I'm BACK!
Welcome to the wonderful and amazing world of insecure writers everywhere!
And the start of a new year ;).
Today I wanted to talk about planning...for world domination. Or at least just to keep things on track.
I have a confession, I love calendars. Planners too. It feels good to see my goals mapped out and ready to go. BUT, it also means the goals need to be workable and have a good chance for success. Saying, "I will write ten massive books this year!" is great, but there needs to be a method behind it.
First-- is the goal feasible? If you didn't get out 9 books in 2022, probably not.
Secondly--are there steps in place to make it work? I make an Estimated Word Count for each month in my planners (have two ;)).
It's based on my average word count per hour/day. I actually work in 2 hour blocks, and can hit 2k in two hours (not really 1k an hour, as I re-read the prior day's work in that time too). I do two blocks on each writing day (five days a week)...therefore a week with no other tasks (like editing, etc) can give me 20,000 words.
I use that EWC, subtracting editing days, travel days, etc, and figure out the EWC each month.
Then each quarter. I've found the quarterly system works best for me, so I'm now ONLY planning one quarter at a time. More room for pivots if something veers off course.
Knowing my EWC, allows me to estimate how many projects I can complete in that quarter.
Thirdly--how dedicated are you to this? Not everyone has to be "ALL the words, ALL the time!" Understand your long term goals and your own personality.
Lastly-- make sure you PIVOT. Making huge goals and missing them can be devastating. Unless you have a plan in place to see where you jumped the rails. Tracking your mood, health, other issues next to your word count can help see that.
Aim for the stars, but allow for some bounces.
How do you plan? Goal set?
It's nice to be back-- Happy IWSG Day!
