#IWSG Jan18: Planning and schedules (oh my!)

Happy New Year! It’s a nice fresh, clean slate to be insecure and procrastinate all over! So it’s very apt that my first post of 2018 is for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group monthly hop.

This merry band of writers, started by Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh, blog on the first Wednesday of every month to share their hopes, dreams and fears. If you’d like to join us, then you can sign up here!

This month’s prompt question is: What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

This is a very timely prompt for me, because it made me realise that although I have a high level plan in my head, I hadn’t nailed anything down on paper. That, of course, means that any plan is subject to the vagaries of memory and distraction.

The plan so far was; work on short stories in November and December, then in the new year revisit my novel for a complete plot overhaul following some feedback.

That still works as an overall plan, but I still hadn’t thought through the minutae. A timetable, if you will.

There’s the daily stuff, the small print. We now have a puppy, so my morning routine will be; get the kids to school and walk the dog before I get to start writing. That gets exercise into the mix, and maybe I can give myself a daily ‘agile’ meeting at the same time to work out the day’s requirements.

(And I absolutely must be stricter with social media this year. Writing must come first, otherwise the time gets sucked away.)

Then, back to the bigger picture, I need to work out a timetable of what I want to acheive, and when by.

I’m going to leave it there for now. (I don’t want to scare myself into failure!) Let’s get a few things in place at a time and fine tune as I go.

How about you? Do you have plans in place, or do you need a nudge too?

Thanks for stopping by, and don’t forget to visit this month’s co-hosts; Tyrean Martinson, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane, and Rachna Chhabria!

(Oh, and before I go, can I plug the Exeter Writers Short Story Competition? First prize is £500, 2nd prize is £250, and 3rd prize is £100. The closing date is 28th Feb 2018. It’d be great to see some IWSG-er’s among the winning entries!)