Getting Ready for Next Year

We’re coming down to the end of 2013. A lot of folks use the week between Christmas and New Years to “clean house” – that is, they take stock of where they are, clear up outstanding projects, and generally get ready to start the new year on an up note.

I do this myself, but for a long time I ignored the writing part of my life when it came to the annual clearing-the-decks week. Writing didn’t seem well suited to a whirlwind end-of-year cleanup and evaluation. After all, I couldn’t finish a novel in a week unless it was already almost done; even finishing a short story would be pushing it for me.

What it took me a long time to realize was that a) there are a lot more things in my writing life that need looking at, evaluating, and clearing up than just the current manuscript, and b) “clearing up” at the end of the year doesn’t necessarily mean finishing all my projects, or even finishing one or two of them.

So now my end-of-year routine looks something like this: first, I look at my current work-in-process. What did I get completely done this year? How many projects do I currently have in some stage of development, and where are they at? How much progress have I made since last New Year’s? Right now, I have a collaborative collection of short stories that needs a few tweaks and a final proofreading before I send it off to my agent, a novel that’s still in the plot-developing stage, and several novellas and short stories that are stalled somewhere in the middle.

The collection will probably be ready to send to my agent in January; after that, it’s hurry up and wait. The various other projects are a bit disturbing; the stalled ones aren’t moving, and the novel needs some serious skull-banging time that’s going to be hard to come by until my Dad’s taxes get filed in April. (I am responsible for coordinating that with Dad’s tax advisors, and you don’t want to hear any more about that. Honest.) Anyway, I will need to pay attention to scheduling time for the novel over the next couple of months, or I’m liable to get to April and discover that I am no farther along than I currently am, which would Not Be Good.

Next, I look at all the not-actually-writing support stuff I have to do. This ranges from research (I have a large stack of books and another of videos that I really need to get to), to planning what conventions to attend, to, yes, taxes. I should really take a look at how my backlist is doing and whether I should do anything more with any of the titles, which will mean a certain amount of number-collecting-and-crunching. That can wait until later in the year, but I’d better make a note in, oh, July or August so I don’t forget about it completely. I have to allow time for reading and critiquing whatever my crit group produces, though I don’t know yet what that will be. And it wouldn’t hurt to come up with a list of possible blog topics (suggestions, anyone?), and maybe a few emergency posts that I can plug in if/when something comes up and I can’t get anything written in time.

Then I look at my office. Really, right now I’d rather not; the place is a mess. Karma can’t even find a clear spot on the desk to curl up in any more; she just plunks herself down on top of the papers. There are fourteen books stacked around the computer at the moment (I just counted), not one of which belongs there and none of which are necessary for any current writing project (including this blog). Wait, make that fifteen books and two videos. And that doesn’t even count the ones I’d have to turn around to see, or whatever Karma is currently sleeping on. There are papers everywhere; I don’t even know what all of them are any more. There are pens and pencils around somewhere, but there’s only one I can find at the moment, and it’s almost out of ink. There are stacks of Post-It Notes around, too, but most of them are buried under books and papers, so whenever I need one, I swivel around and get another one from the supply drawer behind me. Which then gets lost under the papers. There are at least three knitting patterns and a just-started knitting project. We won’t even talk about the mugs – plural – each of which contains ¼ inch of cold tea and some of which have been sitting around long enough to grow whole new civilizations.

And that’s just what is on the desk in easy reach; I haven’t mentioned the floor, the file cabinets, or the bookcase. Definitely, the office needs some serious attention. And while we’re at it, the computer could use a bit of file organizing, too; the virtual desktop is getting nearly as crowded as my real one. There are files that I needed instant visible access to at a moment’s notice…back in August. No longer. They need to go into archives.

So yeah, the office is pretty high on the list for working on in the next few days. OK, I am going to take some before pictures, and then again on New Year’s day. If that doesn’t get me to work on it, nothing will. Right, then, here is what it looks like at the moment:

Karma is barely visible just left of the computer monitor and behind the stack of books.

Last of all, I look at my list of ideas and possible future projects. This is last because unless I’m really between things, I don’t expect to get to any of them any time soon, but I don’t want to forget about them entirely. Also, I have a few more that I need to add to the list before I forget about them.

Except for the office, I don’t expect to get everything – or anything, really – finished up by Wednesday. But looking at it gives me a chance to plan ahead a bit, so I won’t have a preventable nasty surprise down the road. It also gives me a chance to think about what I can realistically expect to get done in the next week, month, and year. It is all too easy to plan on starting or finishing X-many projects in the year, and then discover that there are copy-edits and proofing pages and conventions and several odds and ends promised to people, none of which I’d allowed for and all of which invariably take even more time away from my planned projects than I hope they will.

In essence, what I’m doing is taking a mental snapshot of my writing life (and, I hope, clearing up a few corners of it before New Year’s Day rolls around). I don’t know that it makes a huge difference, but it at least gives me the illusion of being in control.