I keep re-ordering and re-arranging my plans for this year. Things get added, things get dropped (and then put back), things get moved from one month to another … I’ve tried to arrange things so I have some breathing room between big projects, but not so much I get lazy. (And I do get lazy, left to my own devices.)
I’ve also decided to step back from fandom writing for the rest of the year and concentrate on writing for publication. This was not an easy decision to make, and it’s something I’ve been wrestling with for several months, but it feels like the right decision. I’m not ambitious except when it comes to writing, and making pursuing that my focus feels like the best choice right now.
There’s a widget on iGoogle called Days Until. I mostly use it to help me remember things like doctor’s appointments, but today I also added all my current rough draft and submission goals. It helps, really: it’s one thing to think, “I want to submit this story by the end of the year,” and quite another to see it spelled out: “I want to submit this in 199 days.”
submit Apples & Gin 3: 15 days
Healing Hearts subs due, Torquere: 30 days (if I get an idea for it. I don’t have one, at the moment. This calls for RESEARCH!!!)
finish Spencer/ Dominic rough draft: 46 days (in which I attempt something gritty. One might even call it hard-boiled.)
finish Jude/Austin rough draft: 77 days (an urban fantasy.)
finish Leo/Stuart rough draft: 107 days (story #3 in the City by the Bay series)
finish Bill Aalto rough draft: 138 days (or, the Big Damn Movie.)
submit Spencer/ Dominic: 138 days
submit Jude/Austin: 138 days
Nanowrimo–Ben/Jamie 2: 139 days (story # 4 in the City by the Bay series)
submit Leo/Stuart: 199 days
finish Noah/Sawyer 4 rough draft: 199 days (or, Their Wedding. Finally.)
I have more goals for 2011, some quite vague (David Campbell’s story will get written at some point) and some rather detailed (I have hopes for a threesome story, perhaps novel-length, which I usually think of as Annie & Oliver’s Half-Moon Cafe; Ben & Jamie 2, I’m planning to have ready to submit by the first of April), but that will keep until next year.
(And I’m starting to re-use names already. Oh, dear. Well, this is what happens when there’s a limited pool of names I like, I suppose.)
Big lists always make me feel a bit overwhelmed (in an OMG SO MANY WORDS ACK ACK ACK!!! kind of way), but having it written down makes it real. “Plan your work and work your plan,” my mother used to say. So, here’s my plan.
Time to work.
Mirrored from Jenna Jones.com.