Over the next few weeks, we're going to look at the theme of
"planning" in the newsletter.
Do you have a plan, right now, for where you're going
with your writing over the next few months?
if you do – super! You can stop reading now.
But if you don't – that's perfectly normal. A
lot of writers don't tend to think very far ahead. We might have a hazy idea of where we want to be by, say, the end of the year ... but exactly when that writing is going to happen is left rather to chance.
In the past, I didn't tend to plan ahead much. And to some degree, it didn't matter: I was in the
early years of my writing career, I didn't have any dependents, and I could take on new projects pretty much as the whim struck me.
These days, I have many more constraints on my time – and that makes planning things out far more important.
If you want to figure out your writing over the next few months, find somewhere you can sit down undisturbed for an hour (I like my local coffee shop for this) and:
- Get a big blank sheet of paper (or a few pages of your
notebook).
- Write down the next few months – I find that planning about six months ahead works well, but it's up to you how far you want to go.
- Note down any major events (weekends away, holidays, visitors) that will disrupt your writing
time.
- Think through what you want to achieve in those months. If you have multiple projects on the go (and many writers do!), how are you going to balance those?
- Allow time for any non-writing activities that are necessary: marketing a book, for
instance, or setting up a website.
You might realise that your months are suddenly quite full! I know that I have a tendency to assume that I can just fit more and more stuff in ... until I take the time to actually work out where that stuff is going to go.
Important: Your plan is not set in stone, unchangeable for all time!
Your plan is, instead, a working document. If your April ends up much busier than
expected, you can juggle things around. If a new project appears on the horizon, you can make space for that.
Your plan is a starting point, giving shape to the months ahead, and helping you make tough decisions. (Should you stop work on your novel to write a short story for that competition ...
even if it means you won't be on track to finish by the end of September like you planned?)
The next few months will happen, day by day, whether you plan them or not. And you'll probably get some writing done, regardless of whether you take an hour to write down your goals and intentions.
However ... by taking an hour now to plan, you could save yourself a heck of a lot of time (committing to the wrong projects, dawdling on something that's important to you, spinning your wheels) over the months to come.
I'd love to hear about what you've got planned. If you feel happy sharing your plans with me, please do drop me an email to let me know what you're aiming to do over the next few months. (As always, you can email me at ali@aliventures.com, or
simply reply to this email.) 
