SoATW Friday: Flexibility = Freedom

Happy Friday, Team #SoATW!

I hope your week was a productive one. I'm generally pleased with my progress -- I didn't get as much outlining done as I would have liked, but I'm on track to finish up a project I've been procrastinating on since...oh...December. The brain space I'll reclaim once I cross it off my to-do list will be staggering.

You may (or may not) have noticed my absence during last night's #SoATW Twitter Meetup. I was sad to miss you all, but I had some writer friends in from out of town, and since they're normally scattered across the country, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Even so, I still had work to do, so I decided to run a midday writing meetup instead. I got my work done, and while I missed the usual camraderie, it freed up my evening for a special occasion.

How could I pass up an evening with these ladies? They're as lovely as they are brilliant and talented and funny. Also: SUSHI. (From left to right, Erin Bowman, TAKEN, Susan Dennard, SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY, Sarah J. Maas, THRONE OF GLASS, Kat Zhang, WHAT'S LEFT OF ME.)

One of the keys to successfully managing your summer writing is FLEXIBILITY. Life is going to throw you curveballs, good and bad. It's one of the reasons I build wiggle room into my writing schedule. Giving yourself permission to shift the schedule when necessary -- whether it's writing a horrible synopsis instead of outlining, or moving your dedicated block of writing time, or increasing your daily wordcount so you can take off on a long weekend with the family -- gives you freedom to enjoy your writing AND the rest of your life.

The best example of this I've seen: Mia, one of our regular #SoATW'ers, lives on the East Coast -- which means our meetups run until midnight for her, and like most sane people, she would prefer to be in bed by then. So she very sensibly started up an East Coast #SoATW -- she writes from 10-11 Eastern Time and checks in as we're gearing up. And it's working pretty well, I think, because she hit 50K this week, which was her goal. (YAAAAAAAAY MIA!!!!)

Flexibility is your secret summer weapon. Fire at will.

Remember to check out Clara's post on how to feed people when you'd rather be writing.

And now, I'm turning it over to you: how was your week? What are your goals for next week? Hit the comments, and we'll see you back on Twitter Sunday at 10pm CST!