Tag: Superheroes

Math Goals

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

In order to meet my goal of writing two books this year, I’ve decided to write those two books back to back. Even though I have the outline ready for a brand new project, I’ve decided to table that for now and flesh out one of my established series. That way I’ll have content for a rapid release self-publishing schedule.

My old mantra of “why write a sequel to a book no one will ever read?” isn’t sounding so good anymore. If I want to self-publish, and do so in a seriously and productive manner, I realize that’s just going to have to happen these days. So the next two books I’m going to write will be the sequels to Altered Egos and round out a trilogy. They won’t be the only books in that series, but I figure having the initial trilogy completed so I can release them all together will be helpful. It also has two additional benefits: it increases my backlist and I think they’ll be easier to write.

To that end, rather than write one book at a time, I’m going to treat it like the second Pirates of the Caribbean movies and write them more or less at the same time. Let’s just hope the books are better than those movies. I mean, I thought the third one was entertaining I guess, but the second one … woof.

Anyway, I’m being a lot more diligent and strategic with my time here. I’m shooting for 80K a book and will make my outlines accordingly as if I’m writing one, big 160K word book instead which is something I know I can do, because that’s what Land of Sky and Blood turned out to be.

Here’s the genius part. I’d love to take credit for this, but I heard it on the Six Figure Author Podcast. I figured it took me around 4-5 months to write a book, but I’ve never really been deliberate about that. I know it takes me around 45 minutes to write 800 words. To that end, in order to complete 160K words, that means I need to have 200 sessions of at least 45 minutes long a piece.

In order to stay on track then, let’s say I want to complete 10 sessions a week. Whether that’s two per day Monday-Friday or scattered about, that’ll be up to the week’s schedule, I suppose. The important thing is that if I set the goal of 10 writing sessions a week, well now I don’t have to guess, but know that I’ll be finished both books in 20 weeks or about 5 months. And here I always thought math was the enemy.

Writing two books back to back sounds daunting, but setting the goal of writing ten times a week sounds much more doable. And if I keep at it for five months, well by the end I’ll have two books out of the deal. Not a bad deal at all!

Sleep rx

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

I had my first good night’s sleep in a long time last night. That doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment, but it is. I was so tired and so worn out, that it devolved into an Ouroboros of insomnia where my mind was going too fast and my heart raced too much that the thing I wanted most eluded me in a vicious cycle.

It hadn’t been that bad since when the kids were newborns. I used to literally keep track of the hours I’d slept just so I can tell myself in the morning if the night was “good enough” or not. Of course, I was spending more time awake than actually asleep and came to actively dread going to bed, but that’s a different thing.

Lying there, wigging out, I used to think about what if people had literal switches where you could turn them off instantly like a machine. There wouldn’t be a gradual process, just click and you’re out; guaranteeing rest.

I could have definitely used such an augment over the weekend. Also, in a home where I’m typically fighting with my munchkins to go to sleep, I’ve definitely thought about the implications of installing such a switch in them would be too.

When they were baby-babies, I posed myself a philosophical question on a near nightly basis. What if babies had an off switch? But here’s the catch, it was literally an off switch. They weren’t going to sleep like my later sleep-starved thought, but were ceasing to be for however long they were off. Turn them back on again and they were technically alive once more. They wouldn’t grow while off and if you wanted to help your kid sleep, they’d need to be in the “on” position. Follow me so far? OK that wasn’t the question. That’s just the rhetoric.

My philosophical question was: In a world where we could turn newborns off with a switch, how “old” would they actually be? How much longer would that newborn state be preserved?

I guarantee you that after trying to be responsible with such a system, I’d cave in like a week and start trading off nights. One night of sleep for me. One night of sleep for them. My kids might just now be clearing their first “birthday” instead of the two plus years old they actually are.

Sleep and I have always had a weird relationship. My wife loves it. It feels good. It empowers her and she needs like 10 hours every night just to feel normal.

Me? I hate sleep. I think it’s such a waste of time. We spend a third of our lives (well, not me. No now, apparently) asleep and doing nothing. If I could give up sleep without consequences, I’d do so in a heartbeat.

Think of it this way. If someone lived to be 60 years old, then 20 years – 20 years – of that person’s life are spent just lying there. If you gave me the choice of a place to shut down or 20 years of stuff, I’ll take the stuff, please.

I’d always wanted to write a story about a character who’s only superpower was that he didn’t have to sleep. He wouldn’t necessarily be punching bad guys, but he’d be a well-read, artistic, and pretty productive dude.

One of these days I still may write that story.

The flip side to all of this is just because you have more time doesn’t mean you’re more productive. Hell, it could mean the opposite because there’s no rush. What if instead of the most cultured and interesting person, not having to sleep made the most boring and sluggish? Instead of practicing art or a new language with his spare time, he just binge-watched Netflix.

Maybe that’s the story I should be writing …