What I’m reading today – DAY OF THE VIKINGS, by J.F. Penn (HT to the wonderful Terry O’Dell for the idea of adding the ‘what i’m reading’ to posts.)
Original image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Cole Vassiliou
You know those people – the self motivated ones – who don’t need deadlines. Heck. You’re probably one of them. I thought I was too, but this writing gig is making it clear that I’m not. At least not right now.
I spent Wednesday. From 5:30 am to 11:30 pm in the revisions bunker. Then did the same thing on Thursday. Why? (Any sane person would ask that question, so don’t feel bad.) Because I set a deadline for myself two weeks ago.
You’d think with two weeks to get maybe 40 hours of work done, I’d break it up. Two weeks, 14 days = 3 hours a day. Heck. Take weekends off. 4 hours a day.
Easy Peasy.
Instead, I gratefully took weekends off. Then took Mondays to work on my website. Then I got busy with another project. And really, if you think something’s going to take 40 hours, it’s probably going to take 60. You know where this is going. Suddenly I’ve got two days left and I’m nowhere near done.
My first thought was to let the deadline slide. If I’m going to ease my way into one book a year, then great. Let the deadline slip. But since the business model for indie writers is to get titles out, this deadline slipping has to stop. Time to knuckle down. (Does anyone say that knuckle down anymore?)
So, into the revisions bunker it was for me. I took time out to run and to eat dinner. That was it. And you know what? It was fun. I haven’t been that focused on getting something done in a long time. Being totally immersed in writing – keeping yourself in the story – is incredibly useful. No more skipping through notes and chapters trying to find details. They were floating around in my mind.
Eighteen hour days are not a recipe for success, at least at my age. But it was fun and it taught me a lesson. I’m going to go from ‘thinking about’ a production schedule, to actually building one. A schedule with deadlines.
I read a blog interview between Russell Blake and Bella Andre a few days ago. If you don’t know them, you should. I’ve been reading Russell since he started a few years back and Bella. Well – she’s an indie publishing goddess. Russell has averaged about a book a month since he started. He does it by working 10 hour days. Consistently. That ain’t happening for me. Bella has a more reasonable schedule. When writing, she kicks out between 2,000 and 5,000 words a day. Every day. Then spends 4 to 6 weeks in revisions on her books. How’s that working out for her so far? Pretty well. She’s sold over 3,000,000 books since she started self-publishing in 2010.
Here’s what Bella Andre has to say about production schedules:
I schedule my books—and production cycle with copy editors and proofreaders and formatters and promotion—a year in advance.
Yikes! Scheduling editing, formatting and promotion a year in advance? Those are serious self-imposed deadlines. Is that why she’s sold so many books? Of course not. She’s also good at her craft. But the people that do sell a lot of books tell similar stories.
Let’s recap. Work hard. Work consistently. Create a production schedule.
What’s that last thing?
Oh yeah. Meet your deadlines.
Original image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Cole Vassiliou.
