
Going into the New Year, I have decided to focus more on productivity, time management and tracking. This is my seriouser serious year.
Last year, my goal was to publish my first book. This year, my goal is to publish the final four Second Star novellas, to finish out the series and begin work on the two other projects I have sitting in my TO WRITE folder. Hell, I may even do something crazy and work on a few projects simultaneously.
The word-count spreadsheet I used last year, tracked daily, weekly, monthly and yearly word counts. This year I’ve kicked it up a notch, and started tracking avg. daily word counts as well, as well as non-fiction words. After all, a lot of my “work-time” is spent writing blog articles (like this one) and interviews and reviews. Too many days on my calendar were blank last year, because I didn’t track those words. NEVA AGAIN! Muahahaahaa…ha…
So…anywho,
Last year, my goal was to publish my first book. This year, my goal is to publish the final four Second Star novellas, to finish out the series and begin work on the two other projects I have sitting in my TO WRITE folder. Hell, I may even do something crazy and work on a few projects simultaneously.
The word-count spreadsheet I used last year, tracked daily, weekly, monthly and yearly word counts. This year I’ve kicked it up a notch, and started tracking avg. daily word counts as well, as well as non-fiction words. After all, a lot of my “work-time” is spent writing blog articles (like this one) and interviews and reviews. Too many days on my calendar were blank last year, because I didn’t track those words. NEVA AGAIN! Muahahaahaa…ha…
So…anywho,

I’m also going to focus on working entirely in Scrivener this year. (With the exception of working through my third and forth draft for my books, which I do I Word. There are some things that Scrivener just doesn’t do as well.) All my interviews, reviews and blog posts have their own folder and they are separated into To Do, In Progress and Completed sub-folders. So far this year (all 5 days of it) this set up has worked out nicely for me.
Last year my goal was to write 1,000 words a day. I didn’t. So this year we’re going to try a slightly different approach. This year, 500 (fictional) words is the count I will shoot for, because let’s face it 500 is a little less intimidating than 1000. Even then, I’ve been over 1000 three out of four days so far, so BOOM…take that word goal!
Anyway, the math for my current goal works out like this: 500 x 365 = 182,500, which is almost 70k more words than 2014. Hopefully, that adds up to 100k more published words. Only, time will tell.
Last year my goal was to write 1,000 words a day. I didn’t. So this year we’re going to try a slightly different approach. This year, 500 (fictional) words is the count I will shoot for, because let’s face it 500 is a little less intimidating than 1000. Even then, I’ve been over 1000 three out of four days so far, so BOOM…take that word goal!
Anyway, the math for my current goal works out like this: 500 x 365 = 182,500, which is almost 70k more words than 2014. Hopefully, that adds up to 100k more published words. Only, time will tell.
Tracking my words, however, is only half the battle. So along with trying to bang out all those words, I plan to continue to study and learn about my craft and always strive to improve it. I’ve never been to a Writer’s Conference, this year I plan to change that. I’ve never participated in a writing critique group; I plan to start one. And finally, I’m going to keep a “writer’s journal” where I can keep track of all my thoughts throughout the year.
As far as my website is concerned, I’m going to add a digital library to the store, where people can purchase e-books directly from me. I have several new interviews planned and in the works and a few reviews. I’m working on a “Tools o’ the Trade” post, to highlight how I use Scapple and Scrivener in my writing and I’m also thinking about doing a couple video blogs for those of you who can stand to look at my ugly mug.
As far as my website is concerned, I’m going to add a digital library to the store, where people can purchase e-books directly from me. I have several new interviews planned and in the works and a few reviews. I’m working on a “Tools o’ the Trade” post, to highlight how I use Scapple and Scrivener in my writing and I’m also thinking about doing a couple video blogs for those of you who can stand to look at my ugly mug.