Setting and achieving your goals during a pandemic is a delicate balance. Always with goal-setting you want to find the sweet spot between ambitious and realistic, between things that will challenge you but you’ll still actually be able to do.
Drafts of all three books in my proposed trilogy (and a single sheet of paper to spare!)
When you’ve written the first book in a series that you want to have traditionally published—or rather a book that has “series potential”, to use the correct querying parlance—they say you absolutely should not write a sequel (or sequels) until the first book is sold.
Never was a day planner’s title so unfitting for the year 2020
Indeed, once December hit, the year seemed to make up for its previous glacial progress due to Covid-19, at once jetting by and forcing me to likewise race to try to finish my outstanding resolutions for the year.
This wasn’t just to counteract last year’s wildly inaccurate “Grand Plans” amidst a year that proved to hold anything but for the whole world due to Covid-19.
I’ve always considered myself a plotter. I’m very fond of pantsing my way through revisions, rewriting a scene five times in quick succession if need be rather than taking the time to outline the most feasible approach.
Often, writers don’t even know which aspects of writing they struggle with the most; those unknown unknowns of writing, which by nature are that much more difficult to address.
In the matter of achieving year-long goals it really does feel like the point where shit, as they say, gets Real.
But we’ve now passed the official midpoint of the year.
Originally, this was due to my not understanding them as an artform. I knew they were collages of evocative photos that represents one’s story, and that they’re a common way for writers to discuss and promote their work on social media, particularly Twitter.
It’s funny how so many sayings about plans are negative ones:
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
“No plan survives first contact with an opposing force.”
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
