Sunday, December 16, 2007

Accountability

It's almost 5 am and storming outside.  I can hear the wind lashing the rain (yes, rain!  where's the frigging snow? oh...up north) against the windows.  I like the sound of rain, so I'm enjoying it.  I'm also the only creature up, and the whole house is quiet except for the sound of my animated train ornament on the tree in the next room.  (I'm back downstairs temporarily.  Dunno if I'll move back up to the guest room or stay down here for a while.)  Ah, the dishwasher just kicked on.  Now I know I'm up too late.

Despite the lateness of the hour, I'm positively wired.  Remind me not to take two caffeine pills within 2 hours of each other, especially not starting at 9 pm.  But I needed to write.  I need to write.  I've been putting it off for one thing or another for the past 3 months.

Over the summer I did 20K in a month.  I've done 6K total in the past three, or one tenth of my potential productivity.

I've cut back on my blogs and blogging and internet presence, as noted.  But just like skipping the writer's forum was depriving me of support and inspiration, not blogging is depriving me of accountability.

I think by telling myself I'm just keeping my head down and not posting to save time for writing, I'm also allowing myself to go days without doing anything and not having to answer for it.  No one knows if I spent 3 hours one night researching how to spot a fake Coach handbag on eBay *cough* and not a minute writing.

So I'm instituting a new policy.  From now until the end of the year at least, I will post at least once a day.  It may only be a line or two, but it will summarize what I accomplished (or didn't).  Hopefully this will keep me on the straight and narrow, and force me to work so I can report good stuff.  I think 2 or 3 days of owning up to wasting time would be an effective deterrent.  Hopefully it won't come to that.

Today, I did spend some time looking at Coach bags on eBay (my planned Christmas bonus gift to myself).  I also played my rounds in the Scrabulous games I've got going.  But I've been working too.  Even though I said it was done, I reworked and added a bit to the end of Chapter 10.  That's the ceilidh in Glenstrae where Alec is all but formally betrothed to Janet Cameron (in the works for years) and Elspeth comes to the bitter realization that she's fallen for him.

Now I'm in Chapter 11.  (Hehe, my finances are fine, thank you.)  Elspeth learns Griogal Cridhe from Catriona *nods to Cathy* and Alec asks her about returning because he can't be her protector once he's married.  This chapter will close out Act I.  Next up, Glasgow for the winter's mart, and the kidnapping.

Total daily wordage: not sure, because I forgot to check my starting point.  I'll keep track from now on.

Gah, I've got to be up for church in about 4 hours (at the latest!).  To bed with me.

1 comment:

Deniz Bevan said...

I agree! I think blogging and doing monthly exercises keeps one accountable, to others or to self. Without any of that stuff I've just kept myself busy with other projects and haven't even done research, which is my last face-saving task if I'm not writing. And, yes, shopping does not help!!!!! :-)