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A Writer’s Life

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. – Benjamin Franklin

School is out. The vacation abroad has ended. Time announces the arrival of full-time writer-hood.

The schedule says: Three hours five days per week is allotted for writing. I’ve factored in other times for blog hopping and updating social media.

There’s a plan. *sighs*

I finished Plot and Structure, James Scott Bell’s masterpiece, and use it to guide my goal-setting and schedule for rewriting the novel.

Yes, rewriting. I doubt I will start anew, but I believe that a new document where I can cut and paste the sections I’m going to keep will work for me. Does this work in Scrivener? I guess I can make a new folder for the 2nd draft.

The book helped me generate plenty of questions that will need to be answered in my work in progress if it will ever become a completed novel.

No, I will finish the first draft by the deadline – August 24 – and I will begin the rewrite. This should take approximately eight weeks according to chapter 11 in Bell’s bible.

If I stay on schedule, I should be polishing the second draft in November. I hope this means I will be ready to take it to my classroom of 7th grade beta readers by January. At this point, that’s my plan.

During my cooling off period, I intend to work on building my social media platform (using the guidance of Kristen Lamb’s new book Rise of the Machines) and study Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King.

Bell has given me some other plotting homework that I intend to complete during my self-imposed exile to sit in the sunshine. For the next two months, this time is scheduled in for two hours every weekday afternoon. (You can be sure I’ll make time for the loving the sun – maybe meeting my word count for the day should be a prerequisite.)

What sort of schedule do you have for your writing life? Do you have a daily word count goal?

I’d love to hear any and all advice from my fellow writers – or other self-employed people.

                                       Weekly   Schedule

Time Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
6AM Workout Workout Workout Workout Workout
7AM QT/BF QT/BF QT/BF QT/BF QT/BF BF
8AM Shower Shower Shower Shower Shower Shower
9AM Bathrooms Blogs Floors Ladies Social   Med Laundry
10AM Chore Meeting
11AM Writing List Writing Writing
Noon Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch
1PM Writing Writing Writing Writing Writing
2PM Outdoors Outdoors Outdoors Outdoors Outdoors Family
3PM Outdoors Outdoors Outdoors Outdoors Outdoors
4PM Writing Writing Social   Med Writing Writing
5PM Dinner   Prep Dinner   Prep Dinner   Prep Dinner   Prep Dinner   Prep Dinner   Prep
6PM Family
7PM Time Writing
8PM Family

4 thoughts on “A Writer’s Life”

  1. I haven’t done any writing for quite a while. I’m stalled on the novel I’m working on. I’m on the editing phase but I hate it! I bought five notepads yesterday so I can write short stories. I’ve already written several pages of a new story in a genre I’ve never written in before. I’ve no idea where the story is going but I’m really enjoying getting back in the writing saddle! Good luck with your writing.

    1. Good luck to you, as well. Short stories really amp up the writing skills and the creativity.
      I should finish the first draft of my novel next week and then the real work begins. This is the stage where I generally get bogged down, too. Here’s hoping we can both get through it to the other side where a published novel awaits.

  2. Hi Sharon.
    I’m very impressed with your writing schedule! Hi. I’m Kacy’s mom. Last night late she remembered she wanted to text me (I appreciate that she waited until this morning and just TOLD me :)) that you are a writer too. I dabble in writing.. mostly short stuff. As a High school Spanish teacher at Century, i’ll not have time to do anything of any length until after I retire… but hey. the short stuff keeps me going. I have really enjoyed connecting with PDX writers that meet most of the time at Mt Tabor, and also have enjoyed the St helens writers guild that meets the 2nd saturday at 2:30, usually for a couple of hours. Both groups are good at giving complimentary feedback. St Helens is more about bring what you have and share. then with some short prompts. Lately I think the group has enjoyed writing the short prompts together and sharing more. It’s usually a group of 6 or 7 people. You might enjoy it. They have a facebook page that i have linked to my facebook page, so you might want to go see if you know names. If you’d like to go with some month, we could go together. Also, just this week, a friend and i were talking about the PDX writers group charging, which gets annoying to me, so we’ve come to our own prompts this week, between the two of us. We each write for 15 min and then share. A fun prompt from this past week was “The chess pieces were on the floor, but the white queen was nowhere to be found.” Anyway, I know that your energies, right now, sound very focused to your novel! Go Go Go!. I look forward to hearing how its going. 🙂
    Tiersa

    1. Thanks for posting. I have heard many writers say that a critique group is great for pre-published writers, but I didn’t know if there were any groups nearby. I think I’m at a point where I really want a group that will give honest, rather than just complimentary, feedback.

      I might be interested in checking out a meeting with you, though. If its a big enough group there may be some who would want to form a sub-group that is more about making the writing stronger than just encouraging us to keep on. I will check for the link on Facebook tomorrow.

      Thanks for checking out my blog. So far, I have been able to stick with my schedule 85% of the time.

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