Work report

I'm not going to report on every day in which I write, because I'm hoping that they will be so frequent that such posts would bore you! But today was a good day because after a morning of intense-but-manageable workshopping (we were in small-group committees today, thankfully - I find the large group discussions exhausting), I got to head to the nifty coffeeshop and write for a couple of hours. This was the first time I've been able to get back to my book project for about three weeks, although I've dipped into some of the material here and there in the interim, and it was a little hard to get going again. But I just kept telling myself that the writing didn't have to be good, it just had to be there, to get me warmed up and to give me some ideas for where I wanted to go in future sessions. Quite a bit of today's work will probably get cut (or at least reworded) because I was having a hard time figuring out how to say anything, but what's funny is that I made it over 800 words (my minimum for a day's work, when I have time to tackle it properly and am not squeezing it into a 15-minute break in a crazy day, and if I really am writing and not researching/taking notes/doing other related stuff, is 750 words), and then I switched over into complete stream-of-consciousness free-writing, and churned out another page of much more fluid (if informal) writing, that probably said more than the previous 800 words, in about 10 minutes. Which just goes to show that I should have started with the free-writing to begin with. The brain is a mysterious beast.

Oh, and for those who asked about my word count system? Up till now I've just kept track in the sidebar by manually entering how much I'd written each day, but I'd also forgotten the zokuto word meter, which I think someone put together for NaNoWriMo. (I saw the word meter on someone's blog - was it you, Nels?) You enter in the amount you've written and your total word count goal, and the word meter spits out HTML you can put in your sidebar to show your progress. Hence the new gizmo in my own sidebar. Look, I've completed 3.8% of my goal! (Hey, it's better than zero.) Zokuto's writing report card is also really cool (the link takes you to their "writing tools" page; scroll down to the writing report card, which is a link to an Excel file). You can plug in how long you wrote on a given day, how many words you wrote, how many words you want to write total, and the number of days in which you want to get them written, and it will keep track of your writing pace, what percent of your project you've completed, how long it will take you to finish at your current pace, and how many words per day you'll need to write to finish in the time you've alotted. I'm looking forward to using the report card to keep track of this summer's work, but I bet it would be really useful for people trying to complete dissertations by a certain date as well.

Comments

[Nels]

No, it wasn't me, but I know what you mean. I saw it in a few places. Good for you for writing! As you'll see at my blog in a few minutes, I'm planning on writing, but not doing it yet.

[StyleyGeek]

Wow, thanks for those links! Fantastic!

[StyleyGeek]

Except that the one to Zokuto's writing report card doesn't go there. It goes to "A delicate boy".

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Ooops! Sorry, StyleyGeek - I've fixed the link now.

[Lisa]

I've got a Zoukouto meter on my blog, New Kid, if anybody wants to go look at it.

Congrats on your writing day!!!

[Kate]

Wonderful! As one of those folks hoping to write a dissertation by a certain date, I'm very grateful for the links. Sigh, I love blogs.

[Dr M]

I am really impressed. I don't see how in the world you can get stuff done in the coffee shop. I have to be a secluded monk in order to write productively. But, hey, whatever works right? Keep at it! This should be a productive summer for me as well.

[luckybuzz]

Oh, excellent--thanks for these links! I've always admired your word count on here...having my own (public!) might help kickstart me a bit.

[ExPromQueen, ABD]

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You've made writing human and tangible--not linked to divine inspiration, but to guts and courage and just plain sitting down to do it. Please keep us posted; it is ever so helpful.

[CafeSiren]

NK, mind if I occasionally chime in on your comments section this summer with my own word counts? I'm supposed to be finishing revisions on the book MS this summer, so I'm going to need some sort of accountability.

[Medieval Woman]

Hey - fantastic work counter - the count so far looks impressive! Btw, I'm not sure if you ever reported on this, but weren't you going to pitch your book project to some peeps at K'zoo? If you did, how did that go?

[New Kid on the Hallway]

CafeSiren - you are more than welcome to chime in here anytime! I'd love to hear how your revisions are going.

And Medieval Woman, I bailed on pitching the book project; I felt like it was still a little early to do so (that is, I could pitch the book, and even if someone said, "Great! Send me a proposal/chapter," I'd have to say, "Well, I'll have to get back to you on that..." Plus, I'm a coward and I chickened out!). Though I talked to some folks in my field who liked the book idea.

[Medieval Woman]

Hey, that's great! I'm glad some "civilians" liked the idea (i.e., people who can't say, "let's publish this puppy!") - that means the idea is out there percolating in the atmosphere. Just like Chaucer and Lollardy - it's "in the air"! I would have been too afraid to pitch anything in person. I'm not always good at talking the lingo in a totally persuasive way when under pressure. I've been good in interviews, but publishers are different...