Writing Down What You HAVE Done, Not What You Will Do

So I started this post a week ago. I have the Blogger app on my phone, and I downloaded the images I wanted into a post and that post was supposed to be written last week.

 Uh, yeah. Not so much.

 I've been a bit scattered since I finished La Petite Adult's book on Christmas Morning. Or at least, on the writing front I have been.

 But then I started to look back and realized that the way I do things IS scattered--but I get sh*t done. 

I took a minute I figured out everything I've done for my writing career since Christmas Morning 2014. I only wrote down career-related stuff...all the "other stuff" doesn't count.

Since Christmas Morning, I have:

 1. Revised a Cover Flat (Bad Mom: Mother's Day)

 2. Created from scratch Two Cover Flats (Bad Mom: Glampfest! and His Favorite Distraction)

3. Created from scratch the print edition of a book (His Favorite Distraction) 

 4. Finished the JPG cover for my Bad Mom Short Story

5. Worked on the branding/look of two new series  

 6. Revamped the look of my website a bit after deciding Wordpress wasn't for me and I'd make Blogger work; I changed my header and fixed some fonts and changed some innards (such as how to access my books so it looked more streamlined). I still have a bit more to do, but I'm not stressing. Bird by bird, right writer peeps?

7. Spent WAY too much time looking at Oriental Trading Company for the materials to create class Valentine's for La Petite Adult's friends and getting distracted by stuff I could use for my writing needs (I love stickers! I love personalized pencils!)

8. I ordered a sample pack from PensXpress to figure out the promo pen I do want to create at some point.

9. I put in "orders" to create two email promos for Presidents' Day Weekend.

10. I have written two scenes and revised others for a collaborative project I'm working on.

11. I cleaned up my writing space. Like, every drawer was gone through. All dust was dusted (well, mostly). Things waiting to be hung up were--egads!--hung.  

 12. I have created a few things for an idea I have for an Etsy store. I know, I know. SQUIRREL!

13. I started using a Passion Planner. I'm not so good at day-to-day planning, but weekly/monthly/yearly planning? Yes please!

 14. I've written four blog posts.

Phew!

 Here are some pics to go with this post; I'm good with not being perfect and so I didn't waste precious Short-Story-Writing-Time seamlessly blending them in:
This is from Passion Planner. Go download a copy. It's AWESOME.
What Createspace shows you when you finish a cover: a 360-degree view!
I always lust after others' writing spaces. And so I made my own more lust-worthy!
This is what the printed product of His Favorite Distraction looks like.
There is still too much chocolate in this freakin' house!
A common sight: Headphones and notebooks I take notes in about stories and my writing career and that are next to me as I fall asleep.
So that was the period between 12/25 and 1/12 (2.5 weeks!) in a nutshell. I FELT like I hadn't accomplished a lot, all because my stupid short story isn't done yet. But when I sat back and wrote down what I had been doing, a different reality emerged.

 How about you? If you sat down to write what you HAVE done and not what you want to get done or what you haven't gotten done, what would your list look like?

 So, yeah. I've been doing a lot. And that story will get done.*

 All the other stuff has. ;o)

*This story is about three good writing days away from being done.

 
Sydney Strand is a writer and mom who has published two books through New York and another five via self-publishing. She writes funny little romances, but not of the Red Room of Pain variety. More like the Dan and Roseanne Connor variety--humor is sexy, dontcha know. You can follow Sydney on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and/or you can sign up for her All Things Awesome Newsletter. 


Comments

  1. Wordsworth PlannerNovember 6, 2019 at 12:05 AM

    Hey Sydney,
    Glad to read this post. Using planner you can try day to day planning as well. Managing your daily tasks and plans will be easy with daily planner.

    Thanks for this post. Keep it up, will visit your blog again.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interviewing My Story, Finding the Plot Thread, and Understanding My Characters

Image
The confession behind this blog: Read here.  This week, I had a major break-through: I DON'T NEED TO WRITE AN OUTLINE BEFORE I WRITE THE BOOK. Yes. That's right. The pre-writing tool we've been told must be done before we write anything? It has now become a post-writing tool. And I thank my years of teaching college English courses. What I Used to Do This was a majorly mind-blowingly development. I had always done (or rather, NOT done and felt guilty about not doing it) proper outlines and character interviews pre-Draft 1. I thought pre-writing was for anal idiots, and I was not an idiot.  I wanted to jump into the story. Feet first, of course. (Because I was not an idiot.) This is not to say I write by the seat of my pants. I always need a plan, a Pinterest Board, a Polyvore collage.  I just don't want a 100-pages of outlines and character notes. Or, as I call it. The Book Before the Book. And yes, I would write an outline of s
Read more

Contemplating, Reassessing, and Regrouping

Image
A Review of What I Did: Writing, Revising & Publishing  Bad Mom Rents a Man: Glampfest! Easy enough. o_O On September 15, I published my fourth story since I started my self-publishing journey in July 2013. This was my sixth published book (the first two were written for Dutton) and it was my seventh completed manuscript (that first one, an amateur sleuth, may see the light of day if I can ever figure out the hook!). This post is about what I learned this time around in terms of writing, revising, and publishing. Writing This was one of three books I fast-wrote in July. I wrote approximately 40,000 words in about three weeks, even while on a 10-day vacation. I've never done this method before, but so far, so good.  Why I liked the new way I was writing: -I would sit down and know I was just writing down words that were going to get better one day. Not then, just one day. And so I wrote. Sometimes, I would hit my daily goal of 2,500 words in one hour. -
Read more

Overwhelmed Inertia: Procrastination & Writing

Image
Me. Overwhelmed. And that's Inertia  I'm giving the stink-eye to. I have a confession: I have ADD. But I'm lucky. Since I was a child, I was given coping mechanisms in order to be a productive ADD person: schedules, habits, and the go-ahead to be a crazy-ass multi-tasker. Thanks Mom, you teacher and counselor you! The Positives of Being a Writer and Having ADD (with Coping Mechanisms) I can get a lot done, just not all 100% in the course of a day (ultimately, though, I do hit 100%--thank you, Type A personality). Right now, in fact, I just stepped away to 1) snap a picture for my new Tumblr account, 2) email a critique buddy about the way she should set up her new story (alternating POVs a la Holes was maybe the answer, but it ended up being more Shawshank Redemption), 3) make a cup of coffee and 4) pull up a website I saw in Writer's Digest ( Women's Fiction Writers ). Now keep in mind, I have not posted to Tumblr yet, I have not finished thinking
Read more