I love making plans, and I love making lists. I make so many lists and spreadsheets that it is a subject of amusement for my husband. My usual announcement would be something like this, "I made a new spreadsheet today about such and such." My husband smiles, and shakes his head.
So today, I made a preliminary writing plan for remaining 8 months this year. My April goal setting worked out really well, so I am hoping it may help with the rest of the year.
Over all, including short stories, assignments and novel I estimate writing over 150K words in the next 8 months. Not a lot in itself, but hell of a lot when I only have evenings and weekends, and some of them will have to be spent editing, revising, and some of them will be completely unproductive when life interfers.
Some things on the list are "hopefully complete" because I call 2009 "Year of Learning" - that is the year to learn how to be a published writer. Pick up skills from Writers Bureau course, and through that try new avenues of writing I have never considered before, like non-fiction. So a lot of this year is going to be an experimental year. But 2010 - forget olympics - the far more significant matter is the start of my "Year of Hard Work" to be a published writer.
So to make my goals a little more realistic and achievable, now I will divide my preliminary plan into monthly plans. God!! I am obsessive.
But you know what ...when you have a list of goals and at the end of the month you can cross everything off, it is very satisfactory.
So go on...try making your own plans.
Good plan - so to speak. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm a planner too, love to make goals, break them down into smaller goals, etc. I really need to do that with my writing goals this year too, so I think after I finish my word goal for tonight, I'll work on that. Thanks for the motivation!
I'm terrible at planning, but I'm learning the necessity for writing. Like I recently made an outline for my WIP, which was a big step for me. Its a good idea, but a hard habit for me to get used to.
ReplyDeleteJamie, glad to be a motivator :)
ReplyDeleteEric,
I haven't been very good with writing planning - as in actual planning of one piece of work - but like you, I am also learning to do that now.
In fact, sort out my yearly plan and the plan for next april, may and june. I won't plan ahead, because you know things change. But two months and bit ahead is fine.
Goals are great as long as they are realistic to your job, family, and other responsiblities. I had to learn that the hard way and scale back after I realized I was wearing myself out. But, I'm like you in that I can't work without goals either. Great job at planning.
ReplyDeleteJust to let you know, you're officially a lemon! http://workingmymuse.blogspot.com/2009/04/im-lemon.html
ReplyDelete