A Time For Everything

In the aftermath of the discussion of whether to publish my books as they're ready or to save them up and dump into the great sea of books lashed together as a discoverability raft, I got to thinking about deadlines and when book three needs to be completed by, when it needs to get to the content/copy editor, etc...

It's the only book that has no progress to it. It's still a glimmer in my eye, with nothing but ideas and a few plot points and character details jotted down. There are absolutely no words save an idea for the first paragraph written down.

One thing I learned early on was that deadlines imposed by others scared the pants off me. I couldn't write fast enough. I see a handful of my writer friends chained to their computers slaving away to make deadline after deadline after deadline. And I never wanted that. Writing is something I enjoy doing and I didn't want the life sucked out of my pleasure.

So I got to thinking about when book three had to be done and to the copy editor, when book four had to be done, book five... and oh my goodness can I even sustain that kind of cycle? Can I make deadlines? Can I complete books in a timely fashion? Because successful at money making from being an author requires a certain regularity of new product.

And I started freaking out! Writing a lot of coherent words in a shortish amount of time has never been a strong point of mine. Of course, it's never had to be.

One of the PROs of being an indie author, however, is that I get to decide those deadlines. It's a CON too, I know. But nothing tragic is going to happen if I miss a deadline. If I publish a book a month alter than I intended.

Can I up my productivity? I think I can, and I think I already have. Can I up it more? Possibly. Do I want to? I'm not sure. I still have a life and things outside of writing that I want to enjoy, and this journey is meant to be fun and with as few pressures to it as possible.

The writing of books one and two have given me a bit of a barometer as to how long it takes me to write, but that's hindsight and faulty memory. When it comes time to write book three, I'll pay more attention to milestones and try to get a better handle on timelines. I want to track how long it takes. Gauge how many books I might be able to get out into the world a year....

Another adventure within an adventure begins.