So, it’s been officially 4.5 months since I’ve started writing full-time (kinda–with kids). My first day on the writing job was Feb 14 (best valentine’s day ever!).
The way I work my schedule is half the same way as it was while I was working the day job. I still get up in the morning to put in writing time, have lunch with my family, but then spend the afternoon and evening with the kids. So technically speaking, I guess I’m a ‘part-time’ writer, given at most I might spend 3-5 hours doing writing work per workday.
Biggest hurdle so far that I’ve found is overworking/overstressing myself. The problem started to look like this: no sleep because daughter or son was up half the night. Get to work a bit later that morning and don’t meet word count. Instead of brushing it off and starting the next day new, I’d freak out and stay up super late trying to finish things. Thus leading to less sleep. Thus leading to lower word count the next day…and so on and so forth.
Took my honey smashing me over the head a few times (not literally peoples) before I came to understand that I’d be better off going to bed at a decent time no matter what didn’t get finished that day. Because, let’s face it, the work will still be there waiting to be done tomorrow.
And guess what? There is a direct correlation between Hours of Sleep per Night to Word Count Per Writing Session. Who knew? Not me. Now I do.
So sleep = good.
I should have known this given the year of 2010 was the year of me in a zombie state with a 40 hour work week while pregnant, which woke me up at all odd hours of the night, and a 3 year old who had night terrors waking me up the even hours and a honey who works evening shift so wakes me up the instant he gets home and gets in the shower. (Damn those heightened pregnant senses!) At the time I didn’t believe 8 hours of sleep could exist.
So back to actual stats, keeping in mind Feb was a half month and that I always round down to the lower hundred (why people count their words like ‘2343’ as if those last 43 words are totally super important is completely beyond me):
Feb: 32,600
Mar: 53,600
Apr: 36,000
May: 44,700
June: 46,400
Yep. Awful numbers. When my goal was 60k per month. /sigh.
Total stories waiting impatiently to be e-pubbed: 5
Total trad subs out now: 11
Total hours of sleep gotten: Not enough. Fixing this :) So that Mar numbers (or higher) will be the norm.
Marie Croke 