I made it up to more than 7,000 words yesterday. I think my record is just under 9,000, on a day when my ISP went down and I had no Internet all day during the time before I got a smart phone. I think that says something about how I use my time. It’s way too easy to just hop online during a writing break to check e-mail, then turn that into an hour-long surfing session without even realizing it.

I do seem to do better if the first thing I do when I sit at the computer is write, before I check e-mail or do anything else (aside from maybe checking the radar before I go on a walk, if it looks like it might rain or storm). I may still waste some time during the day, but I’m less likely to get into the “doom loop” behavior in which I go round and around the same sites before I force myself to get to work.

I’m trying to schedule my social media time so that I only do it during those times and not on my usual breaks. I need to spend my writing breaks moving, not sitting at the computer. I’m also making myself take the computer to a desk where I sit on a balance ball as a chair when I’m doing online stuff. That makes it harder to lose track of time and it means I’m doing something mildly active just in sitting there.

This book is going off in some unexpected directions, largely thanks to the research reading I did during the Vacation Bible School week. The major event I had planned now isn’t going to happen at all because it’s been replaced by another major event that’s more relevant to the plot (the one I had planned just sort of happened and my characters had to react to it). That’s the event I get to write today, and I’m rather excited about it. It’s so vivid in my head, and I hope I can capture that and put it into words.

My routine is going to be somewhat interrupted today since I’m having my annual air conditioner tuneup. My appointment was 10-noon, and they called at about 9:30 to say it would more likely be in the 11-noon timeframe, so I’m in waiting mode. It’s been a cooler-than-normal summer for us so far, but I want to be sure everything’s working properly before July hits and we start getting our usual weather.