Week 83 – The rebirth of a plan

In my last post, I said I’d come back with my new plan, and one that is hopefully achievable.  It’s been a while since the last one, and as you know I’ve had to rethink a lot over the last few weeks: the editing is taking much longer than I had thought; the next story to tackle is unlikely to be the one I expected. The studying is eating quite dramatically into my time.

So I started by making a few decisions.  The first was to let the current course go, a little.  I am enjoying stretching my mind, but to go through each lecture three or four times for the quizzes is too much – I’d rather listen, have a few discussions online, and leave it at that.  I can give up a few hours a week to it, but two or three a day is too much.

The second was to pick my next project from the list of plans I have already made.  I spoke a bit about this before, and it seems right.  I am not in a position to do what I had expected next, but that plan can simply be put on hold for now – there is already an outline for it so it’s not going to be a major issue (I hope!).

The third was to treat this revision of the woods novel as a technical rather than corrective attempt – I need to get through it and fix any structural issues before I waste time on correcting elements that won’t remain.  That doesn’t mean leaving things unread, but it means I won’t get too bogged down in adjective choices!

With those in mind, this is the start of my updated plan…

1. 1st read-through and revisions on the Woods novel to be completed by 30 April

2. Finalise third novel decision and initial chapter plan by 31 March

3. Start sending speculative posts to agents for Family Tree novel by 30 April*

*this is based on getting proofreader feedback and making any final adjustments by mid April.

I’ve kept it short for now and left the poetry off but that may follow – although I have a tendency to over-extend and this might be a good time not to do that!

Alongside the plan though, I’ll also be keeping the studying to 7 hours a week.  I’m going to have to set myself lines otherwise – ‘I must not use studying to avoid editing’!

In other news – I saw this feature on Barbara Taylor Bradford, and I thought it was worth sharing.  I was particularly interested in her point about basing a character on a real person: I can imagine the same thing happening to me!

Also – I saw an article about Literary Death Match today; I’ve never heard of it and I don’t think I’d be too comfortable personally sharing my work in this way – readings are not my favourite thing, as you know! – but it is an interesting way to gain access to new writers.

Maybe we should try for a blogging version…

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

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