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Tag: (business) Writing
My Strategy Plan for 2022 (Making It Your Business)
Photo by Jeriden Villegas on Unsplash
For this month’s Writer’s Exercise, I discussed Ms. Klansky’s strategic plan implementation postings and then challenged people to create their own. Strategic Plans are great to have, especially if audited because you haven’t made a profit three out of five years on your tax documents. Having Plans on hand helps prove an INTENT to make money.
I wanted to do the writing exercise myself to shake things up that have slid because of the pandemic. With a strategic plan in hand, I can focus on my writing.
Mission Statement:
Create entertaining and marketable stories which show healthy relationship choices, present educational items, and challenge people to do better.
Setting Goals:
1. Increase sellable words volume.
2. Get blog up-to-date by December 2022. (Edit: According to a reasonable production amount, goal changed to March 31, 2023)
3. Produce novels regularly, setting up a successful production line by December 2022.
4. Stay healthy.
Developing Strategies (Brainstorming):
1. Increase sellable word volume
- Write Daily – showing up / Butt in Chair (BIC); Daily word goal (worked before for about two months); Daily time goal (never worked). Prime the pump mini-stories to kick-start the day (distracting for me). Control doom scrolling and internet time – so BIC is focused properly. Ritual to set the mood and drop into writing quickly.
- Writing day/”Date Your Writing” – A day set aside for writing or a time set aside specific to writing, like a date which cannot be superseded.
2. Blog up-to-date – Approach by doing one type of blog at a time. Or maybe a year at a time. Keep up on the now and do a couple extra daily. Figure out how much I need to do so I can figure out how to split it up.
3. Produce novels regularly – Focus on getting a series out at a time. Focus on singles because easier to complete. Is series or singles better? Outline – draft – or jump in? I’ve always thought of myself as a planner, but I seem to be working better as a pantser with the blogging. What process? Which stories?
4. Stay Healthy – Movement, Doctor appointments, keep health insurance $$$, and eating. Walk / collect litter every day; yard work, work for post office two or three days a week, buy healthy food to eat at home. Dentist and doctors visits.
Specifying Actions:
1. Increase sellable word volume
- Write daily through one flip of the hourglass.
- Caveats – missing one day a week is allowed.
- Evaluation – Review monthly to see if this habit is still working for me. (Note: It has been working okay for a week now (March 2022)).
2. Get the blogs up to date. – Make December 1 to March 30 “Blog Season” to keep writing skills up during package months and tax season, but acknowledging not having the energy for bigger works.
- During Blog Season – Write at least two blogs a day until caught up. (Edit for evaluation: Fourteen blogs weekly)
- During Novel Season – Do three blogs a week to maintain blog so don’t fall behind
- Evaluation – Make sure reach weekly requirements.
3. Produce novels regularly – Create two genre novels a year while working for post office and doing taxes.
- “Novel Writing Season” – From April 1 to July 30 (novel 1); From August 1 to Nov 30 (novel 2) – four months each.
- Tuesday is “Novel Writing Day” – All day for the novel and only the novel. Flip the hourglass at least three times. (Morning, afternoon, evening) Not allowed to schedule against it, unless moving the Novel Writing Day to another day.
- Word goal per week for novel – 5,000 words for the first three months (65,000), fourth month is editing and cleanup. Aim on novel writing day is half the volume (2,500) and five other days of (500) each.
- Evaluation – Daily counts, but more importantly weekly evaluation on Saturday. (Week counts will be from Sunday to Saturday).
4. Stay Healthy
- Doctor appointments – Make and keep the four recommended doctor appointments: Eye Glasses (done in Feb); Dentist; General Doctor; Woman Doctor. Evaluation: Make one a quarter. Are they complete at the end of the year?
- Daily exercise – On days not working for the post office, do yardwork or collect litter in the neighborhood.
- Caveat forgive during tax season.
- Evaluation: Reassess monthly and see if need to be redirected.
- Healthy food – Plan weekly meals on Monday.
- Overall Evaluation: Keep weight below 200. Happy goal would be 185 by the end of 2022.
Memes: Writing Advice
I’ve previously posted memes I’ve created related to NaNoWritMo. But I also create other memes related to writing. Here are some I have released into the wild.
Other Cool Posts: Ramblings of the Titanium Don
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash (cropped and color adjusted by Erin Penn)
Self-Sabotage
I have a confession to make. Every four or so years (matches up to my family moving around as a child and the school system cycle as well), I burn my life to the ground and restart. I’ve noticed a couple of my sisters have similar cycles. Maybe it’s in our DNA? We are a highly mobile family – moving, changing jobs, or just doing Something Else. I’ve managed to stay in North Carolina for 8 years – which is a record for me in one location other than my family home.
But the itch is back.
How do I not start from scratch yet again? How can I get the feeling of a “reset” without a restart?
Changing jobs usually works, but I really like my present lineup of jobs. Start a new relationship, but falling in love in your fifties is a lot of effort, plus the pandemic has destroyed nearly all meet-and-greet opportunities. I just don’t have the energy for that.
And speaking of self-sabotage mixed with the pandemic, I let my writing slide a lot. It was too much effort, too much creative juice. How do I forgive myself for taking a year and a half “off”? Yeah, I did editing and the like – but actual writing writing – well, truth to tell, not much different than the years before. Less flashes, but finished money-making published works? More of the same.
And thus starts the cycle of negative thoughts, which activates the want to change everything instead of one simple thing.
MJ Blehart, a good friend from when I lived in New Jersey, writes about mindfulness, and this month he wrote an article on “Do You Recognize and Acknowledge Self-Sabotage When You See it?” (The URL is: https://titaniumdon.com/do-you-recognize-and-acknowledge-self-sabotage-when-you-see-it/)
After reading the blog, I thought this is a good reminder to shake the internal branches to get the “comfortable” out of the tree so the fruit of labor can be harvested instead of eaten by the bugs of it’s-too-hard and the birds of not-today, and the deadfall of “I can’t do this or forgive myself for not doing it”. I want that fruit. I don’t want to be the editor who always talked about writing. I want to make a difference. So it’s time to forgive and think about the new path, focus on the path so that it creates that feeling of moving without needing to burn everything down. Restart in little steps.
Writing Exercise: Making It Your Business
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Writing as a Business
If you are writing for fun or passion, you can skip this post. Today, we are talking about Writing as a Business.
Mindy Klasky, a best-selling author, wrote an amazing series about “Making it Your Business” for Magical Words back in 2011 and most of it still applies. Creating a Strategic Plan helps you focus your energies on what works.
I have a great example of why it works from when I took some business courses. Most businesses know their business – so they know the direction they want to travel. But accounting works from the tradition of keeping costs as low as possible no matter what (pulling the company a little to the right); and sales knows that they need to sell, so they promise whatever will make the sale (twisting the company hard to the left); and the custodian is totally turned around and been counterproductive because his instructions on OSHA cleanup requirements haven’t been adjusted to the industry specifics of the company (a U-turn every day, erasing about two people’s worth of effort). Everyone in the hundred-person company is mostly aimed in the right direction, but a little off here and there. Lots of swerving. Basically 100 people are producing 78% of the time what the company needs. Good, but not perfect.
A Strategic Plan gets rid of the swerves. A force multiplier, each part of the company is examined and re-aimed to shoot true, straight ahead. OSHA requirements are examined for best course. Accounting doesn’t nitpick everything because they know what the company needs to create the best product possible. Sales no longer making promises outside of the company’s core business. 100% from 100 people.
Same holds true for an individual business like writing. Writing for passion gets you words. Writing with a strategic plan in place – to direct that passion gets you income. The difference is “I feel like writing something romantic today” to “I feel like writing romance today, and I know a romance anthology is looking for fairy tale spin-offs.”
Making It Your Business isn’t ignoring the muse, but harnessing it. Muses ride the writer enough, turn about is fair play.
Ms. Klansky’s Strategic Plan implementation appears in the following Magical Word postings:
- Mission Statement (1/20/2011) –
- Setting Goals (2/17/2011) –
- Developing Strategies (3/17/2011) –
- Specifying Actions (4/21/2011) –
WRITING EXERCISE: Create your Strategic Plan for either your life or for your art (writing, editing, or other creative endeavor).
My attempt
Mission Statement: Make a difference in the world by creating more stories showing healthy relationship choices, while making half the income I need to sustain my lifestyle.
Setting Goals, Developing Strategies, Specifying Actions: Wow, this is involved, but exactly what I need to shake of the pandemic paralyzation … I will need a few days to complete. I will be posting it as a 5th week blog. Link will be provided once it is up.