treadmill desk – Jeffe Kennedy Blog

What Jeffe Has to Have in Order to Write

Jeffe Kennedy / October 19, 2022 / Blog

Greetings from a gorgeous autumn in New Mexico!

This week at the SFF Seven we’re talking about preconditions – what must be true before you go to write.

I changed it from “sit to write” because I don’t sit – I work at a walking desk. So, that’s one thing for me, is that I’m happiest standing or walking to write. I’ve gotten so sitting to write doesn’t work very well. In fact, I’m super happy to have hit on a solution of a portable tripod and desktop to make a standing desk for a retreat I’m going on after Thanksgiving. I can stand to write! Perfect solution.

Otherwise…

It used to be that I had fairly elaborate rituals for getting into writing. I had LOTS of preconditions. I had to be sitting at a certain desk (not my work-from-home desk) at a specific time of day (morning) listening to a particular soundtrack (The Mission). I even had a favorite blue jersey dress I had to be wearing. When my husband, with considerable exasperation, pointed out that the dress had more holes than fabric, he countered my plaintive argument that I needed it, by saying “the writing comes from you, not the dress.”

That’s really stuck with me. I remind myself of that truth often.

(And I put the dress in the rag pile.)

All of those rituals helped me in the beginning, when I really needed help establishing a writing habit. But now I know they were just things to help me along. Because the writing comes from me.

The only precondition I have? Myself, present and accounted for.

Jeffe’s Writing Space

Jeffe Kennedy / March 23, 2022 / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven, we’re sharing our writing workspaces and current TBR list.

Why both of these somewhat disparate things? I have no idea. My TBR isn’t physical (mostly). I keep my inventory of unread books on a – you guessed it! – spreadsheet. There are currently 323 books on it.

I know.

I’ve been working my way through it, really I am, but even my determined efforts end up being like fighting the hydra. For example, I’ve had Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest on my To-Be-Read “pile” since April 19, 2017. (Thank you, Amazon for that purchase date.) I finally started reading it on February 12, 2022. LOVED IT. So, what did I do? Yes, bought the entire six-book Sevenwaters series. I’m now 60% through book six, Flame of Sevenwaters. By removing one book from my TBR list, I ended up buying five more and spending more than a month bingeing Juliet Marilllier and not addressing any of the books I already have. And I might not stop here. There’s a couple other books of hers that I’m eyeing. We’ll see how I feel when I finish this one.

As for my writing space, I have a dedicated office that is ALL MINE. You can see it above. We got an unexpectedly heavy snow last night, so it’s a darkish morning and you can see the snow out the window. I love my big window as I can watch the birds and other visiting wildlife (and they are merry), and I can see all the way down the Galisteo Basin to the Ortiz Mountains and Sandia Peak. My desk is hydraulic, so I can adjust it for sitting, standing, or walking, with my treadmill below.

I used to have my framed book covers on the walls, but I realized I didn’t like looking at stuff that represented past efforts. So, I took them all down and hung art that’s inspiring to me. The poster over the window is one I made that says, “What would you write if you weren’t afraid?”

And there you have it!

First Cup of Coffee – December 9, 2021

Jeffe Kennedy / December 9, 2021 / Blog, Podcast

Writer Fashion: Contradiction in Terms?

Jeffe Kennedy / September 26, 2021 / Blog, Podcast

This week’s oxymoronic topic is Writer fashion. Is it a contradiction in terms?

Okay, okay – that’s me being a smartass. The subtitle actually asks: What do you – or don’t you! – wear to write? Come on over, baby, to find out what I’m wearing…

Kicking That Sitting Habit

Jeffe Kennedy / January 3, 2021 / Blog

Happy 2021 everyone!!

First things first: If you haven’t yet read Book One in my Forgotten Empires trilogy, THE ORCHID THRONE ebook is on sale for only $2.99 all month. This is a great opportunity to start the series, as Book Three, THE PROMISED QUEEN, comes out in May!

We’re kicking off a new year here at the SFF Seven and we’re talking writer fitness. If sitting is the new smoking, what are the perils of a sedentary art and how do you counteract it?

That means it’s time for my regular evangelistic sermon on the many virtues of my walking desk!! Come on over to find out more. You know you want to.

First Cup of Coffee – August 27, 2020

Jeffe Kennedy / August 27, 2020 / Blog, Podcast

First Cup of Coffee – August 25, 2020

Jeffe Kennedy / August 25, 2020August 25, 2020 / Blog, Podcast

Why I’m Against Butt-in-Chair, Hands-on-Keyboard

Jeffe Kennedy / January 21, 2018 / Blog

I caught Isabel mid-yawn on this one. What I get for disturbing the cozy winter’s nap with my photo-taking. She – like all cats – is the poster child for this week’s topic, which is balancing writing with physical and emotional health. There’s a catchphrase that writers like to pass around, about maintaining productivity: BICHOK, or Butt-in-Chair, Hands-on-Keyboard. I get that it’s a metaphor, meaning that you get writing done by actually writing, but it’s one I quibble with because I’m so against the sitting-down part. Come on over to find out more.

Where I Do My Best Writing

Jeffe Kennedy / October 2, 2016 / Blog

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven, as the post title implies, is where we do our best writing.

Mine is, as always, at my treadmill desk. Come on over to find out more!

Lessons from the Spreadsheet Queen

Jeffe Kennedy / September 2, 2015September 2, 2015 / Blog

At the invitation of the lovely Alexandra Haughton (and Lindsay Emory, who I’m sure is also lovely, though I don’t think we’ve met), I’m participating in their Get It Together Blog Hop.

Because I am, you know, the uncrowned Spreadsheet Queen.

I began my love affair with Microsoft Excel as soon as it hit the market, using it in various day jobs. It was the tinkering with it for personal use that led me to understand its arcane inner workings. I love the formulas, the conditional formatting, the logic tests. I even make Gantt Charts! (You don’t know what a Gantt Chart is? Stick with me, Grasshopper.) I have my three favorite Excel Workbooks open at all times. In fact, here’s a shot of my screen as I draft this post.

You might have to blow it up to see the tabs at the bottom – but there’s Walking Goals, To Do List and Progress Count. Welcome to my world.

Walking Goals

I use a treadmill desk and keep track of my walking goals daily. I’m part of a Writers Who Walk Facebook group and our goal for the year is to walk at least 1,000 miles. You can see from the screenshot below that I’m at about 780 miles so far for 2015, or 78% of the goal. As we’re only about 67% through the year, conditional formatting shows that green Yes! I am on target. Actually I could do zero walking until October 12 before we hit the red No.

To Do List

I keep a running To Do List. If I don’t finish tasks set for one day, I move them to the next. My list is rather shockingly empty this week – and thank all the gods for that! I’ve finally caught up on a slew of things. Some days I have twenty task on there. I delete as I go, so you can see that “spreadsheet post for tomorrow” listed for Tuesday will vanish very soon. I love deleting!

Sharp-eyed readers will note I also track carbs, shows people recommend, books I’ve read and other sundry topics.

Progress Count

The Progress Count workbook is where I really geek out. I’ve been using some version of this workbook for easily twenty years, with continuing refinements along the way. The first tab is Priorities, where I track my deadlines, all of which have interconnected formulas. That is, start dates for the next project are calculated off the projected finish dates of others.

I track every step – drafting, cooling (which usually corresponds to crit partner reading time), revising, and all stages of editing for my publishing houses. I preserve these histories, too, and use them to project my finish dates. Right now this tab only projects out about six months, though in the past it’s been as long as two years.

The next tab is Commitments, in which I use all of those dates to make Gantt charts, like this one.

I love these because the let me visually process what I’m loading my plate with – especially those dreaded periods of overlap. I also plug in workshops I’ll teach, as you can see. There’s another chart with release dates, too, for visualizing that periodicity.

Then there’s my Overall tab, which counts my daily word count on everything. This is the origin page, which spawned all the others. I track how much I write – including blogging like this – on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. Those are the numbers from Monday, as I hadn’t yet reset it for today. The Words Today section counts from all the ensuing tabs, which follow, one per work in progress.

For example, here’s the tab for THE PAGES OF THE MIND. I finished drafting it, sent it to my editor and now I’m working on developmental edits. Over to the right of the page you can see my revision goal, which is predicated on pages/day, instead of wordcount. I count the words added anyway, for my overall goals.