I always squirm a bit whenever people ask me how my writing is going. August was a perfect example of why.
My goals for August were to write to the next major plot point in my story, to do that I was going to have two work days a week, and would work on writing until 12 AM three nights a week. A few work days went completely awry (it was expected that I would lose at least a few), but things started out well. Then about halfway trough the month I just fell off things derailed.
Life happens and plans change, and amidst that I lost sight of the month as a whole, and fell into just managing one day at a time. As would be expected, my plans were pretty much shot at that point. Add to that my recent introduction to Taskmaster, and discovery of Critical Role (both of which are conveniently available on YouTube), and he rest of the month was absolutely lost.
So, while I didn’t meet my writing goal, I got pretty close. I’m only a handful of scenes away from where I wanted to write to, and I was able to work some more late nights to make up for missed work days (though those nights went to chores and To Do list items). Also, working until 12 AM instead of 1 AM was incredibly helpful in reducing the occurrence of my headaches, which was a complete win.
And that’s why August was a good example of my squirming when people ask about my writing progress. Technically, considering how little work I was able to get done last year, I’m doing amazing! But when I think about how little I have gotten done overall, it’s just so slow. And that’s usually my answer: it’s slow but good.
I am not a person who meticulously plans, in fact I used to regularly over-schedule or double-book myself on accident (any surprise?). I have a Happy Planner that I loosely use to plan my writing and blogging, but lately I have been looking into options that might work better for me. Once August got completely derailed, I jumped in with some printables from a store on Etsy (find it here).
While August was close, but not quite meeting my goals, I’m hoping that if I use this daily planner, I’ll be able to stick with specific daily priorities. Setting smaller daily goals that will be more attainable than just a larger monthly goal, and sticking with priorities more than chasing shiny things (lookin’ at you guys Taskmaster and Critical Role) will help me be more intentional with what little work time I have.
Going into September, I want to repeat my goals from August, but using the new planner and see if it helps me. So, two work days a week, three writing work nights until 12 AM a week, and write through the second next major point in the story (I got close enough to the next one in August, that I think I’ll aim for the one after that).
Let me know if there are any specific planners or scheduling processes that you use to help you prioritize projects. I know I’ll probably end up tweaking the one I have now and am curious to see what aspects work best for others.