So, I’m neck deep in revisions for BAD LAND…but I’m already planning for next year.
I’m a list-maker and planner – it’s how I pretty much approach everything. Usually in December I sit down and sketch out my personal and professional goals for the upcoming year. I make a detailed list of all of them, and when I hit my target, I scratch them off.
I also include some 5 and 10 year goals, just to have stuff to continuously strive for.
I approach my writing the same way – I set daily word count totals, self-impose deadlines, and set up manuscript goals for the entire year. After I found out BAD LAND was going to be picked up, I immediately drew up some goals I had for the book, and for this upcoming year leading up to its publication. These also included some professional “pushes” – like a new website, going to a writer’s conference, etc. I also outlined a possible writing schedule for Book 2, and penciled in some tentative completion dates for the whole mess and tacked up it up on my storyboard wall, which I’ve shown here before:
(That’s BAD LAND, by the way…)
Okay, I get that it all sounds pretty retentive, and some people find this sort of structure confining, and I absolutely understand that, but it’s the opposite for me – having a plan is liberating. I know what I’m doing, I have a rough road map how to get there, and I can focus on just getting stuff done. In a similar, and equally retentive vein, every night I choose and lay out my suit for the next morning (yes, most days I have to wear a suit to my job). I do this because I write in the mornings, and already having out what I’m going to wear means I have one less thing to think about, one less distraction when I’m trying to protect and maximize my valuable writing time. It’s small stuff, but it adds up.
The point of having a schedule and a plan is not to be a slave to it, but to use it to master your life. My agency mate, Kate Brauning, had about 8 months from deal to publication, and I was amazed at what she got done in that time. Fortunately, I have a longer event horizon, so I’m going to try to make the most of it – like I do each and every morning with the hours I write. I don’t beat myself up if I fail to hit a goal or benchmark, but I definitely reward myself when I do.
None of this is to suggest you’re wrong if you don’t approach your writing this way. If there’s anything I’ve learned after years of reading authors’ “how-to’s” it’s that every one has a different approach, a different way of getting to the end. And that’s all this is, my way of getting there.
Next week, I’m going to talk about something I really struggle with – using social media!
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