Some part of me knows something my conscious mind doesn’t: when a project is done (or I’m waiting to hear from beta readers or my cover designer), I take a break. I don’t plan them. They’re not in my calendar. What I believe I (can/should) do on the next day is pick up the next project and carry on. It’s in my calendar. And yet, something besides my action-driven, accomplishment-desired self slips in these days, a chunk of undetermined time, where other pieces just take up the writing space.
I finished the rewrites on “The Raid.” I sent it to a beta reader with 5 questions. This happened on Wednesday. What I did the rest of Wednesday, Thursday, and today was fiddle around with stuff for 2023. I bought a new calendar a few weeks ago. I’ve been saving worksheets and inspirational quotes and journal activities for this end-of-the-year reflection time. I organized papers and packets (I’m an analog girl!), responded to questions, did the exercises. And since the calendar was right there, and I had my notes for 2023, I figured why not, and penned in some deadlines and reminders.
And like other writing-related tasks that I’ve had to adapt to doing alone, this, too, was done in isolation. But I feel pretty good about my goals for next year. I was lucky to find a couple of webinars that helped shine a light on something I’ve heard about but didn’t how to do. Of course, this task was added to the 2023 calendar. This time next year, we’ll see how my solo planning went!
The writing projects ahead of me, deadline 12/31/22, are: 2 short stories for Patreon, SG holiday short story, DZ episode 2. I can do this! Just as soon as my whole self gets back to work after the break.
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