Well it is once again WIP Weds. and I am still doing rewrites. So far I have written about 6,000 new words, while I have cut around 4,000 old words. I still have some big cuts coming ahead though, so it will be interesting to see where my final word count ends up. As you may have noticed that is a fairly large amount of new words, and in helping them find their way to the page I made use of my new SUPER SECRET WEAPON!
Behold.
Bejeweled Blitz courtesy of Facebook.Okay, it's actually not terribly secret, nor is it really weapon-like at all. In fact, some might even consider it more of a black pit of procrastination. To those people though I would say... okay, yeah you have a point.
Yes, there have been times when before jumping into the Word document that is the current version of my MS, when I might play one, two, or (gulp) twenty-five "warm-up" games of Bejeweled Blitz. You know, just something to transition me from the checking email and blogs part of my computer time to the getting down to serious work part.
However, once I have gotten through those one, two, or (gulp) twenty-five games of Bejeweled I dive into my MS and start writing... aaannddd then after a solid two or three minutes of writing there is usually a pause of some sort where I consider which words need to come next. Now some might take these time to stare into space, spin in your chair, or consider the state of your cuticles and while in the past I have done all these things - now I have found something even better. During this time I flip back to the ever so conveniently still open Bejeweled Blitz tab and play one more game (really it is just one this time... okay, sometimes two).
But - and this is an important but - while I play my brain is working on that next sentence and flipping through the various possibilities until I come up with the perfect thing. Then I flip back to Word, type that in, and if it doesn't immediately lead to something else I flip back to Bejeweled to ponder my next sentence.
There are two reasons that is the perfect game for this type of "multitasking".
One: Each game is only a minute long. It is long enough to give your brain a chance to work on your story, but not so long that you get sucked into the game and forget about the story altogether.
Two: It's kind of a mindless game, or it is the way I play it, which is to say, with a minimum of strategy. I'm not looking for the big plays or thinking ten moves ahead - I just make the matches as my eyes spot them. And I swear every time in this game that I've gotten a really high score it is when I am on the phone, or not really thinking about the game at all (although I am usually kind of a middle person on the scoreboard and my highest score to date was only around 113,000.).
Okay, that's my WIP Weds. Hopefully next week I will have finished my rewrites - that is the plan at least. How about you? How is your WIP coming along? And do you ever play games or have something else to get your mind going when you get stuck?
************************************************************************************
If you want to participate in WIP Wednesday, simply post your own WIP Wednesday entry on your blog and leave a link to it in the comments below. Or if you don't have a blog, feel free to report your progress directly into the comments box.
For more detailed information concerning what all this nonsense is about please consult the original Work in Progress Wednesday posting.
Feel free to also make use of the lovely little WIP Wednesday logo as well!
