Non-Linear Planning

The last couple of weeks, I took off to concentrate on the holidays and enjoy the company of my visiting mother and on-holiday husband.

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Keeping Track

It was very good for me.  Among other things, I thought of an idea for a novel that I’m very eager to start researching.  However, although this is (of course) what I want to work on more than anything else (because shiny/new is exciting), I have a list of other projects I’ve promised myself to work on.

So, Monday morning as I was moving from asleep to awake, I found my mind wandering toward how could I find time to work on a new project while not letting the older ones go stale?

And late Monday morning, when checking my Twitter feed, I came across a link from Kate Eliot to a piece by Amanda Hackwith on a bullet journal which may provide the solution to my difficulty.

What I particularly liked about this idea was how Ms. Hackwith has adapted the idea of a bullet journal (which I had to look up, since I had no idea what she meant) to the erratic pulse points of a writer’s life.  As she notes in her blog post:

“The life of a writer means I have a hundred things to keep track of at once, but not always on a precise day by day itinerary. If I stuck to the traditional appointments + daily to dos format, my days would be a constant repeat of something like ‘Write word count, Edit X, read, check email anxiously.’”

Well, did this ever sound familiar!  Last year I started keeping a list on a scrap of paper under my computer monitor so I wouldn’t forget to do the things I do every week – like write these Wanderings, work on Tangents with Alan, write the Friday Fragments, make sure photos are taken for above – as well as those things that crop up more erratically (like updating my website News and Appearances).

And, of course, whatever I’m writing, because I usually have something going on in one stage or another – often in multiple stages or other.

Ms. Hackwith has some neat ideas for how to adapt the bullet journal to the differing demands of a writer’s life.  I’ll definitely try some, adapt others.  I already keep a journal for what I’m reading, but a list of books I’d like to read is a nice idea.

I also liked her idea of listing accomplishments.  On that slip of paper I keep under my monitor, I make checkmarks each time I do a repetitive task (work on a story, respond to a Tangent, edit a manuscript) and I cross off completed tasks.  And at the end of the week, I toss the slip of paper and start over.  This has led to a sense of Sisyphean toil.  The same jobs crop up, but with no record of what I’ve done over time, there’s very little sense of accomplishment.

An on-going record – like the one I keep for my reading – would give me that.  Good idea!

When I’m working on a long project, I keep track of word count.  However, I’ve found that when I’m not, I fail to keep any steady record of what I’ve been doing.  This leads to a (completely fallacious) sense that I’ve done nothing.

Right now, I’m contemplating a variety of projects.  I have a novel that’s pretty much done, but will need a final polish.  I want to get some more of my backlist out as e-books.  And then there’s the new Shiny New Idea.  Oh, and a couple more short story ideas…  And research…  And…

I think a non-linear method of tracking what I’ve done, as well as what I’d like to do, will be a good thing at this stage in my life.

An investment in a journal designed for flexibility seems like a good way to not only keep track, but to remind myself that – unlike Sisyphus – I am getting somewhere.