Recently, I was selected as one of the first authors monetized on Campfire Explore! And as of today, you can now read STARS AND SOIL exclusively on Campfire!! If you do not know about Campfire, it is the writing and world-building software that I have primarily used for several years now. I love it for how easy it is to organize and keep track of all of the moving parts when it comes to world-building. When I first signed up, it was known as “Campfire Blaze,” and in the short time since then, it has added so many amazing features and made so many improvements. I firmly stand behind them as a company that creates author-and-reader-focused software.
When they announced last year that they were adding in a monetization feature that would allow authors to not only share their books but to share the elements and pages that authors had worked on with readers, too, I was way too excited.
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...
