developmental edits on The Talon of the Hawk, which took a lot of focus, though a minimal additional word count. I worked up a proposal for three more Twelve Kingdoms books and started the first in the concept for another contemporary romance series. There's been a lot of promo with the release of Rogue's Paradise in September and preparing for The Tears of the Rose in November.

But I haven't been doing much drafting. Which takes a whole other muscle.

Speaking of muscles, I was also sick in September. Some kind of low-level respiratory crud that nevertheless laid me low for several weeks. I got behind in exercising, too. Though managed to use the treadmill desk some every day, if only to keep my lymph flowing, I couldn't run or lift weights. The treadmill served as a cat bed more than it moved. All of this was by way of necessary recovery. I truly believe that. I don't have another book deadline until March 1. I haven't gotten sick in a long time. It worked out okay for this to be my down time.

However, it's now time to ramp up again and the question, the focus of our topic this week, is how do I do that?

I take my own advice. The sort I had the opportunity to hand out a couple of weeks ago when Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo, visited our local chapter meeting, something I mentioned in last week's post, too. One gal asked if Chris had advice on how to get going on writing those 1,667 words/day to make the 50K words/month that's the NaNoWriMo goal. He said he didn't so I offered mine. I told her that the temptation is to do the math exactly that way - to divide 50K by the 30 days of November and focus on achieving 1,667 words for each of those days. The problem with that approach is that writing that many words on the first day is akin to learning to run a marathon by going out and running ten miles right off the bat.

Yeah, you can probably do it, but you'll feel the pain later.

In fact, you might be able to do it for a couple/three/four days - and then the crash occurs. Like my recovery time recently, it's a natural sequel to going flat out.

Better, I told her, to treat it like that marathon training. Build up a little more every day. Stop before you're tired, because that energy will translate to the next day. Consider setting up a schedule for NaNoWriMo like this:

1	100
2	200
3	300
4	400
5	500
6	750
7	1000
8	1250
9	1500
10	1750
11	2000
12	2000
13	2000
14	2000
15	2000
16	2100
17	2100
18	2100
19	2100
20	2100
21	2100
22	2200
23	2200
24	2200
25	2200
26	2200
27	2200
28	2200
29	2200
30	2200

By the end of November 30, you'd have 50,150 words. Best of all, by the time you've got yourself doing 2,200 words a day, it will feel very easy and natural. Because you'd be in shape for it.

This is what I need to do, to get myself back in shape. I've gotten back into running and weight-lifting, working my way back up to my previous levels. I'm tracking my treadmill desk miles, making sure I do a little more each week. I need to get back into drafting, but not to 2,200 words/day. Not right off, tempting as that is. I'm going to ramp up like this. Get the words flowing.

Back on track.

Resource Sink

For this week that we're talking about resources, I'd like to tell you that at the moment, I don't have any. This is because I haven't written a word in a week. Which is because this is Haul Out Week. Which has just morphed into Haul Out We Don't Know How Long.

The story goes like this: Boats require maintenance. One of the major maintenance items that can be made MOAR major by putting it off is doing the bottom. Once every few years, a boat needs to be brought up out of the water. Any marine growth must be removed and a biocide paint applied to the underwater portions of said boat. This keeps growth to a minimum and protects the integrity of the hull (this in turn keeps the whole affair afloat). Unchecked, the ocean will claim anything you put into it, including fiberglass coated with toxic paint. These haul out jaunts are our attempt to hold back watery entropy.

The original plan was to haul out on Wednesday, which I did, get the bottom work done and splash again on Friday afternoon. Initial assessments were good. The last bottom job held up really well. We had only minor issues to address - little things that were akin to homeowners needing to change the filters in the furnace before winter hits.

But then.

Things took a turn for the unfortunate. While I was kitted up to handle some acid work, one of the guys helping me with the boat discovered a blister on a daggerboard. It was huge. The size of my head, huge. And full of water. This is problematic, you see, because it is exactly where water isn't supposed to be - on the inside of the boat structure. This is like a pipe breaking inside the walls of your house and you not finding it for a few days. We've drilled holes to drain water and dry the interior structure. Heat lamps may also be involved there. Once the whole thing is dry, we'll put new fiberglass down, barrier coat it, and finally bottom paint it. Then the boat can go back in the water and be expected to go on floating for many years to come.

Here's how this relates to this week's topic and to writing in general. Resources are lovely things to have. To harbor. To hoard and then parse out in stingy bits and pieces over the long haul of a novel. But sometimes, the shit hits the fan and resources be damned. You go all out. You don't hold back. You do it because it's necessary, because it's the right thing to do.

But it can't be the right thing if it's the ONLY thing. How can I justify this kind of physical effort to take care of my home? Because the last time I had to do this was three years ago. I've been hoarding those resources since, storing up for this day. Writing is the same - log five slow days for every fast day. Wait. That's running. Eh. Who cares. The point is good. You can't sprint if you don't put in the training time. And the training time is all about learning to manage your resources so you know what you can do and when you can do it. Whether the crap and the fan are involved or not.

Approaching Word Count Like an Olympic Athlete

This is the photo I took when we drove back into New Mexico, after a road trip up to northern Wyoming. We lived in Wyoming for over 20 years and going back in February wasn't high on our list. But there was an illness in the family and we did what we needed to do.

Still, making it back home felt really good.

I took a series of road shots that day, documenting the journey from north to south.

 Once the roads cleared of snow and ice, then of city traffic, our speed increased. Until we hit blue skies and sunshine - then we rocketed home.

I guess the message here is obvious: to go faster, clear stuff out of the way.

I'm amused that this week's topic is  Attaining Warp-Speed: How do you increase productivity? I can't be the only one who reads "warp speed" and sees the stars going from pinpoints to blurs of light. Warp speed is awesome. It saves you from the Klingons and the Romulans. It gets you to that next planet in a few days instead of a few lifetimes. Who doesn't want a Dilithium Crystal of their very own, to catapult us from deadly dull impulse power to WARP SPEED??

And yet.

I hate to tell you this - and I hope this isn't a spoiler - but faster-than-light travel is still fiction.

Us flesh and blood beings are still relegated to the laws of the physical universe. Which means getting in shape and staying in shape.

If you read my personal blog, you know this is one of my THINGS. I'm a believer in the gradual improvement, in increasing endurance gradually.

I come at this from the standpoint of the decidedly non-athletic.As a major bookworm and a skinny girl, I didn't play sports games with other kids. When I got to school, I'd never learned any of the athletic skills that made you popular in gym class. I tried (or was forced) to participate, and ended up doing badly because I'd never learned how to throw a ball. When you attempt something and everyone yells at you for screwing up, failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. After that, I never learned to train my body because I didn't want to.

Until much later in life. I finally got serious about my slowly increasing weight. I didn't want to follow in the cankled footsteps of the obese side of my family. With a reason beyond trying not to get yelled at, I learned how to do things like run and lift weights. I started out at pitiful levels and worked my way up. It didn't matter how fast and fabulously the glossy, gazelle-like woman on the next treadmill ran, I had to work my way up via gradual increments. If I took time off, I had to scale back and work my way back up again.

If I didn't, I'd overdo - making myself sick, sore and miserable. Worse, I'd lose motivation.If I wanted to make sure I'd go back to the gym, the best way was to leave it feeling good.

These are basic animal-training techniques, right?

So, I'm sure you're all cleverly following my analogy here. It works the same way for me with increasing word count. I believe in the daily exercise. Establish a pattern and stick to it, then gradually improve my endurance and performance.

One way I've begun to look at this is by tracking my cumulative word counts, along with the daily ones. Some of you may have seen these charts on my personal blog on Friday (teach me not to look ahead to the Word Whore topic of the week), but I'll show them here, too.

These are my weekly cumulative word counts for 2013. I only started tracking weekly numbers in January, so this is a limited perspective. The partial weeks throw it off a bit, but I like being able to see the trend. (Actually, I replaced the chart with a better one, that combines the last and first weeks of each month.) I look at this every day and hope to see that I improve. It was cool to see my weekly count of 20K, following a big push. I can also see that I pay for it the following week. This doesn't surprise me, really. I went to grad school with people doing interesting work with Olympic athletes, studying patterns of training and - more important - over-training. A recovery period is necessary to regenerate the ability to perform.

These are my monthly cumulative word counts, which I've been tracking since October. December was a light month because I was doing a lot of revisions and back and forth edits with a couple of my editors. I also took time off for the holidays and to refill the well. What was important to me was to get cranking again in January. This chart helps me see I did quite well, getting back into shape. At the time I felt creaky - sluggish and over-celebrated. But I gradually improved over the month (as the weekly charts show) and did even better in February. I'm really interested to see how I do in March.

I joke about this being like animal-training, but that's a fair analogy. We have to treat ourselves as we would a treasured pet - with both love and discipline. You won't win the Triple Crown with a horse exhausted from too many races. This is partly why I take one day a week off from writing. From day job, too. It's my day to play - and very necessary for me to hit the work again with energy and enthusiasm.

Warp speed would be nice and I'll never stop admiring those gazelle-like women running at 7 mph. But I'll trot along at my 5 mph, making sure to reward myself for reaching those personal bests.