It’s September! And yet still like 95 degrees. The planet is on fire, my dudes.
So, as we discussed last month/week, August ended up not being terribly productive for me because I was free of the revision (aside from making edits from the marathon) and promptly was like I CAN DO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING and hence did nothing because of Too Many Options.
Having had the weekend to think about this, I’ve remembered that this often happens when I move from working on a single project to multiple. It’s like my brain forgets how to compartmentalize. (To be fair to my brain, I did work on this revision for a year and a half.)
So, having had some insight, this weekend was actually fairly productive, and September should be better in general.
First step: clear goals for each project.
Project 1: Short Stories
This is further broken down into subgoals:
- Read book about writing short stories — I inherited this from my mother. It is from the late ’90s and is Bad. But I am almost through it, and if nothing else it reminds me what not to do. (It is very short or I would not bother. Plus then I can get it out of my house.)
- Consolidate short story ideas — I’ve been going through my idea list and expanding ideas, and I’ve picked a few anthologies to try and write stories for. I also need to do a RaTs this month.
- Write shorts — depends on the number of ideas that get fleshed out enough, timing, anthology deadlines, etc.
Project 2: Submission Materials for Book 1
Same thing here:
- Research how to write a query letter
- Write said query letter
- Get feedback and revise as necessary
- Research how to write summaries
- Write summary (multiple?)
- Get feedback and revise as necessary
- Do agent research and make agent list
Project 3: Finalize Book 1 draft
This will be done later in the month, but basically will include making edits based off the final weeks of the critique marathon and then running the end of the book past my critique group (which is meeting the last weekend of the month) and making any additional changes that are necessary.
Project 4: New SkillShare class
Steps here:
- Outline class
- Create slides for class
- Film class
- Edit class
- Publish class
I don’t expect to get further than the slides this month.
If that seems like a lot, well, it might be! But the secret is to identify priorities, blocks of available time, and have a plan of attack, instead of putting everything on my to do list everyday and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. I’ve already made more progress these past four days than all of August combined.
So, cautiously optimistic!
Hope your September is off to a good start as well, squiders!
Oh, and Hallowed Hill is on sale for $0.99 through tomorrow, so pick it up if you need a Gothic horror fix in time for spooky season!
