Writers Who Don’t Track History Are Doomed…

Okay “doomed” might be hyperbole, but ignoring historical tracking data impairs your ability to correct what’s not working and reinforce what does work for you as a writer.

Tracking your Product Time not only keeps you on-track this week and this month, it gives you the long view you need to identify patterns and trends in your writing practice.

Every couple of months it pays to look back and consider:

• Is it harder for you to show up on particular days of the week?
• Are there days of the week when it’s easier to show up?
  
• What times of day are your most productive?
  
• In what stages of the creative process are you more likely to meet your targets? Are there stages you typically struggle with?
• Are you more likely to meet your targets on some types of projects or tasks? Are there types of projects/tasks you struggle with?
  
• Every writer faces resistance; how have you experienced resistance in the past two months? Do you delay getting started when you say you will? Do you distract yourself and pop out of the chair before you plan to? Are you spending more time than truly necessary for one stage of the creative process to avoid another stage?

My History with the Never-ending Chapter 63

Back when I was revising my novel, I told Laura, my co-coach, friend and fellow novelist, that I felt uneasy about how long I was spending on one chapter. A couple of good coaching questions later and an honest look at my Product Time Tracking Table, I realized I wasn’t stuck, procrastinating or buried in perfectionism. I was making progress, even though it seemed glaciers moved faster than I was.

Laura helped me see that I needed to highlight that my POV character’s struggle in Chapter 63 is caused by a mistake she makes in Chapter 61.

I finally finished Chapter 63 seven weeks later. Seven weeks revising one chapter would be depressing if I didn’t have my coach and the tracking data to reassure me.

My notes about what I did during Product Time each day shows how changes in Chapter 63 rippled both forward and backward, requiring changes in other chapters. The tracking data tells me exactly how many hours I worked on each chapter.

Tracking also details the time I invested in research and when. I’m confident I wasn’t procrastinating because the research was spread throughout the seven weeks and focused on multiple topics relevant to the chapter: rappelling, geology, rivers, whitewater rafting, whitewater rafting at night, night vision goggles vs. thermal binoculars, laser weapons, particle weapons, hovercraft, and how to write an effective battle scene.

The tracking table shows when I split and rearranged chapters in the last quarter of the novel, which will make this draft more powerful.

It reminds me that I wrote several different openings to Chapter 63. While only one of those openings made the final cut, I needed to write them all. I needed to discover what happened offstage so I could write the pages that are in the final version.

The tracking data made it clear I needed to change my target dates. More importantly, the history shows me why this wasn’t “bad news” or a sign that I was slacking off or doing something wrong.

Revising is not a straight-forward, consistent, connect-the-dots process. Some parts take f-o-r-e-v-e-r-r-r.

Tracking keeps you motivated, rewarded and armed with the information you need to stay on-track through every writing stage in all your drafts.