Eliza the Copycat: “The Dan Brown Project”
Soooo, a friend of mine, author J.H. Moncrieff, started this thing she named “The Dan Brown Project” in an effort to increase productivity and limit wasted minutes (read both the linked blog entries: the first one (above) introduces the Project, and the second addresses writing a 90K-word novel in 30 days). The short of it: Moncrieff explains that she was inspired by Dan Brown (author of The Da Vinci Code et al.) via his MasterClass. Brown has a set schedule in which he writes every single day from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m. He has an app on his computer that goes off once an hour, during which time he does some quick exercises, a great idea to get the blood flowing.
Moncrieff adopted Brown’s rigid and ridiculously early schedule, tweaking slightly to fit her own needs—quite successfully, I might add—and as such, I found her undertaking and results very inspiring. Especially after a two-week wrestling match with severe abdominal pain landed me in the ER—the LAST place a person wants to be during a pandemic.
Luckily, I live in Canada, so that seven-hour tour of our lovely local hospital didn’t turn into a $25,000 afternoon, despite the IV, full bloodwork, CT scan, even some morphine for the pain. Also luckily, the pain wasn’t from anything super serious that would require surgical intervention. This was both good and bad news: good because surgery is scary; bad because what the hell is wrong with me and will this happen again?
Thank you, Canada, for fixing my belly.
I’ve had problems off and on with my gut for years, even during my six-year span as a vegetarian. This latest, more serious go-round, the ER doc thinks, was probably triggered by some unspecified viral infection that has now created an IBS (irritable bowel syndrome)-like scenario, exacerbated by a prolonged period of unrelenting stress. Delightful.
In chatting with the ER doc and nurse, it became clear that I needed to make some changes posthaste:
I have to lower my stress levels;
I have to change my dietary habits; and
I have to start exercising again.
As if any of this intestinal revolt is at all surprising, given the shitshow 2020 has been thus far (she says between coughs due to climate fire smoke that has drifted north to the greater Vancouver area). Like many other humans, my anxiety and depression have been off the rails. Unlike many, thanks to COVID, I’ve been working like a maniac, saying yes to everything because I’m panicked since my husband brings home way more bacon than I do, and Hollywood shut down everything and everyone because of the virus in early March. Which means no bacon. (Side note: I don’t eat bacon. It’s a metaphor.) While folks in my Facebook feed have been baking sourdough and perfecting their downward dogs, I’ve been working. Sure, I’m SO grateful for the work, but also? I’m f**king tired. In the nine months of this surreal hellscape, I’ve edited 1,568,047 client words. Yeah … that’s a lot of unsplicing of commas.
I nominate this for the
Official Picture of 2020.
The ER doc told me to take a few days off to rest and recover, so for the first time basically ever, I did just that. One week. No work, no worrying about work, just leave me alone and let my guts have a breather from all the chaos.
And because of that, by July 27, I was back in the saddle, ready to rejig my daily life to incorporate those three things mentioned above: lowering stress, changing my diet, reintroducing exercise. Lucky me, I do know how to do that last bit. In 2015 I hired a trainer and got all crazy with working out and weight training and food restrictions. I worked my ass into terrific shape, made some great new friends, and—insert shameless plug here—I even wrote a book inspired by my sweaty adventures (Dear Dwayne, With Love, Lake Union Publishing). If you’re a fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, check it out.
Back then, I managed to keep up with the exercise and dietary regimen for about two and a half years, including home workouts with my crappy elliptical and small set of dumbbells when gym time wasn’t feasible … until life got too busy and I got lazy and my sugar addiction took over and there never seemed to be enough hours and [insert a million excuses here]. I found it difficult to justify spending so much time on my muscles when I had books under contract and rigid deadlines to be met, on top of my day job as a copy/line editor and, oh yeah, a mom and wife and chauffeur and tuxie-cat wrangler and cook and laundry mistress and secretary and cookie eater and accountant and and and …
Which leads us back to me carrying my stress around in my gut like it’s some sort of bizarro stress purse. Weirdo.
So, to the schedule: The Dan Brown Project (DBP) wasn’t going to work for me if it meant getting up at 4 a.m. Absolutely not. I’m not an early-morning person, and I do have kids who need attention in the morning (read: teenagers who don’t wake up to their alarms for school and/or work). Plus I needed to get clear on what my objectives were for such an undertaking. More writing? More structure in my day job? More time for marketing and admin of my own books? More time for sitting in the corner with my arms wrapped around my legs, rocking and crying about the state of my career and the world at large?
Moncrieff’s DBP was focused on word counts for her award-winning novels and managing marketing and administrative duties. She’s also an editor, writing coach, and instructor AND serves as an expert on true-crime TV shows! What?!? She has a chock-full plate—on top of professional endeavors, she also scheduled time in her DBP for yard beautification, house maintenance, and relationship tending. Phew. I’m tired already.
I knew that to make a usable, effective schedule pour moi, I needed to examine where my time was being misappropriated and downright wasted (looking at YOU, Facebook), so I decided to document EVERY SINGLE THING I did during a day, marked by time stamp, including
every conversation, live and online
every time I flipped the screen over to Facebook or Gmail
every time I clicked through to see what tantrum or meltdown was trending on Twitter
every time I grabbed my phone for a text or Instagram message
every time I got up to give the overweight cat another cookie so she would stop biting me
everything I ate and drank and every potty break
every time one of my kids walked in and struck up a “quick” chat that ate minutes like Pac-Man gobbling dots
every time the doorbell rang with a package (which must be brought in immediately so it doesn’t get stolen, like my car did on June 30)
every time I rambled on and made a paragraph longer than it needed to be. *wink*
I downloaded the Focus Keeper app for my phone to keep myself on track (it uses the Pomodoro Technique), during which I work for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break, for 4 consecutive sessions, followed by a longer 15- to 20-minute break, which I use for lunch. Lather, rinse, repeat, until your workday is done. I stayed off social media during work hours and answered texts and emails either during a break or after the day’s editing quota was accomplished. I reminded my kids for the umpteenth time that “Mom is working, save it for a break.” I did not, however, stop giving Nuit the Chubbalub her cookies because she still bites.
Pomodoro means tomato in Italian. Who says my blog posts aren’t educational?
My diet is super simple these days—no red meat, no dairy, one cup of light- or medium-roast coffee per day, wayyyyy less sugar than I was eating before (I love sugar—like, it’s my favourite thing in the world, second only to Superman), and no alcohol. I am reintroducing foods very slowly and keeping track of when something triggers an upset. It’s boring as hell, but way better than the alternative.
Per the Project protocol, I incorporated exercise into every weekday during the breaks between Focus Keeper sessions. In the seven weeks tracked up to this post, I only missed two days—one because my stomach was being an asshole (again), and another due to a migraine, complicated by the fact that I can’t take Advil anymore. Even on days when I could only squeeze in one or two exercise sessions because of a pressing deadline or my family’s needs, I felt better for it. The harpy in my head who screams at me about being a lazy fart is quieter when she’s tired from exercise. And she likes structure. She’s way less bitchy if I keep her on a schedule. (Seriously, she is SO MEAN.)
So—has it worked? You tell me:
From July 27 through September 11, 2020 (weekends not included), so, seven weeks, or 35 weekdays:
Elliptical: 7 hours 20 minutes, during which I listened to writing/publishing podcasts
415 jumping jacks
429 resistance-band squats (with and without weight)
491 resistance-band glute bridges (with weight)
420 dumbbell chest flies on the piano bench
733 biceps curls
357 dumbbell standing shoulder flies
335 dumbbell overhead triceps extensions
802 Russian ab twists with weight
90 side leg raises (each side)
30 crunches
50 glute heel kicks
3.6 km walking out of doors
Stay hydrated. Also, if you have a tuxedo cat to bite you while you’re planking, that helps with motivation.
As I moved through the aforementioned period, I slowly added new exercises to each week’s rotation, so my work sessions are up to 30 minutes at a time and breaks include a 15-minute elliptical set (first break), followed by subsequent pauses of 6-7 minutes of solid movement involving 15-20 lb. dumbbells and my 2” resistance band. (It’s worth noting that the goal here was to get moving, to lessen the side effects of this very sedentary occupation, not to train for Mrs. Olympia.)
Also since July 27, week ending Friday, September 11, I have edited 282,141 words and I have written, on my own projects, 42,228 words. I also watched at least 12 hockey games, until my beloved Canucks were eliminated from the playoffs, and I read 6.75 novels.
This all seems pretty solid, yeah? I’ve not done much in the marketing department for my books (joined a couple of giveaways via BookSweeps, ran a few BookBub ads to start testing the waters for future releases), mostly because there isn’t much to be done when I don’t have a new book coming out for a while. Scheme published in the midst of the pandemic (March 31 in Canada, ebook only, and April 21 in the US, in hardcover and ebook—this is a sequel to my YA debut under my real name), and basically has floated into oblivion alongside so many other authors’ book children. The next Eliza Gordon book is well underway but won’t be ready until 2021, for sure, as I’m in a rebuilding phase so I can (hopefully) avoid the one-book-per-year release schedule—because that definitely ain’t working. And now that we’re heading into fall, my kids’ writing classes have resumed, so that’s another area that will require my care and attention during the week.
All of this started as an experiment to help reduce stress after I saw that Moncrieff was getting a shit ton of work done. I’m super glad I tried this (thank you, J.H.!), so much so that I’m going to continue on as long as I can hold my own interest. Sure, there are days when I’m depressed or pissed off or ranting on FB about this or that (there is much to be ranting about these days, sadly), and those days aren’t always as productive as they might otherwise be. I’ll do my best, even if that means hiding under Blankie and watching The Witcher again.
Reading this blog post can be logged on your own schedule as productivity research. Go on. Write it down.
It’s been very informative to look back through the last seven weeks and see how my days are shaped and where I can adjust even more to better use my time. Certainly there are things I can’t really cut back on, i.e., being the mom, but
spending less time on social media
designing a better marketing strategy for future books
finishing the many writing/business classes I’ve signed up for
trying to stick to a writing schedule and PROTECTING THAT TIME fiercely, as well as
delegating certain tasks to the other four humans who live in this house (since I can’t afford a housekeeper and I can’t get myself a wife
are objectives I will continue to work toward.
I’m not sure if I will continue with the Pomodoro Technique with the exercise included—I don’t seem to be shedding pounds as I’d hoped. Maybe I should do all the exercise in one 40-minute session at the start of the day, and then throw jumping jacks or stretches into 2-minute Pomodoro breaks instead? It’s worth a try. Plus a friend sent me the (alleged) writing schedule for Ursula Le Guin (below), so perhaps I should give that a try on the days I don’t have a client project to work on … but can the teenagers get their own butts out of bed? A mystery for the ages.
It would be better if other people cooked. I almost caught the stovetop on fire last night. Again. It’s sort of my thing.
Now it’s Monday and I decided that I would GET UP when I woke up, so here I am, 7:10 a.m., at my desk, showered, dressed, belly full of Cheerios, and coffee made. I even texted GareBear to let him know I beat him to work. Then again, my commute is significantly shorter than his, and the only beast I have to yell at in traffic is the overstuffed tuxedo cat who won’t get out of the way of the fridge door.
What about you? What has the pandemic done to your work schedule and/or productivity? How do YOU stay on track to make sure you’re looking after your personal health and wellness? Sit down and make a list of where you are now, things you could cut out or spend more time on, objectives and milestones you want to meet before year’s end. Don’t wait until January 1 to start over. Don’t rely on 2021 to deliver us from evil (please deliver us from evil, 2021).
Time is a nonrenewable resource. Get busy taking care of your shit before your shit takes care of you. Literally. Be brave. I believe in you.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wake up some teenagers.
“There is a superhero in all of us. We just need the courage to put on the cape.”
~ Superman
