A Quick Tip

If you’re like most writers, you probably struggle at times with keeping yourself motivated, or even figuring out a writing schedule that works for you. I have a tip that worked for me, and it might help you, too.

I have a LOT of writing projects that I’m planning to work on or am already working on, and it can be overwhelming looking at them all and wondering how I’m going to get them done. So last night, I wrote out a very loose writing schedule for myself. I looked at what my goals are, and I scheduled out what I want my writing timeline to look like from month to month. I included drafting, revision, editing, and promotion/marketing so that I could see from a macro level what my year would like look in 2023.

Here’s why this helps: taking general goals and applying them to a concrete timeline allows me to see where I might be overestimating my abilities, my free time, etc. This is why making the schedule took so much time, because as motivating as it is to say, “I’m going to write and publish six books a year!” it also isn’t very realistic considering that I work full time and am a full time student. So I adjusted the schedule, chose specific months for drafting brand new manuscripts, and devoted the rest of the year to revision, publishing, and promotion.

April and July are part of Camp NaNoWriMo. April will be a very rough draft of, at least, 20,000 words. July will be an expansion of those 20,000 words; I’ll add 30,000, getting a rough draft of about 50,000 words to work with other the rest of the year. Then, NaNoWriMo in November will be the drafting of another book. Keeping to this means that I will draft two new books every year, as well as revise and publish two books every year.

My goal is to be prolific. My goal is to write, write, write, write, write. I have so many characters and stories up in my imagination that simply need to escape onto the page. This will, I hope, help me to keep focused while also remembering things like promotions and advertising, because all the writing in the world won’t get people to buy my work if I don’t promote it. This timeline I created included an initial monthly advertising budget; it’s currently very small, but as I continue to sell more books, I’ll be able to invest larger sums into my ads.

I don’t know where this journey will take me. All the best laid plans can be undone at a moment’s notice, but my hope is that, over the next five years, I will write, publish, and earn money as an author and a poet. I will continue to traditionally publish my poetry, while my fiction will (at least for now) be self-published.

Maybe this timeline can help inspire you, too!