Plan? What Plan?

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

 Terry here, with our question of the week: A new year is upon us! How do you plan for your writing calendar? 

 Plan? Calendar? I wish I were a planner. In fact, I used to be. I used to make lists, and prioritize them. Now it seems that whatever hits my desk and shows up first is what gets done. 

  Update: I wrote this before I received a certain email over the weekend. So, although it’s still largely operational, there is a caveat. Go to the end to see what that is. 

 Hmmm, planning seems like a good topic for New Year’s resolutions. 

 Resolved: I will plan my writing calendar. (Does that mean I have to stick to the plan?) Part of the problem is that I have two works in progress—and neither of them is a book I have a contract for. One is almost ready to foist onto my agent. 

 The other I have been noodling with for months and am only just now understanding its trajectory. This is a book that was half done when I got my first contract, years ago. For years I was so swept up with the intensity of writing “the next one, and the next one” in my Craddock series, that I let it fall away. 

 This summer, unable to focus on anything outside of the disaster of national politics, I couldn’t conjure up a new book, so I dusted that one off. And I liked it. But in the interim, I’ve learned to write better (I hope), so I realized it was a hot mess. I think I’ve wrestled it into submission. But will I be able to finish it before a deadline smacks me in the face? Yes, I have been given word that I will have two new contracts. Two books to write. So…plan? 

 Resolved: I will do better at promoting my books in 2026. I’ll put time on my calendar to do it. But how? I’ve kept dozens of articles about “how to” promote. When I try to read them I get bored. “Not now,” I think. “I’ll just write some more instead.” I get bored because none of it makes sense. I talk to writers who manage to do a good job of promoting, but their methods baffle me. Do they hire people to flog their books? Where? Do their publishers help? Rarely. Sometimes they have teams. The idea of assembling a team exhausts me. Furthermore, if I’m writing two to three books in year, exactly where is the promo time coming from? 

 Resolved: I’ll spend an hour a day on the business side of writing. That doesn’t seem like too much. I once read that an author I admire plans out her entire week on Sunday. She wrote about it in great detail. She included time for writing, but also time for the business of getting her books to the public. I thought it was a great idea. But when I tried it, I was paralyzed. I think of myself as a motivated person, but the business side of writing is daunting. It isn’t that I can’t do what needs to be done; it’s that I don’t know what needs to be done. I need a keeper. 

 Resolved: I will use my resources better. My agent. My writing friends. My tech friends. My brain. I can’t even… I had a new book come out in December. I really liked it. Thought it was a good book. But I did nothing to promote it. Oh yeah, I mentioned here and on Facebook. The problem? I don’t know what else to do. So much of promotion has gotten more complicated. (And, by the way, December is not a great time to come out with a book.)

 Resolved: I’ll pay more attention to when my publisher plans to come out with a book. So, if you’ll excuse me now, I need to get back to my jigsaw puzzle. 

 Update: My publisher has asked me to commit to when I can deliver the next books in both my series. That means…yep, getting my calendar in order. And writing the books!

Resolved: Get busy.