In my work life, I have always been the absolute organized person. I develop plans, follow schedules and finish tasks to the dot. I enjoy it and am very proud of my achievement.
When I look at my creative life, it is totally the opposite. It is messy, no orders and spread to everywhere. I would start many projects and only finish a few of them. As much as I understand and enjoy the freedom and chaotic nature of being a creative person, I believe I would benefit greatly from a more structured approach to my writings.
So I came up with below schedule / outline for my writing projects.
1) 10 mins Free Writing: daily (No Exception)
2) Main Project: STOS (total 12 stories)
- Ideas developed: 10
- Ideas outstanding: 2
- Routine: min. 200 words every day (2-days rest)
- General Rules for STOS:
a) Free run (for both word count and finishing time) for 1st draft of all stories
b) Break for 1 - 2 weeks in between of starting any new story
c) After finishing of any 1st draft, put it aside for 4 – 6 week before rewriting
d) A more controlled free run (for both word count and finishing time) for 1st rewrite of all stories
e) After finishing 1st rewriting, put story aside for 2-3 week before 2nd round rewriting
f) Try not to rewrite any stories for more than 2 times
My main goal is to use the above as a base to further develop a simple yet flexible plan / structure / routine / schedule which I could follow through out this year for STOS.
I haven’t included any workshop or writing group activities at this stage. Right now, I’m concentrating on creating a sizeable portfolio for possible workshops and definitely for publishing opportunities. These might or might not happen within the year. It all depends on the progress I make.
BTW, you might find above not really to your interest which I agree. I’m posting this to kind of create a public pressure on myself. Now that I have announced my plan, I’m to live up to it. So thank you very much for reading this. :)
4 comments:
Oh I love a good plan... my problem is a spend so much time planning, so I FEEL like im organised, but never usually follow through on all my great plans. You could say I'm easily distracted... something I need to work on.
Maybe I need to follow your lead and put it out there for all to see.
Hi Kate,
I know what you mean about "spending much time on planning, hence feel like I have a plan". I was exactly like that. Let's hope by holding myself accoutable in public, I'm now able to finish my writing project. O.K. brace thyself, here we go ...
Wow, I wish I had the motivation to make a plan right now! But at the moment I'm just spinning from one week to the next and never getting anything done.
You might just have inspired me to spend a little bit of time planning...
Hi Sophie,
Don't really know if I'm inspiring or not ...
I've been un-organized for years that I knew if I continue to stay like that I'll never have a body of work to show to people. I'm really at my wits end to put this out there ... who knows, I might still go back to my old ways but I keep telling myself that just for once - stick with the plan!
Post a Comment