As busy and hectic as the past month has been, I still feel like I’m failing to accomplish what I need to accomplish on a pretty regular basis. Some of that is my anxiety talking and some of that is my chronically high expectations for myself–Type A personalities FTW–and some of that has to do with the fact that almost all the items on my to-do list exist in the long-term instead of the short-term.
Frankly, the #1 thing that keeps me calm and on task is remembering how much I’ve already accomplished in any given week or month and how much time I still have ahead to meet my various goals. It’s hard to remember those accomplishments from moment to moment without some kind of comprehensive list though, so that’s what this post will be for me going forward. I’m writing it as a reminder and not as any kind of public boast. Comparing myself to others is an issue I struggle with daily, no matter how productive I am on paper, and the last thing I want to do is put anyone in the position of comparing themselves to me.
If you spent January feeling stuck or unhappy or unproductive, I understand. I’ve been there. Whatever you managed to accomplish last month, no matter how insignificant or unimportant those accomplishments seem to you, is enough. And if you stop reading this post right now because you’re trying not to play the comparison game, I understand that too.
What I Accomplished
1. I finished one full, comprehensive edit for a CP/writer friend of mine within the new deadline we’d set.
2. I plotted/outlined my entire mystery manuscript, worked out the timeline, and completed all the necessary research that I’d identified after reviewing the first draft.
3. I solicited additional feedback for my query for Facing the Music and began working to incorporate it.
4. I wrote and published two new blog posts.
5. I finished nine books: Tower of Dawn, Ramona Blue, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Moxie, The Girl with the Red Balloon, A Taxonomy of Love, You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone, Paper Hearts Volume 1: Some Writing Advice, and What Light.
6. My fiancee and I set up our wedding website and our registry, sent out our save-the-dates, and decided on a honeymoon destination. We also finished our mandatory couples counseling and came to some necessary conclusions about how we want our ceremony and our wedding day itself to go. I made the last round of payments on my dress, which feels amazing, and started researching tailors and florists.
What I Didn’t
I didn’t meet the original deadline my friend and I had agreed upon for when I’d get my critique back to her, and I have nobody to blame but myself for that. Even though I’ve had a couple different friends’ manuscripts on my plate for the past few months, there was no real reason why I couldn’t have met my deadlines for everyone. My friend is really happy with her feedback, at least, and I know she doesn’t hold my lateness against me. But in the future, I’m definitely going to try and be more on top of things – for my friends’ sake and for my own sake.
I also would’ve loved to have started re-working my synopsis for Facing the Music, which has been lingering unfinished for months now, but that simply wasn’t possible given my other, more pressing goals. And as soon as I realized that I’d need to restructure the query, the synopsis wound up taking a backseat anyway.
Looking Ahead
There’s a lot that I plan to tackle in the first 3 weeks of February because of other commitments I have near the end of the month. The trivia league I belong to starts up again on the 18th, and I’ll be starting another sensitivity reading job around the 26th. In a perfect world, I’ll be able to knock out most, if not all, of the smaller scale stuff on my to-do list before then, so that my time isn’t quite so divided going into March. We’ll see.
This month, I plan to:
1. Finish the first third of my mystery rewrite, and finish a draft of the mystery query I’m working on. Better to verify that my story can be neatly summarized now than get to the end and realize that I’ve written myself into a giant plot hole.
2. Finish revising my query for Facing the Music and see if I can’t come up with a better way to arrange the beginning of the story. The opening chapters are pretty strong, but they’re also a little convoluted. As long as I’m tweaking the query, I feel like I owe it to myself to at least brainstorm some brand new ideas and see if they smooth out the plot/pacing a bit.
3. Finish reading 10 books, and potentially purchase the e-book versions of a few romance novels I’ve been meaning to read, cash flow permitting.
4. Order our wedding invitations. Book our airfare for our honeymoon and start doing more intensive research about where we’ll be going and what we might like to do while we’re there.
I borrowed the idea for this blog post from Katherine Locke, a published author who blogs pretty extensively about writing with a day job and shares some great productivity tips. Her post is a lot more in-depth than mine, so if you found my recap interesting or potentially applicable to your own goals for the coming month, please be sure and check out her blog.
And, as always, please let me know in the comments what you’re planning to accomplish in February.