Not Enough

celticroots

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When writing, I sometimes manage to get only a page done. Or a few paragraphs. I try to focus on the fact that I am writing at all is what counts and that it will add up over time. But I feel like what I write isn't enough. Likely being too hard on myself as usual. How can I overcome this? I don't want the joy to get sucked out of writing.
 

Lil

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Don't beat yourself up about who much you write in a day because there is no "right" way to do this. There are people who can churn our six books a year. There are others who take ten years to finish a book.
Now if you never finish a project, if you keep starting a new one, then you do have a problem.
No matter how long it takes, finish a book. Then you will have some idea of how long it takes you.
 

ValerieJane

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Don't be too hard on yourself! A page or a paragraph is still more than you'd had before you'd started, so that gets added to the progress column.

If you'd like to start pushing yourself toward writing more per session, might I suggest a couple of things: Don't edit while you write; just write. There are a lot of times when I'm mid-sentence, my fingers flying, and I just write what I mean. In my brain, I say, "That sounds terrible but I'll fix that later." Try not to dwell too much on the perfectionism when you're getting a first draft down. And secondly, maybe try writing just a little bit more each session. For example, if you write a scene at a time (I often do this), maybe try to push yourself to just start the next scene before stopping.
 

JCornelius

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When writing, I sometimes manage to get only a page done. Or a few paragraphs. I try to focus on the fact that I am writing at all is what counts and that it will add up over time. But I feel like what I write isn't enough. Likely being too hard on myself as usual. How can I overcome this? I don't want the joy to get sucked out of writing.
Sometimes my great achievement for the day is to write a good sentence or just restructure a sentence. Sometimes not even do anything physical, but a victory in the subjective realm--for example definitively realize how the next scene (or paragraph, for that matter) will be structured*.

I'm not trying to establish a speed record, but to write the best thing I currently can, without throwing everything I have into doing this. Which sounds totally against the ethics of Eye of the Tiger, but I've kind of outgrown running up and down stairs in a hoodie and boxing sides of beef. If, say 70% of personal energy are needed to invest daily into making life work the way it should in all its facets, and another 20% go into writing, it seems self-evident to me that the 10% surplus of energy resources best go into passive, sybaritic enjoyment of life, into accumulating more energy as it were, not using it up.

For example, reasonably healthy young adults, still burning through their biological inheritance, do not realize that weekends and holidays were invented to help you accumulate energy, not use it up. At some point, when the biological inheritance has been indeed squandered, suddenly the true function of the time off work becomes apparent
biggrin.png


Personal energy is like money--when all is well it may seem super efficient to invest everything to the last penny into this and that (or indeed it may seem super obvious to splurge on fancy foods and drinks), but when entropy strikes in one form or another--it's suddenly best if you do indeed have some free money on your hands right here right now, and all of it is not locked into various investments and has not been used up on "a good time after work" or "the fancy shoes I totally deserved". It's the same with personal energy--if you use it up a 100% every day, for hard work or hard play or both, when sudden entropy strikes you'll wish you hadn't done that.

A popular trap is to convince oneself "I'll put myself through relentless hell now, but then later, once I'm sitting pretty on the fruits of my toil, I'll be able to enjoy life". At least I view this as a trap. To me that's not life, that's serving a self-imposed sentence for no good reason beyond the screaming goblins in one's head. Nothing wrong with toiling for a better life, but much is wrong with not leaving aside at least 5% of waking life for doing nothing.

Another trap, specific to writers and other artists, is to convince oneself there's no need to invest 70% or 50% or however much into making sure life runs the way it should, that these resources can and should be diverted into writing alone, and life can take care of itself. Then suddenly the marriage is in ruins, health is shot, the house is leaking everywhere, and the only way to save the ego seems to declare this was the plan all along because art demands sacrifice and I shall now become an alcoholic and drop dead because art.


____
*And now we understand G.R.R. Martin's writing speed--definitely a kindred spirit of this poster
 
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GeekTells

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celticroots, we're all wired differently. To that end, don't measure yourself by some arbitrary yardstick that works for someone else. There can be a not-fine line between driving yourself to accomplish more and pointlessly dumping on yourself for failing to do something you may not be able to do at all.

Find a writing-related measurement that works for you. If you find hitting it becomes too easy, push yourself harder with a slightly higher measurement.

Get better. Push yourself. But don't set yourself up to fail.

And good luck. :)
 

Bufty

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When writing, I sometimes manage to get only a page done. Or a few paragraphs. I try to focus on the fact that I am writing at all is what counts and that it will add up over time. But I feel like what I write isn't enough. Likely being too hard on myself as usual. How can I overcome this? I don't want the joy to get sucked out of writing.

Perfectly normal. Two pages a day, I believe, was the target of Philip Pullman when writing the His Dark Materials trilogy. Quality is more important than quantity.
 

KTC

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Write what you can when you can. Maybe a way to get rid of the guilt is to NOT have a set writing time. A lot of people, myself included, swear by set writing times. I like to write every morning for an hour...prior to 6am. It works for me. Maybe if you were more fluid and just wrote here and there throughout your day? Don't be harsh on yourself when you're not writing...writers are always writing, whether or not they have pen in hand. Maybe...come to think of it, you can THINK about your work more. See scenes grow in your mind throughout your day...keep imagining and reimagining them while you're doing other things. Maybe then you will feel a wellspring when you actually sit down to write.
 

braveboy

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I agree with everyone else.. there are no set rules. I will go for a week with maybe ten words written and then get up and knock out 6 or 8 thousand words in a day. Sometimes I just can't think
of something to say, even though I want to know what happens next. So.. don't worry about it. Do what you can, when you can.
 

Layla Nahar

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Celtic - I was also bothered by the same thing. I overcame it by accepting that I was doing all I could - right now I'm very grateful if I can produce one paragraph. I really want to be writing 2K words a day because I want to not have to do a job. I hate jobs.

But the reality is that I have very low production. I *do* keep hoping it will change. But something I've learned is that excessively forcing oneself to write does more harm than good. Wish I had something more useful to tell you.
 

BethS

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When writing, I sometimes manage to get only a page done. Or a few paragraphs. I try to focus on the fact that I am writing at all is what counts and that it will add up over time. But I feel like what I write isn't enough. Likely being too hard on myself as usual. How can I overcome this? I don't want the joy to get sucked out of writing.

Nothing will suck the joy faster out of writing than beating yourself up over some perceived failing. There's no rule that says you have to write a certain amount each day. For myself, it can vary quite a bit, but on average, one or two pages (about 500 words) would be a good session for me. I write slowly, revising and editing as I go, so even one page could represent a fair amount of work.

So I say, write until your mental focus begins to flag, and then go do something else. Come back to it when you're ready and have time, and if that's not until the next day, fine. It's not a race.
 
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Lakey

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Sometimes my great achievement for the day is to write a good sentence or just restructure a sentence. Sometimes not even do anything physical, but a victory in the subjective realm--for example definitively realize how the next scene (or paragraph, for that matter) will be structured.

^^ That, for me too. Like a lot of folks here, I have a pretty demanding day job that sucks up a lot of my mental energy. On weekday evenings I am often too tired to write. I aim to work on the novel a little bit every day, but some days I really don't do more than just puzzle over a scene a little. Or do some very light, nonspecific research like flipping through vintage issues of Life magazine. Or read a novel written by someone else and think a little about how it's put together.

I'm a driven person and (again like many) prone to flogging myself over everything I'm not accomplishing. But the reality is that I'm just not going to have forward progress on the page day after day; I have to learn to be compassionate with myself about that. Maybe you do, too.

(Off-topic but I've been meaning to say it for a while: JCornelius, my avatar would like to ask your avatar for a date, discreetly and with plausible deniability if necessary.)
 

Fruitbat

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I frequently write fiction very slowly. One page can take me two hours, sometimes much more.

But, I can also often do my fiction half page or two pages or whatever, then switch over to nonfiction and do a few more pages. I get a lot more done with being involved in more than one type of writing. YMMV.
 

airandarkness

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I know exactly how you feel, but I think it is important to remember that writing is better than not writing. There are times when I let myself go days or even weeks without writing because I feel like I have "no time" - meaning I don't have a good chunk of time, like 4 or 5 hours or more to write. Then, when I realize how long I've let myself go without writing, I realize it would've been better to do whatever writing I could have - even if it was just a page or so everyday - because it does add up to something eventually.
 

M.C.Statz

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https://personalmba.com/cognitive-switching-penalty/

This link is useful. After my own experiences and reading others, I believe the best thing you can do is set aside a block of time and eliminate as many distractions as possible.

Don't fool yourself into thinking you can squeeze a fifteen minute session in - that's probably fewer than 1% of the population that can do that. The only times I've been effective in really short bursts is when it's already on my mind and I get a sudden brainwave - I.e. not switching.

That fifteen minutes is probably better spent getting something done that may interfere with your time later.

I need at least a half hour to really be effective, and I'm not really spending more than 15 minutes writing.

How much time you need to be effective is individual, but don't expect yourself to just sit down at the beginning and start writing. It's basically neurologically impossible unless the story is already running through your head.

Writing is fiendishly complex. Characters, emotions, motivations, world building. Not to mention actually figuring out what word to use. Your mind is constantly pulled in a thousand different directions. It's simply not a task that can done productively unless you're a savant or extremely experienced.
 

BethS

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https://personalmba.com/cognitive-switching-penalty/

This link is useful. After my own experiences and reading others, I believe the best thing you can do is set aside a block of time and eliminate as many distractions as possible.

Don't fool yourself into thinking you can squeeze a fifteen minute session in - that's probably fewer than 1% of the population that can do that. The only times I've been effective in really short bursts is when it's already on my mind and I get a sudden brainwave - I.e. not switching.

That fifteen minutes is probably better spent getting something done that may interfere with your time later.

I need at least a half hour to really be effective, and I'm not really spending more than 15 minutes writing.

How much time you need to be effective is individual, but don't expect yourself to just sit down at the beginning and start writing. It's basically neurologically impossible unless the story is already running through your head.

Writing is fiendishly complex. Characters, emotions, motivations, world building. Not to mention actually figuring out what word to use. Your mind is constantly pulled in a thousand different directions. It's simply not a task that can done productively unless you're a savant or extremely experienced.

I can relate to this. In the link you gave, there was another link to monoidealism, which describes the way I work best--a block of time, distractions largely eliminated, and (really important) no inner conflicts. Those derail me the most. A stretch of uninterrupted time does me no good if I can't get my mind off whatever distressing or distracting thing is consuming its attention.
 
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Myrealana

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The only thing you can do is just keep Dory-ing your way through it.

*Just keep writing*
*Just keep writing*
*Just keep writing*
 

Layla Nahar

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I need at least a half hour to really be effective, and I'm not really spending more than 15 minutes writing.

I've noticed that I might get a *lot* done in 15 or 30 minutes, -- but -- it often takes up to an hour from the time I've said 'ok, now I'll write' before I'm actually writing...
 

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Find a goal that you are comfortable doing, and aim for that. If that is 100 words a day, so be it. Once you are in that comfort zone, see if you can increase it to 200. Do that for a couple weeks. Increase at need. Find your sweet spot, the place where you are still flowing words but it's not torture. Push yourself a little outside of your comfort zone, but not so much that it hurts. Rinse. Repeat.

Everyone writes differently. I am usually comfortable with 2000 words a day when I'm 'in novel', but I give myself weekends off and don't beat myself up if real life intervenes. Sometimes I have to downgrade my goal to 1000 words a day. It happens. Just keep adjusting that goal so you don't feel you're too far behind, and it will make you happier.

Just write.
 

JCornelius

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/.../

(Off-topic but I've been meaning to say it for a while: JCornelius, my avatar would like to ask your avatar for a date, discreetly and with plausible deniability if necessary.)
It may very well turn out to be but a two-dimensional fling, but who are we to stand in the way of such beautifully rendered creatures? :D

I've noticed that I might get a *lot* done in 15 or 30 minutes, -- but -- it often takes up to an hour from the time I've said 'ok, now I'll write' before I'm actually writing...
Sports figures and musicians (and sex partners, for that matter) not infrequently need to "enter the zone" in order to perform well, and that's definitely how it is with me, during initial drafting and fleshing out, at the primal point of nothing turning into something.

So if one needs a ritual to get ready for writing, I'd suggest to recognize it for what it is and utilize it to the max, and maybe throw in correct sound and visuals, movement (or lack of such), breathing patterns, reading short bursts of inspirational writers--there always is some combination of stimuli that can make the "entering the zone" ritual be as effective as it possibly can be. I just urge everyone to try and evade the banal way of getting so drunk (or methed up) that fear disappears and distractions dull. I can imagine having to do this once or twice a year in order to break through a nasty block as more or less OK, but on a daily basis--just say nyet!
 
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