Productivity Rocks!

I was truly hoping the newly re-organized and re-arranged office of mine would inspire me to new heights of productivity.

I'm pleased to report that it did. Can't stop grinning, even as Mr. Autism stims wildly on what used to be the fringed hem of my favorite blue blanket. Anyhow.

It was a little hard, on the first truly sunny not rainy at all day in a couple of weeks not to be outside in the garden. It really is a lovely room though- all sunshiny and bright and mine. I feel like Virginia Woolf right about now, even if it is only a room of my own when the kids aren't home. I'll take what I can get.

I found my mp3 player (generic, of course) while we were cleaning out the office, so I spent half an hour loading it up with music to write to. The playlist is definitely out there (I'll post it some time) but it works for me. For some reason, it's less distracting for me to have it right in my ears than coming out of my laptop speakers. Maybe it's because I can hit the skip button without having to stop writing and change windows to I-Tunes and then pick a song I want.

I tried my idea of keeping myself writing by putting on "work" clothes and shoes- nice enough that I'd have to change out of them if I wanted to start doing laundry or sweeping or planting. I also made myself a quasi-time card, just for curiosities' sake. Sat down with a huge mug of coffee from a fresh pot (my second of the day- French roast mmmmm), and the flow of words exploded.

I managed 3 hours today. I can and will do better than that, but I'm happy. It's the longest stretch I've managed in months.

Since I re-imagined the point of view for The Beast, sticking with one main character, my scene-by-scene descriptions are fairly useless.

I'm writing better this way. I have to remember that.

Now I am using the original Chapter Outlines I created, the rough plan. The skeleton structure of it lets my imagination play, the creativity flow. Scene-by-scene directions were good when I was trying to have all six characters carry equal importance and have equal time on the page. I could keep track of everyone. It feels like freedom now that I don't need to be as precise about it.

Of course I am still a little bit of a control freak. I like to measure things, project things, estimate and predict. It's in my nature.

So... this round of predictions/estimations/guesses that make me feel in control:

There will likely be 21 chapters and an epilogue.

With my current chapter averages, the final word count will be in the neighborhood of 63,000.

If I keep writing at the words per hour I have consistently been hitting with The Beast*, I have 51 more writing hours until the first draft is done.

At the rate I've been going, 51 more writing hours might take till New Years. I hope to improve that. Today was a great start.

*Still not the actual title.