November 7-8: Writing and more writing. Also exercise.

 So I've figured out that I have to reach 3000-ish words before CoffeeQuills' stream starts, and then I can get another 3000-ish words in while Coffee is streaming. Coffee's stream is usually 7-11PM and at the end of my day. I start doing bedtime stuff after they finish the stream, with the goal of "try to fall to sleep by midnight."

I did pretty well at this yesterday; I reached ~2700 words before the stream started, and was at 5896 by the end of the day.

But while it's relatively easy to keep going, it's so hard to get started at the beginning of the day. I didn't sleep well last night: fell asleep around midnight, woke up at 3:30AM and couldn't get back to sleep. Got up after an hour of trying, futzed about doing nothing much, and then went back to bed again and fell back to sleep around 6:30AM. I woke a few minutes before 8AM and watched Vicorva's stream from 8AM to 9:30AM and then went back to bed. After napping, I got up again around 11:30AM, made lunch, and played Race for the Galaxy for two hours. I finally closed the game at 2PM and started writing this entry. 

6000 words always feels so unattainable at the start of the day. Even when I count these disorganized blog posts, 6000 is still a lot. 

Since I started attempting the "250k in 44 days" thing October 28, I've written 55,000 words. About 35,000 is fiction and the rest were blog posts/outline work/motivational babbling/deleted words. So I'm averaging about 5000 words per day. Meaning I'm on track for 220,000 words in 44 days: 30,000 short of the target. But I've gained ground: I was averaging 4000-ish for the first 4 days. The thing about a daily target of 5682 is that it's so easy to fall behind and so hard to get ahead. It's not literally at the limit of what I can physically type in one day, but I've only once broken 6000 words of fiction in one day. Once. Counting literally all words, I've made it to 7000-ish but that's not a lot more than 5682. Trying to make up for days where I couldn't get myself to start is a real struggle.

But I've got 33 days left to get another 195,000 so. We'll see?

Also! While I'm behind on "ridiculous 250k stretch goal", I'm doing great on fiction goal.  Be That Way, which I started writing on November 1, is at 26,900 words after 7 days. I don't think I'll make 100k on it because I don't think it's going to be that long.  I think it'll be on the short side, perhaps 60-70k? Normally I make a detailed estimate of book length, by estimating each bullet point on the outline and adding them all together on a spreadsheet. But Be That Way has an incredibly detailed outline--almost 8000 words just for the outline. And I finished putting in all the stuff I wanted in it the day before I started writing it. Time spent estimating how long it would be was time I could be using just writing it. So I've just been writing it. I'm not a real professional; I don't need to have realistic deadlines based on good data. (Also, is that even a thing real professional authors are generally good at? I know some are great and some are abysmal but I don't know what the average looks like.)

I forget if I posted about the "motivational babbling" category of writing. Motivational babbling is mostly stream-of-consciousness, and serves two purposes. First, watching "line go up" makes me feel better. "Look, I'm writing words! No, I don't plan to show these words to anyone, but I wrote them!" Second, it's the rubber-ducking effect: I talk to myself about whatever problem is keeping me from writing the thing I actually want to write. And the process of discussing it helps me find a solution.

Goodhart's Law -- "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" -- is something I think about a lot when setting goals. It's very relevant to word-count-based goals, and it's why I only set word count goals around November. My real goal is not to write words: it's to write stories. The kind of gamification I'm doing with the 250k challenge is especially susceptible to this phenomenon: "Yay, I wrote 250k words! ...that I don't want to share with anyone or look at again. Huh. Why did I want to do this again?"

But motivational babbling is genuinely motivational. I'm not just writing more words than usual this November: I'm writing more fiction, too. Even the words that are only for communicating with myself have some value.

I'd thought about skipping exercise today because I didn't start writing until late. But it's mid-afternoon now and I'm feeling restless. So I'll go for a walk around the neighborhood after I finish this entry. I can probably get through the rest of the last Murderbot audiobook while doing so. ("Murderbot" is a very memorable name but the book titles really aren't. I had to look up the title again to remember it: System Collapse.)

Yesterday, I drove out to the trail for my walk and so I could get a bubble tea. There's a 30-mile bike/walking trail about eight miles east of my house, on public lands but passing near some shopping plazas. The bubble tea shop is in a plaza a mile from the trail. I drive to it after the walk because the non-trail walk to it is along a highway and also the section of trail closest to it is not convenient to any public parking for the trail. I hadn't had a bubble tea since Eliyahu left, and the drive gave me some more audiobook time so I didn't mind it. But I don't want to spare the time for the drive today. I kind of resent the time for the shower afterwards, but I need one anyway.