O is for Organization

This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge–blogging every day in the month of April (except Sundays!) with each letter of the alphabet.

As I build my career as a writer and my list of publications gets blessedly longer, I find a pertinent need to organize my schedule. This is particularly true when you’re with multiple publishers and they all want different things at different times. Just like methods of making notes, everyone organizes themselves in different ways. For me personally I have a physical paper date book that I write things down in, so I can look at everything in front of me at once and know where I stand.

What does a writer need to organize? These are the things I keep track of:

Publication dates: Keeping track of when works are coming out helps you organize events pertaining to those publications–blog posts, giveaways, book tours, parties. You would think the release day is a day of kicking back and celebrating, but it’s actually a very busy day. I don’t mind though, it’s a happy kind of work for me.

Edits and revisions: My edits with my editor have to be back by a certain date, and I need to keep track of that. I also pencil in what days I know I’ll have blocks of time to work on those revisions. Edits are time consuming–especially the first rounds. I have to make sure I make space for them.

Publicity: Keeping track of where you’re going to be advertising yourself on what day is important. I do guest spots on blogs, radio shows, tours, Facebook parties…trust me, you don’t want to realize you have to be somewhere talking about yourself ten minutes before you’re supposed to show up!

Deadlines: Part of writing is making deadlines, whether professional or personal. One of my personal deadlines was to finish the third Siren Song book by the end of February. And I did–on February 28th at 9 p.m. Deadline met!

How about you, how do you organize yourself as a writer? Are there some tricks and secrets you’d like to share?

Filed under: A to Z Challenge Tagged: blog hop, writing