I have spent several months trying to find the perfect method of keeping track of where I am in editing my novel. I mostly now use TickTick's Kanban feature to move stuff back and forth in the swim lanes, and TickTick's Gannt timeline to plan what days I will do what. But that still leaves me with a “are we there yet?” for “when will I be done? How much more must I do?”
So I started looking for integrations for TickTick with various data viz solutions. And apparently, the TickTick API is... lacking. And the integrations in Zapier and IFTTT were not that stunning, and I couldn't find a way to make it a data source for excel.
So, instead of, you know, editing, I set about to make the perfect novel editing tracker complete with :jazz hands: progress bars :jazz hands:.
I have difficulty with focus, concentration, staying on task, and both long- and short-term memory. I have no idea, honestly, how I get anything done. But the last few days, I have been using “WorkingHours” time tracking app to give me some sort of insight into what I get done and how long I spend on it.
Revisions are probably the hardest part of this whole process for me, and even more so as I changed up my workflow last year. I used to write very “clean” first drafts; I would take three hours to write 250 words because I kept writing those words over and over. I wouldn't move on to the next sentence until I felt that the one I had just written was perfect.
But disabilities are funny, terrible things. I have days where I cannot get out of bed, and despite words clamoring in my head for escape, I cannot sit up long enough to even open my laptop. On days when I have so few spoons, they must be spent on cleaning and chore, and not sitting as a desk. And staring at a computer screen for long periods of time can give me migraines that last for days. A writer that can't look at a computer screen? Yeah...