Behold: The Power of the Schedule

A post by Mary Fan

A little over a year ago, I found myself in over my head in terms of book projects. Looking back, it was bound to happen. I kept starting new things, then wanting to expand on those things while also starting more new things. For instance, we were publishing a second volume of BRAVE NEW GIRLS, and I had 22 short stories to edit. Also, I was doing an offset print run for STARSWEPT and formatting the book myself. Oh, and I wanted to have them done by Gen Con, which was coming up in a few months. Meanwhile, I’d signed up for a full-novel critique with my local writing group, and I was in the midst of writing an all-new manuscript. 

All of these things involved a LOT of work, and all of these things had unmovable deadlines. Gen Con wasn’t going to delay itself, and since it’s my biggest annual show, I would’ve kicked myself if I hadn’t had my latest release ready for that. And my writing group had already scheduled my critique date. Plus, I was also traveling a lot and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, which meant there were days when I couldn’t get any work done.

Just trying to keep track of what had to be done by when was giving me a headache. To make this publication date, I had to get that formatted by whatever date, but I also had to find time to do this other thing… I started panicking a little when I realized just how much I had to do.

In my day job, I often have to act as a project manager, shuffling pieces of projects from milestone to milestone in order to hit deadlines, accounting for the fact that somethings depended on others. Any given time, there might be a half-dozen projects at varying stages of completion. To keep track of what was what and where everything was, I used spreadsheets.

Well, I thought, maybe I should try that for my writing stuff too. Once upon a time, when I was a newbie writer, things were easy to keep track of. I just had whatever book I was working on. But then I dove into the world of indie publishing, and suddenly, I wasn’t just the author anymore. I was essentially running my own nano-publishing house for my own stuff.

So I set up a spreadsheet to keep track of what I should be doing on any given date. First, I created columns for each project, with dates running down the left side. For example:

	PROJECT 1	PROJECT 2	PROJECT 3
4/19/2018
4/20/2018
4/21/2018
4/22/2018
4/23/2018

Then I color coded it so I knew which days were weekends (since I can get more done on weekends than in the few evening hours after work… also to help me keep track of which weekday was which):

	PROJECT 1	PROJECT 2	PROJECT 3
4/19/2018
4/20/2018
4/21/2018
4/22/2018
4/23/2018

After that, I put in my deadlines and blocked off dates I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Example:

	PROJECT 1	PROJECT 2	PROJECT 3
4/19/2018
4/20/2018
4/21/2018			Manuscript due to critique group
4/22/2018	Out of town
4/23/2018
…
4/30/2018	Send manuscript to formatter
5/1/2018

From there, I worked backwards to fill in what I had to do each day to meet these targets:

	PROJECT 1	PROJECT 2	PROJECT 3
4/19/2018			Write 2,000 words
4/20/2018			Write 2,000 words
4/21/2018			Manuscript due to critique group
4/22/2018	Out of town
4/23/2018	Proofread
…
4/30/2018	Send manuscript to formatter
5/1/2018		Write 2,000 words

I also made sure to give myself extra time wherever I could. For instance, I know I can write 3,000-4,000 words in a day when I’m on a roll. But I also know that there are days when I’m just tired, or my brain just isn’t functioning, and I struggle to get even 1,000 words written. Or maybe I’m feeling sick and can’t write at all. So if, for instance, I need to get a 10,000 word short story done, I’ll give myself two weeks, even though I know I could do it in a single weekend if in a bind. (This also accounts for how much I procrastinate…)

Of course, juggling all these projects means I sometimes have to bounce around between books. Because of the other stuff I was working on, last year, I wound up writing STRONGER THAN A BRONZE DRAGON in fits and spurts. I went at it strong for one month, then put it aside to edit BRAVE NEW GIRLS and do post-production-type stuff with STARSWEPT (proofreading, formatting, etc.) so I could meet the publication deadlines for those two. After a month or more of not looking at my WIP, I picked it up again and kept going.

When I created that spreadsheet in February 2017, I thought it’d just get me through the next few months or so. BRAVE NEW GIRLS and STARSWEPT would release in August, STRONGER THAN A BRONZE DRAGON would go to my critique group in June, and I’d be golden. But I found that I actually really liked having a schedule to keep me on track. Plus, I went right back to overcommitting and found that I seriously needed the spreadsheet to keep myself sane. 

At this very moment, I’m a) Editing a third volume of BRAVE NEW GIRLS b) Writing a sequel to STARSWEPT c) Committed to another full-novel critique session in August, for which I want to submit a new standalone WIP d) Expecting developmental edits on STRONGER THAN A BRONZE DRAGON, which I'll have 14 days to complete e) Publishing my YA dark fantasy, EDGE OF EVIL, in two weeks. Though that’s tame compared to a few months ago, when I also committed to writing a bunch of shorts for various anthologies (by the end of this year, I will have been in six that released in 2018 alone).

I think maybe the reason I committed to all that is because of the spreadsheet. Since I was able to lay out everything I needed to do, I knew what I had room for. I also knew when to say no (usually to myself). For example, I originally wanted to write a third FIREDRAGON novella and publish it plus the two already out there in an anthology in time for this year’s Gen Con. Yeah…. That’s not happening. And thanks to the spreadsheet, I realize that now instead of a week before the con.

Anyway, how do you juggle your writing projects? Do you keep a schedule too, or do you prefer to wing it?