{"id":771,"date":"2016-07-29T17:02:13","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T22:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/?p=771"},"modified":"2025-01-05T13:53:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T19:53:18","slug":"how-i-spend-my-time-or-wrapping-up-the-project-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/how-i-spend-my-time-or-wrapping-up-the-project-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"How I spend my time (or, wrapping up the Project Diary)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the first six months of 2016, I kept <a href=\"http:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/category\/projectdiary\/\">a daily log of the work I did on writing projects<\/a>, because <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I thought it would spur me to be more diligent, in order to avoid having to log &#8220;Nothin'&#8221; for the day;\n<\/li>\n<li>I enjoy getting a peek into other people&#8217;s working habits, so why not offer others a peek into mine;<\/li>\n<li>From time to time, I talk with people who assume that anyone who calls herself a writer must block off a certain number of hours in every day during which, without fail, she writes. (And conversely, anyone who does <em>not<\/em> make time to write every single day can&#8217;t be called a writer.) I wanted to gather data to show there is at least one counterexample. I&#8217;m setting aside the vexed question of whether you can <em>really, legitimately<\/em> call yourself an artist if you have a day job. Real or not, legitimate or not, I call myself a writer, and this is how I work. Presented quantitatively, because (real or not, legitimate or not), I also call myself a geek.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><div class=\"visualizer-front-container\" id=\"chart_wrapper_visualizer-760-1945221377\"><style type=\"text\/css\" name=\"visualizer-custom-css\" id=\"customcss-visualizer-760\">.locker,.locker-loader{position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%}.locker{z-index:1000;opacity:.8;background-color:#fff;-ms-filter:\"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=80)\";filter:alpha(opacity=80)}.locker-loader{z-index:1001;background:url(https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/visualizer\/images\/ajax-loader.gif) no-repeat center center}.dt-button{display:none!important}.visualizer-front-container.visualizer-lazy-render{content-visibility: auto;}.google-visualization-controls-categoryfilter label.google-visualization-controls-label {vertical-align: middle;}.google-visualization-controls-categoryfilter li.goog-inline-block {margin: 0 0.2em;}.google-visualization-controls-categoryfilter li {padding: 0 0.2em;}.visualizer-front-container .dataTables_scrollHeadInner{margin: 0 auto;}<\/style><div id=\"visualizer-760-1945221377\" class=\"visualizer-front  visualizer-front-760\"><\/div><!-- Not showing structured data for chart 760 because description is empty --><\/div><br \/>\nWhat caught my eye: More days spent Studying than any other activity. 2 more days of Nothin&#8217; than days of Writing. As many days of Infrastructure (seeking or organizing resources to get plays onstage) as days of Writing.<br \/>\n<div class=\"visualizer-front-container\" id=\"chart_wrapper_visualizer-765-1394677821\"><style type=\"text\/css\" name=\"visualizer-custom-css\" id=\"customcss-visualizer-765\">.locker,.locker-loader{position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%}.locker{z-index:1000;opacity:.8;background-color:#fff;-ms-filter:\"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=80)\";filter:alpha(opacity=80)}.locker-loader{z-index:1001;background:url(https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/visualizer\/images\/ajax-loader.gif) no-repeat center center}.dt-button{display:none!important}.visualizer-front-container.visualizer-lazy-render{content-visibility: auto;}.google-visualization-controls-categoryfilter label.google-visualization-controls-label {vertical-align: middle;}.google-visualization-controls-categoryfilter li.goog-inline-block {margin: 0 0.2em;}.google-visualization-controls-categoryfilter li {padding: 0 0.2em;}.visualizer-front-container .dataTables_scrollHeadInner{margin: 0 auto;}<\/style><div id=\"visualizer-765-1394677821\" class=\"visualizer-front  visualizer-front-765\"><\/div><!-- Not showing structured data for chart 765 because description is empty --><\/div><br \/>\nWhat caught my eye: You can see where the deadlines fall. The orange bars for <em>Everything Looks Like A Face<\/em> come to an abrupt end at week 16, after we presented the material at Rough Cuts and my role on the project changed. The blue bars for <em>Mother Antonia<\/em> stop around week 20; after a gap where <em>For Worse<\/em> is almost exclusively the focus, there are a few more blue blips for rehearsal and performance.<\/p>\n<p>Conclusions: I like to read, or, in grant-speak, &#8220;my process is research-driven.&#8221; I write to deadlines. If I hadn&#8217;t been logging my activities, there probably would have been significantly more days of Nothin&#8217; than days of Writing. <\/p>\n<p>If you prefer less graph-laden descriptions of writers at work, I recommend:<\/p>\n<p>Louisa May Alcott, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/etc.usf.edu\/lit2go\/36\/little-women\/434\/part-2-chapter-27-literary-lessons\/\">Literary Lessons<\/a>&#8221; (Chapter 27 of <em>Little Women<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>Ernest Hemingway, <em>A Moveable Feast<\/em><\/p>\n<p>David Sedaris, &#8220;Day In, Day Out&#8221; (in <em>Let&#8217;s Explore Diabetes with Owls<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first six months of 2016, I kept a daily log of the work I did on writing projects, because I thought it would spur me to be more diligent, in order to avoid having to log &#8220;Nothin&#8217;&#8221; for the day; I enjoy getting a peek into other people&#8217;s working habits, so why not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projectdiary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/anne-at-desk-in-yaddo.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3503,"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions\/3503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subnivean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}