Maintaining Momentum

“She was untamed as a desert wind, supple and dangerous as a she-panther.  She came close to him, heedless of his great blade, dripping with blood of her warriors.  Her supple thigh brushed against it, so close she came to the tall warrior.  Her red lips parted as she stared up into his somber menacing eyes.”

(excerpt from, Queen of the Black Coast, by Robert E. Howard)

Circadian Rhythms

Is it Wednesday already?   This week’s been a blur so far.  I don’t know about y’all, but my circadian rhythms have been all out-of-whack ever since the “Spring Forward” time-change (I’ll spare you my rant on that topic).   My sleep schedule is all over the map now.   Monday had me cat-napping after work, then staying up ‘til early Tuesday morning writing and researching, followed by another round of evening cat-naps.   Even my cats are looking at me strangely.  Worst yet, this time-change has messed with the circadian rhythms of my Muse.  Now, she floods my mind with wonderful story ideas while I’m at work, but when I get home — nothing.  I just stare slack-jawed at the blinking cursor.   Fortunately for me, I was able to stealthily tap some of those story ideas into my mobile-app while I was pretending to work, so at least I have that.  But right now, I think my Muse is getting her beauty-rest, so I’ll have to type quietly.   She gets sarcastic when she’s cranky.

Focus Writer

My goal for the rest of this week is just to maintain the productivity momentum that I established last week.  I have maintained a constant pace of 500 words-per-day all month long, but the quality of my writing has varied wildly.  I’m hoping that will improve the more I write.   Like many of you, I have been using FocusWriter to get my daily word-count in.   I like the fact that it allows me freely write my  “stream-of-consciousness” exercises in a separate, dedicated writing space.   My Scrivener files are cluttered enough without the added ramblings.   If I do write something profound in FocusWriter, I can easily just copy-and-paste it into Scrivener.  I also like the fact that it keeps track of my daily progress and that it marks my calendar with stars every time I accomplish that day’s word-count.  Even when I don’t feel inspired to write, I think ‘gosh, I’m on a roll. I don’t want to break the chain.’  So I pound out word-after-word until I can happily stare at all my stars in a row.   Yeah, small victory, I know.  Currently, my streak is ten days now (’Yippy-Skippy, Newbie’ — sorry, that was my inner-editor popping-off there).

That’s all for now.   My Muse is starting to stir, so I want to be there for her when my “sleeping beauty” awakens.  Please visit some of the other writers in the ROW80 Community…