My "new NaNoWriMo's resolutions" · 9:17pm Oct 30th, 2014
Abstract: I've fallen into some bad habits lately that aren't exactly conductive to getting things, in the general case, and writing, in the particular, done. I'm putting some resolutions for November in writing so it's more likely I'll stick to them.
So. Some of you may have noticed that I haven't actually published anything since _Height_, which was back in January, I think. The thing is, I've hardly written anything since then, either, which is is an even sadder thing for me to realise. A few weeks ago, I did a chapter for a round robin story with some friends and suddenly: most of an evening gone, over a thousand words written, and me feeling a connection to the perspective character who had been just a nameless scout.
Oh yes, that's what fun writing feels like. I should do more of that.
Now with NaNoWriMo coming up, I had been thinking doing it. I even had a pony novel in mind. The thing is, I kind of suck right now. I don't think that 50,000 words is a realistic goal. I've fallen into some bad habits. So I've changed my mind. Instead of going for a complete novel right away, I need to work on my habits.
General Exhaustion ⇒ Polyphasic Sleep
Currently I work an mentally exhausting job. True, it's not boring and that's good but when I come home I'm just completely drained and feeling like a zombie. I'm good for starting at reddit, watching stuff on youtube, maybe playing the odd video game. But I have no focus left.
I've been toying with the idea of an experiment with polyphasic sleep for a while but I think it's time I got serious. I'm going to go for a simple segmented patten. There's actually a lot of evidence that this is the natural sleeping patten for humans. For the linked article:
During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.
So a special time in the middle of the night set aide for literature, spiritualism, and love? I think our favourite princess of the night would approve of this.
My idea is I get back from work, eat something, go to sleep. Then, when I wake up, I'm refreshed and my brain has had time to put away the cares of the day. I'm actually writing this after getting up from an attempt at a first sleep. It didn't really work. I just ended up laying in my bed for an hour trying to keep my eyes closed. Clearly this is not going to happen all at once and it's going to be hard. I might need to become sleep deprived for a period to help the transition. Worse, I might need to switch to decaf.
Procrastination ⇒ The Randall Munroe Method
I'm a pretty bad procrastinator and I lay the blame on The Internet for encouraging these habits for very well documented reasons. I need to change these habits and I've decided to try the Randall Munroe "Distraction Affliction Correction Extension" method[1]. Basically, when I'm in the middle of something, like writing this blog post, and I want to do something else because I've hit a sentence I'm having trouble phrasing or a character who I don't know what they're going to say next, I restart the computer. Then check whatever it was I wanted to check.
[1] I guess Munroe is a guy who likes long words.
Why do I think this will work? I think the key is that I will need to, as soon as I get the urge, just hit reset without thinking. Doesn't matter if I only get 50 words written in five hours from doing this the first time. The point is teaching my subconscious a lesson.
Writing prompts
Finally, once things are settled, I'm going to do writing prompts to get back into the habit of prose rather than code. The former is more terrifying because people will read it, not a compiler, but ultimately more satisfying. This will be my mantra. Prose is more satisfying. Let's see if I can be managing 1666 words a writing session by December.
Good luck with your plans!
Generally speaking, I think polyphasic sleeping is rubbish, but the basic version where you just wake up for a while, then continue sleeping, really does seem to be a natural pattern in absence of artificial light and industrial schedules.
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Yeah, I don't really see how the more extreme version could be practical for me, especially as testimonials I've read agree that if you miss a nap you're knocked out and it takes a while to recover. The two sleeps thing seems better and I'm hoping if I need to be social I'll be all right just skipping the first.
This is a really interesting blog post. I envy you for going so far to correct your bad habits - I haven't written anything properly in ages, and every time i start a new story i just lose interest immediately.
I might give the anti-procrastination method you mentioned a try.
We'd love to have you on board.
I should join you.
I've got lots of things I could say but I'll restrict myself to that.
Best of luck with all this. I know I for one could use a kick in the pants, motivation-wise. Hope this works for you.
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Well, I haven't done much yet other than making some plans and trying to go to be at 6pm (which didn't work). The thing is, by publicly announcing all this, I'm putting my pride on the line. This is important because I don't trust future PoweredByTea because if he's anything like past PoweredByTea he'll slip back into bad habits in no time.
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That looks like a good place to start. Thanks.
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I don't know if you have the same problems as me, but I reckon being distracted by the Internet is pretty common. The most amazing thing is after stopping using reddit/youtube/etc... my evenings have been feeling so much longer. It's amazing how much time was in those hours.
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I think we all do from time to time. Best of luck to you too, and I'm not saying that because your an awesome writer but that's probably part of it