Craft of Writing: Schedules and goals.

Hi folks,

It's a day late, but here's my craft of writing post for this week. It's been hard to organize my different projects against the stuff happening in my life. As a result, my day planner is changing and my bullet journal is in the process of changes. My goal is to get both to where I can use them together to get my stuff working better. If I can pull this off by November, that'd be great. It would make finishing book seven a lot easier (which is what I'm slating for this year's project).

My day planner started out as just a page with times written down for a given day and a note as to
what day it was. Then I started adding notes about what I was making for dinner that night and reminders. Somehow, it has gone from a one page affair to a two page one with a couple of trackers and note sections on the second page as well as my To Do list for the day.

It now also has colored blocks for things I have ideally booked for that time slot. I am trying to keep my colored blocks in the same scheme as the writing projects I have. And I am also trying to pick out alternate colors for stuff like social events and school related stuff for the kids. This is because I am basically the person who manages the scheduling for everyone. That was where I got started with multiple calendars.

The writing bullet journal was an outgrowth from this work. My most recent entries in the bullet journal are not half as organized as I wanted them to be, to be honest. As a result, I started work on revising the process.

My first step was figuring out what projects were past due and when the other major projects were coming up due. This is still something I'm sifting and sorting out as I go through piles of papers here.

My second step was figuring out my goals for the remainder of the month. The third logical step is figuring out how I am going to keep my log of work. I'm thinking about transitioning to a process that is a combination of how I keep my mental health bullet journal and my daily planner. I'd start out with a page for the month with deadlines and such noted. Also, a 'habit tracker' to help me stay on top of blog posts and journal writing.

I may even also include something along the lines of tracking what I am reading at a given time. (I'm currently working on finishing up Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. It's a really pleasant read about complex physics. Yes, I am a nerd. If you haven't figured it out yet, I apologize for not being more obvious.) After the monthly page with it's trackers, I would do a weekly page. It gives greater detail to what is planned for the week. In this, I would put down details about events that happen during the week, like if my eldest has a band recital or if I have a scheduled appointment. After the weekly page, there would be daily pages for each day of that week. The next group of pages would be the next week at a glance followed by daily pages. At the end of the month, I'd restart the whole cycle again for the next month.

That's the plan for keeping my log of work. I am also thinking that I need to keep some kind of page for tracking progress on projects. I have three different things I'm working on getting ready to self-publish and I'm at various points in the process. I got a bit confused as to how far along I was on different ones. Thus, I have to make something I can look at and be able to tell what I need to do next for a given project. I'm not quite sure how to do that one though. I've come to realize, however, that the bullet journal layouts that I have been looking at through Pinterest are not really doing a good job of fitting what I need. Good thing I'm crafty.

Craft of Writing: Bullet Journal manipulation & stuff.

So, the last several weeks have been exhausting and chaos. Having both boys going back to school on Wednesday is a glorious thing and I hope to get a lot of stuff done. This hope has lead me to sit down and revise my Bullet Journal layout for the week. It still has the essential elements from the last two I shared.

I have added, however, a second page. The page is divided up into seven sections. Obviously, one section for each day. It is where I am going to use the 'rapid logging' technique from standard Bullet Journal practices to note what writing I get done on a given day. This is to keep track of two things. First, I want to keep some kind of record how much writing I am doing on a given day. I want to get an idea as to where my writing time is getting spent. If I am spending my writing session derping around on Facebook and Pinterest, I really want to catch that and correct it.

Secondly, I want to get a picture of what writing I am doing. I know this sounds just about the same as what I just said. The thing here is that I have a really wide range of topics that I am writing about. It is hard right now for me to tell where I need to do more work and where I can trim back my word count expectations. My goal is three fold on adjusting blog posts. First, I want to get back to posting consistently across all of my blogs. Second, I want to have my posts be of higher quality. And, finally, I want my blog posts to be a more efficient means of expressing what I have in mind.

So, this is why I made the adjustments to my weekly set up in my Bullet Journal. It is a small thing but it seems to be small changes that are allowing me to make forward progress. I am trying to focus on progress instead of perfection. I saw a thing on Facebook where they were encouraging people to focus on just 'do the thing' instead of trying to make it meet some nebulous idea of perfection. The argument is that perfection is not possible. Improvement, however, only happens when we do the thing many times and focus on completing the task.

I am shifting how I have my planning pages for my blogs set up. Up until today, I had them all together in one binder. Each one had its own set of colored pages and was divided into their own sections. Theoretically, this was the most organized method that I could have. Unfortunately, that big binder was big enough to be difficult to use. This resulted in little to no planning. I considered shifting blog planning into my Bullet Journal but remembered, again, that having everything together in some kind of mishmash really was the reason why I was separating things out.

Now, we have a bit of a glut of school supplies at my place. I took my multicolored paper and put it into folders for each individual little stack. Next, I am going to sit down and make a few adjustments to how I am planning on those stacks of paper. Right now, everything is just listed on the page. There is no outlines. Just vague topic notes. I have come to the conclusion that outlines are going to be necessary if I am going to actually get anything done. (By the way, this means more material coming for Dacia's War and the Iron Lily over the next few weeks. This week is a set-up week where I am trying to make things more user friendly.)

The biggest irony right now, however, is that I look at my stock pile of notebooks and I feel torn as to if I should grab one to start writing down a 'book bible' for the series that I am writing. I catch myself worrying some about this turning into a fiasco with a random pile of notebooks with a few entries in there and nothing more. This was sort of how things turned out the last time I attempted this level of organization. That, however, was almost 20 years ago and I was in the middle of figuring out what the hell I was doing at college.

I have obviously learned some things. My anxiety is understandable given how the last year has been for me. I am not going to give up. I have worked too hard to get to where I am now. And I still have a story to finish. (A story that is going to be approximately 20 books if I keep going at the rate I am with these books thus far.) I am turning 37 this year. I can't afford to let myself run in circles going 'what if I screw [XYZ] up?' and coming up with as many catastrophic images of disaster as I can think of. The last year was full of that. A good amount of it came from brain chemistry being off kilter. That's been addressed now. So, it is time to get back to work.

Craft of Writing: Bullet Journal stuff (again)

Hi there, everybody!

I hope you have all been doing quite well (or at least are at a place you can tolerate and find some enjoyment on a regular basis). I have been all over the place of late. There's been things happening on the health front that has given me a new perspective on things. (That depressive episode that started in the fall last year is finally gone thanks to Wellbutrin, but now I'm hypomanic and cleaning/organizing everything. It's been interesting.)

Among the new perspectives is a change to how I approach the Bullet Journal method. I had started using a kind of fancy layout for a weekly thing. It did not help me get anything done. So, I stripped all the fancy bits off and turned it into a single page. It is nothing super fancy, but my focus was to be utilitarian with the whole thing right now. Because I need less distractions right now with my attention span being a bit short.

The first line has the week noted (I used the format of : July 23 - 29  2017.). Beneath this there are two boxes with my tasks noted. On the left side is my daily tasks. As you may be able to see in the picture, I have listed only four things as stuff I MUST do everyday. This actually takes a lot of pressure off of me. On the right side is the box with my weekly tasks. Each day of the work week has two lines. The tasks for each day is noted in my own style of short hand.

Beneath this, there are two additional sections. On the left is the running tally of my daily word count for a handwritten manuscript that I started back during NaNoWriMo last year. On the right side is my tracker for the work I'm doing as I reboot (again) doing the Artist's Way exercises. My goal is to get through all of the exercises for the week. It doesn't feel like it is a super ambitious goal and I am devoting a specific time block for working on it. (It's when the kids have their 'homework' time for their summer school stuff. They hang out in the living room reading books as I sit in the kitchen and to my writing. It seems to be working well.)

I have my reminder to do my planning on Thursdays for my writing stuff as well as my regular day planner and calendar stuff. I also am going to try to keep track of my average word count on my blog posts.

At the bottom of the page in an entirely different color (so it grabs my attention), I have written down two reminders that I keep applying in other areas of my life because I tend to be a perfectionist.

• Imperfect work is still GOOD work!
• Goal = progress not perfection

I'm trying to be realistic in how I approach this stuff. We'll see how successful I will be this time next week. In addition to all of the writing stuff, I still have things to do like getting ready for my youngest's birthday party on Saturday and the usual work of being Mom. The kind of fun thing, honestly, about the Bullet Journal, is how the really useful parts about notation are creeping into my day planner. Which helps me stay on top of everything. So, I think I like the Bullet Journal concept. Now I'm just trying to figure out how it works best for me in multiple areas.

Worksheets!

Hi everyone!

As I had promised, I have the first of the worksheets for developing characters and such done. I will be posting it here. Please, share this and use it as you see fit. If you adapt it, please note your changes and make a point to ping back to the originals. This is not something that you can take and make into something you are going to make people pay for. I'm sorry, but that is just not allowed. If it is the base idea that triggers you to create something of your own and is for profit, that's cool.  Please give credit where credit is due.

All of this said, here is the first worksheet that I completed. Anyone who has played in some sort of tabletop gaming system or in a LARP, you may recognize how I set this up. I found the style that the worksheets for character generation to be really helpful and straight forward. If you have any suggestion for how to improve this or if you do make another version, please note your changes and send me a link. I'd love to see what you've done with this.

Character Worksheet Version 1

This is based off of the little note cards that I started a while back. It gives you a solid basis for developing the character's back story and fleshing them out so that they have a more three dimensional quality. Obviously, you do not need to fill in all the details for every character. But, it does help with making the 'lead' characters of your story easier to work with.

Relic Worksheet Version 1

This is based off of the prop cards that the LARP troupes I played with had. I expanded a little on it, but this is a great way to flesh out the details about interesting items in your story and just why they are important. It also lets you determine details like how they are used before you bring the item into the story, so that every time it pops up it is consistent.

Setting Worksheet Version 1

In the class I had at college regarding Short Fiction, our instructor had a regular exercise for us. We were to write brief sketches of locations, real or imagined. This is based of her exercises.

Ritual Worksheet (In progress)

In pretty much every gaming system I have played in, there as the opportunity to play a character that performed some sort of magic. With each system I got involved in, the level of detail for the magic system increased. Somewhere along the way, I started keeping notes on it. And I realized that my method of keeping notes was identical to how I keep notes regarding my witchcraft stuff. Thus, this particular worksheet was developed.

Creature Worksheet Version 1

This is a more formal version of what I presented in my post earlier this week. It covers the basic questions about your creatures and the role the play in your story.