Weekly Log – March 5, 2018

 

Tom Roberts

 

My week was completely hijacked.

By something that feels a lot like the grinning clown in the picture.

In other words, a boogeyman that mainly lives in my head.

My grand plan for the last week did not happen.

Here’s what did — and I’m embarrassed to put this out in public:


MONDAY 0
TUESDAY 0
WEDNESDAY 6,377
THURSDAY 6,944
FRIDAY 8,561
SATURDAY 0
SUNDAY 0

Word count goal for the week:  34,800

Adjusted word count goal for the week, to catch up:  53,000 WORDS (as per last week’s log post)

Actual word count:  21,882


It’s pathetic.

What happened?

I could give you a laundry list of things that happened last week that were unanticipated.

Ultimately, though, each of those events disrupted my writing schedule because I let them.  The three-year-old in the back of my mind decided she didn’t want to work (for some reason I don’t yet know) and I grabbed for the nearsest half-way-good excuse and ran with it.

I know they were just excuses because the same three-year-old has been whispering the whole time I have been writing this post, telling me to fudge the figures and make myself look good.

Laying it out bare like this, though, gives you the perfect example of how you can be your own worst enemy at times.

Last week was supposed to be a catch-up week, and if I had stuck to my remedial schedule, then today I would be back on top of things and the internal pressure released.

Instead, I’m now seriously behind.  I should have started the next book on the schedule three days ago.

So.

To recover from this, I can’t just do a little bit extra as I had planned to do last week.  I’m going to have to do what I call ‘going to the mattresses’ — yes, I’m borrowing directly from The Godfather.

For however long it takes me to catch up, I’m going to have to ditch everything that isn’t absolutely essential, including backlist maintenance and a bunch of admin stuff that falls into the Not-Urgent-but-Important quadrant that I was talking about a couple of days ago.

I’m now working out of the Urgent-and-Important square and will until I’m back to where I should be on the schedule.

For that reason, I’m writing this post first thing in the morning, instead of in the afternoon, when I usually do admin.  I will, for the next week or more, clear the decks in the morning–admin, blog posts, necessary production only–then use whatever is left of the day and the evening to put down word count.

Once I’ve caught up, then I will have to do more remedial work on the Not-Urgent-but-Important stuff I ignored while catching up.

I’m looking at weeks of this bare-mattress-only routine, but it’s completely and utterly my own fault.

Next week, I’ll see how much progress I’ve made.

Until then, back to work, all of us.

t.

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