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.

I feel like there's not enough time in a day...

I have things I *need* to do and things I *want* to do and things I *don't want* to do and I am at war.

When I feel overwhelmed, I rely more heavily than ever on my trusty TO DO list. I just have to make sure it's as complete as I can make it, and I have to ensure that if there are due dates, which there are for many things, that I keep them in mind as I pick and choose what to get done.

No matter how many things I have to do, I never fail to take down time to read. Of course, I have to be careful, because it's so easy to sink into the reading abyss and I have SOOOO may fics in my to-be-read folder that sound fantastic.

Several years ago, I was president of my writing group and of the band booster for about six months. That was a challenging six months, but I was also super productive because I prioritized every day the things that had to be completed that day or the next. And day by day I got things done and made it through. Of course, I hadn't discovered BBC Sherlock fan fic at the time, so it might have been much harder with all that ficcy goodness tantalizing me from the Internet.

How about you...how do you handle an overabundance of things to do?

Sometime this past spring, I signed up to write a fic for a fest. The deadline is thirteen days away....

It's almost complete, so it's not that I can't or won't finish. I just have so many other things I want to do floating around in my brain and part of me wishes I hadn't signed up for it to begin with, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I've participated in other exchanges and fests and I always enjoy them, even though I always feel this way when the deadlines are looming.

So I will spend some time every day finishing up and get it submitted by the deadline and then I'll work on the stuff that's really calling me.

Well, I don't really have one.

My friend Regina does. She's good like that.

So I got to thinking...should I have one too? Probably.

My strategic plan, at this point, is to publish a few more Romance Writer's Guide Books this year. The second one went live last week.


As far as fiction goes, the plan is to stop flitting from project to project and finish one of them. I had some inspiration on a particular one last week, so that's the one I'm working on now. It's going to be short...10,000ish words, give or take.

I think I do better with deadlines. Have it done and submitted or else you don't get included or accepted or whatever the consequence is. Right now, there's no deadline. But even if I gave myself one, there's no consequence.

I thought maybe if I had a reward, that would work, though. If I complete the manuscript by XYZ date I get... WHAT? I don't know. I have pretty much everything I want. I can buy the things I need.

But no matter. I'm determined to make myself finish. Once I finish one, I think it'll be easier to finish the next one and the next, too. Someone once suggested I don't finish because I'm afraid to. Afraid of what's next. Of success. Afraid of...whatever. I think there's something to that, though I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm afraid of. I haven't stopped to contemplate, though it might help me get over it if I know what IT is.

Anyway, my deadline for completing the first draft of this particular book is February 9th. In order to reach it, I have to write at least 250 words a day. That's a doable goal.

Once the book's done, I'll put it aside for a week. Well, it may end up being more than that as an event I'm in charge of will be coming to a head at that point in time.

After that week or two or three, I'll re-read, fix any errors that now present themselves, and do some revising.

And then...off to the critique partners. More waiting. Then more fixing and revising as called for.

In the meantime, I'll be thinking about and having a cover created. Oh--and I'll need a title somewhere along the line--definitely need it before the cover art. Right now this book being referred to by the heroine and hero's names.

But I've gone off topic.

The strategic plan. Finish a dang book and publish it.

Then do it again and again.

Learn about how to utilize social media platforms to my benefit.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

That's the basic version. Thanks for letting me come up with it on the fly.

Is there anything I'm missing?