Time Management Tuesday: Will Extensive Planning Speed Up Writing?

First off, I'd like to report that I have a family member who made the 50,000 word point with his NaNoWriMo project this past weekend. He figures he needs to write 30 percent more to finish the story, because, guess what? Fifty-thousand words isn't necessarily a complete story. But he hit his word goal with days to spare.

Now, I didn't have a word goal, you will recall. I was working with material from my 2004 NaNoWri Mo attempt. What I was "hoping to have by the end of November is not a completed draft, but the prep work so that I can write a draft in the future." And, no, I'm not quite there. But I do have a lot more on this project than I had on November 1.

No Excuses. Instead Here's How I Used My Time.

Some time management writers claim that a "Done List" is as important, or more so, than a "To Do List." So what did I actually get done this month?

Before Wading

• Waded through twelve years of notes I'd made and clippings I'd been saving relating to this story. I thought I had them organized and would be able to discard most, but something happened last week that leaves me uncertain and now I'm clinging to them a little longer.
• Finished rereading Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock, which I'd been thinking of in relation to a writing project for years, years I tell you, and in relation to this project for a while. I was disappointed, decided I couldn't use it after all, and then swung back and thought maybe I could.
• Came up with a specific setting for the story. The 2004 manuscript had nothing at all in terms

  

  After Wading

  of setting.
• Came up with stronger characterizations for Lori and Margo, my two main characters, and a reason for their relationship.
• As a result of all the wading through that paperwork, I stumbled upon something that led to a crisis to drop in Lori and Margo's laps.
• Came up with a narrative voice related to Sunshine Sketches (see above).
• Began arranging eight chapters, with material from 2004 redistributed and notes for things that could still happen at each spot 
• I have an ending for this story, something I don't think I've ever had for a writing project at this point. 
• I have a theme for this story, something I know I've never had for a writing project at this point.

 

No Excuses. Here's How I'm Going To Use My Time

December is a ridiculous time to get much done, particularly for people who don't have a job that involves a structured schedule with a supervisor to report to. Personal lives gush right into professional lives. So I'm going to use whatever writing time I have over the next month to continue tinkering with this project, with a goal of finishing some kind of an outline by New Year's Eve. Like an ending, an outline is something I've never had before starting writing. And that, lads and lasses, I'm hoping will make a difference in the time it takes me to write my first draft.

A "To Do" List is still useful for some people, particularly when you expect you won't have as much time as you'd like. Mine looks like this:

• Finish the initial planning of chapters. I'm thinking there could be as many as twenty-one. Or, you know, not.
• Use the blueprinting plan to develop those chapters.
• Plan the changes that need to occur for each chapter.
• Plan scenes within chapters, particularly their relation to action, character, or theme.

If this goes on until the end of December, I'll have worked a couple of months on the planning for this project. (Though, not really, since holidays, family issues, and a new obsession with following pre- and post-election coverage have been very distracting so far. Oops. Those are excuses.) Will this have an impact on my time when I'm actually ready to write?

Dun, dun, duuuuuuh.                                                                                                                

Time Management Tuesday: Planning You Can See

At the end of the year, I heard about bullet journals twice, once from Facebook friend Erin Dionne and then from blogging buddy Melissa Wiley, in just a matter of days. These journals were recommended for planning over periods of time, so I was interested. (Plus if you hear about something totally new to you twice in a short period of time, that is a sign you should do something about it.) The bullet journal appears to be adaptable to individual users. For those of us who like planning we can see, for real, versus planning in our heads, which all too often ends up being pretty much imaginary, bullet journals are definitely worth a look.

See how much I like journals?

I REALLY like journals

Journals And Me

I am fond of journals. After many, many years of traditional writers' journals, I've moved on to a journal computer program for that material. And I have some kind of psychological dependence on planning.

But I found the how-to video for bullet journals as planners a little complicated, especially since it looks as if I'd have to do it regularly. It involves dealing with more than one page and a bunch of numbers. I don't think I want to take the time to do it. Knowing me as well as I do, I don't think I would take the time to do it. I don't think merging a traditional journal with planning will work for me, as much as I love those two things.

The Yellow Notepad System

My Yellow Notepad

I'm sticking to my yellow notepad system. I lay out my week on Monday mornings with plans for work, what  I want to do with those fifteen minute breaks (often home/personal stuff) after I've put in a forty-five minutes of work, what I'm going to do in the evening, and now content marketing strategy. (To be covered another week.) I try to have task options for every part of the day, though I may not do them on the day I planned them for. I'm happy if I get them done by the end of the week.

I'm sure this yellow notepad business looks as complicated to other people as bullet journals look to me.

The Value Of A Plan You Can See

The point is, though, that planning with something visual, paper or on a computer if that works for you, keeps what you want to do in front of you, making it harder for you to go off task. If, like me, you get a big jolt from crossing items off the plan as they're done, a visual plan becomes even more important.

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? Nov. 13th Edition

Goal 1. The Mummy Hunters. I'm up to Chapter Nine in the revision! I met with my writers' group Monday to discuss the first scene.

Goal 4. Make Submissions. I haven't actually made submissions, but I'm prepping for a day-long meeting with agents and editors in a week. Yeah. Yikes.

Goal 5. Community Building. I attended Ellen Hopkins' local appearance Tuesday evening, blogged about it, and promoted that blog and her appearance. Then there was that writers' group meeting I mentioned above. That was a particularly good time, by the way.


I've also spent some time strategizing what I'm going to do on Sunday when I visit the Connecticut Children's Book Fair. Some writers and illustrators are speaking at some points and then they and others are signing at other times, and if I want to see Author A and Author B and Illustrator A and...Oh, my gosh. Countries have been invaded with less effort.

Goal 6. Marketing STP&S. I've heard again from the Norwegian publishing company interested in permission to use an STP&S excerpt in a textbook. Everything is up in the air. But it's like marketing.

Goal 7. General Marketing. Quite some time ago, I heard in a podcast about creating content strategy calendars. Essentially, for people like me, at least, it's planning how you can repurpose material over your social media platforms. I'd been doing this, anyway, but I'm trying to be a little bit more organized about it. I'm trying to get into a Monday planning habit. What have I written for the blog in the last few days or what am I planning to write this next week that I can republish at Goodreads, either as reviews or on my blog there? What can I link to at the various communities I belong to on Google+? What can I link to at my Facebook communities?  What can I use as Tweets? Using which hashtags? Then, of course, I have to try to do it over the course of the week.

Time Management Tuesday: Prepping For Those Rough Times

J. M. Levinton has quite an interesting post, Getting Prepared: How to Write When You Can't, at her blog. She describes how she managed to get some social media work done while she was sick. She had prepared for that eventuality. She had a file of tweets ready to go and another of blog topics, complete with rough drafts. During those times when personal life overwhelms, she could at least keep on keeping on with social media.

Work can overwhelm, as well. Having social media topics and drafts filed away can help out when you're dealing with deadline pressures or rushing to get ready for an appearance.

And how about planning smaller projects for squeezing in when traveling, during holidays, or while you're getting ready for those appearances I just mentioned? And then you can always have some light professional reading ready for those hours you spend in motel rooms without On Demand or your dvr. (It's like being sent back to the Dark Ages.)

Seems a little obsessive, doesn't it? But not working makes some of us anxious. This is a way to plan to take care of our anxiety.

This post was written weeks ago. It's being posted today because I'm trying to finish a manuscript revision before the twenty-first and am going to be out several evenings this week.

Time Management Tuesday: Getting Started On A New Week

I would have sworn that sometime during this project I did a post on spending some time at the beginning of each week planning what you're going to do over the next seven days. The planning should relate to your goals and objectives? I think I used a picture of a notepad I was using for my planning at the time? Yeah, I can't find it.

My point in bringing all that up is that I do believe in weekly planning. So I was taken when I happened to see 7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Week at Time Management Ninja while I was scanning tweets.

If you haven't been able to work over the weekend, Mondays can be rough. They can be particularly rough if you've had more than a weekend off. If you've been messing around with a wedding for a couple of weeks...on an extended vacation...recovering from illness...getting yourself on task, even working for a unit of time or in sprints can be difficult. Planning that you will do certain things can help a lot.

What I like about the 7 Questions article is that it can direct you in your planning, if you're struggling with it. I would apply Question 7, What am I doing to reach my goals?,  to all the other questions, though. What do I need to do for a goal? Where do I need to be to work toward a goal? What do I need to catch up on to make progress on a goal? The questions give direction to your planning, and the goals give direction to the questions.

If you plan what you're going to do at the beginning of the week and go over what you actually did at the end, you can tighten up your work habits a lot.

.

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? May 15th Edition

I finished a chapter on my May Days project and started a new one. I also did some planning for the next two chapters. That's new work instead of revision. Hurray. And it's new work on my major goal for the year. Hurray, hurray.

However, I'm not working very much. Definitely wasting time. I got off to a bad start this month because I was traveling the first three days, and then had days during the next week when I needed to deal with family. So while I have worked all but two days this month on the May Days project, I often was working short amount of times because I only had short amount of times. Staying on that task under those circumstances seems like a very positive thing. I may, though, have gotten used to working like that. Except for two small administrative things, I only planned to work on the mummy book this week. But instead of committing big chunks of time to it, I figured, "Hey, I can finish this chapter easy," and dragged the work out.


Next week, I'll try to step up the pace. I do planning for the week on Monday. I'll plan to do more than just working on May Days this week and see if that will help keep me moving.