Monday, December 01, 2008

Biker Mice From Mars: Turbo 31

Biker Mice From Mars: Wars Are Won: Turbo

Progress Bar from Writertopia

What have I learned from winning NaNo?

November is still a lousy month for the experiment. As soon as I said yes, I had no time for anything else like posting progress, studying for the graduate exam and comps. paper like I should have, chores. I also apparantly need a whole day to decompress but that could be the graduate exam too. Today has just been weird.

I have learned that my average hourly word count is 1133. That’s not a bad daily word count to shoot for with everything else I have to do. My average daily word count for Turbo worked out to be 1667, but I think that’s thrown off thanks to yesterday’s marathon to finish on time.

I can usually make an hour of writing in the morning if I take care of myself (i.e. go to bed on time and don’t drink too much caffeine). But my best composing comes from longhand writing in notebooks that I worked on all day long. That may just be my perception, but I feel that my hour at the computer is better and I get more done when all the thinking is done in longhand. Which doesn’t do anything for me wanting to improve my computer composition.

Now I did a lot of computer composition for Turbo but not the whole thing like I wanted. In a few months, I won’t be able to tell what was composed how without my paper notes to guide me. So why am I letting it bother me? Because I should be able to transition between both all the time?

Changes to Writing Habits
  • When planning out how long a project should take, use the hourly rate of writing.
  • Schedule sanely: need an hour for writing no pressure, need an hour for comps. paper.
  • Taking breaks from the computer helps keeps my body healthy and gets my chores done. But it only works when I obey the timer and get up.

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