2 posts tagged “plan”

But I am hanging in with my writing schedule.  I've missed a couple nights, just been exhausted, but I'm still hitting my "at least fight nights a week" goal.  

I neglected to reward myself for a couple periods, but that's OK.  Come payday I'm buying myself a new Palm Treo 700p.  

I have to find a way to make allowances for time spent editing or plotting, but I haven't figured out how to measure a fair nights work of that yet. 

It's too soon to crow about it much but I am trying a new approach, and it's led to my writing five whole days in a row. That's not much, but I honestly feel I am going to be able to maintain some consistency for at least a while.  There are two main things I am doing differently. One is re-defining the writing as something that just has to get done. The other is rewarding myself when it does.

The Stick:
Im now treating the writing as a chore. It's just something I have to get done, like taking out the garbage. Doesn't matter how good it is, but I have a daily wordcount and a number of days writing per week quota to achieve.  I've often groused that by the end of the day my mind is shot and I can't write anything good anyway. Now I am really trying to embrace the "shitty first draft" school of writing and not care about that. The only thing that matters is making my quota, which ain't that high. A couple of the nights were brutal as I really couldn't figure out what to write and I was just exhausted, but I didn't want to end my "streak" at just a few nights running. In the end, I was pretty happy with what I got (though it's still shitty first draft, it can be re-writ, not tossed completely.)

The Carrot:
If I write at least 500 words every day between now and my net paycheck, I am buying myself a couple dvd's I'm anxious to own. If I don't manage it, I'm still allowed to buy the dvds, but not during the next pay period.  There are a couple of "outs"(*).  My real goal is writing five days a week. In respect for the concept of weekends I am allowed to miss two days a week, but I am supposed to make up the 500 per day I miss in overflow from other days.  If I start consistently beating the 500/day mark, I hope to bump up the quota, but for now I want something achievable even when I have NOTHING coming out of my brain to put on the paper.

The Big Carrot:
This is unlikely, so I'm not even thinking about it much, but in September Bouchercon, THE big mystery and thriller conference of the year, is in Anchorage. IF I have a completed manuscript, it might make sense to attend (assuming I can afford it and get the time off). This would be a big reward for completing the draft, and an opportunity to meet agents and editors and be able the answer the magic question, "Why, Yes. Yes I do have a completed manuscript."

Monday about 40 minutes before "24" started, I told myself I had to make my count before turning the show on. It took about an hour and though I was now "allowed" to watch the show I decided to put it off for the next day, as I was beat. That was both carrot and stick.

The 25-page Cleanup:
Both years I found the prep that I did for Writers in Paradise helpful.  I liked combining scenes, smoothing the transitions and polishing a decent sized chunk of work.  I think every 25-pages or so, I will stop and so some cleanup. The amount of "polished" pages in a row will grow. I think this also makes me feel like a draft of a book is appearing, not just a set of scenes. Organizationally it's also good to get my stuff into fewer files, rather than one for each scene. It's kind of GTD, in that I no longer have to keep track of what scene comes before what. I start putting them together and I don't have to think about it.
 

(*) and by "a couple of outs" I mean more rule variations and exceptions than the tax code, though not as many as in Magic; The Gathering.