Transitions - First Drafting a Book in 21 Days, BUT....

In mid-June 2012, I left my full-time job to write full time. Shortly, thereafter.... Not THAT kind of writing transition. The life transition I faced involved bringing my work ethic from working for someone else over to working for, well, myself. I thought no big deal, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Juggling work for the company that employs you involves set deadlines. A majority of my work involved proposal submission time frames. To produce a proposal, you follow standard steps, just as you do to produce a book. For a book: brainstorm, plot, character-sketch, generate log line, Story GMC, Scene GMCDs, write the first draft, then revise and repeat. Yet, the time that producing a book was taking...something was off. After all, I finished the first book, didn't I. I'd write the next and the next. I'd get there, some how, some way, some day. SOME DAY?

Yep, it was the set deadline that was missing. In the past fifty (50) days, I first drafted twenty-one (21) of those days. The other twenty-nine (29) days, I revised the first book in the series and struggled with the crud Hubby brought home from his travels. During those 29 days, I did not first draft and did not create new chapters for the series, yet in the 21 days that I actually did write draft material, I finished the first draft of Book #2. (Ta-da!)

Author Dean Wesley Smith's recent blog post, The New World of Publishing: How to Keep Production Going All Year, brought to light the importance of the production of new words. Revise, yes, but in addition to revision or any other writing-type activity, writing new words takes top priority.

To continue to write full time and in order to hopefully make a living doing the same in the not so distant future, I must produce new words. SO, I now I have set deadlines for my writing production, not just, duh, I'm going to write a book, then write another one. My deadlines are realistic and include daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals to reach those deadlines.

It's taken me a while, but in 2013, I am transitioned, baby!

Deadlines: Self-Imposed and Self-Fulfilled

While working at home and writing full-time, setting realistic, doable deadlines is key.

Factors to consider when taking out a calendar to set a completion date for writing activities and drafts include estimates as follows (my own timelines are included in parenthesis):

• Plotting/Characterization Phase (<1 week)
• First Draft (4 to 6 weeks, with daily goal of 1 Chapter per day for 5 to 7 Chapters per week)
• Rewrite/Final Drafting (Estimate 4 to 6 weeks)

Overall, this schedule projects nine (9) to thirteen (13) weeks per book from beginning to completion. (As I progress, I will be able to adjust and tighten the schedule based on realistic production, rather than guesstimates or estimates.)

First off, please note that I am not including time-frames for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. drafts. To write for a living, producing a strong enough first draft so that continual drafting isn't required is imperative, which is why a ramrod get-the-draft-out lightning draft effort does not work for me. Also, I will be experimenting with coordinating multiple tasks, such as first drafting one book in the morning while editing the previous book in the afternoon.

Taking years to compete a first draft, with additional years to redraft, is not practical for me, because my overall goal is to write for a living. Setting self-imposed deadlines will allow me the opportunity to actually complete a five-book series within a six (6) to seven (7) month time-frame.

Deadlines for this series includes completion of books within these estimated months:

•  November, Book #1, First Draft
•  December, Book #1, Final Draft
•  December, Book #2, First Draft
• January, Book #2, Final Draft
•  January, Book #3, First Draft

As I go along, I will need to reassess realistic production times, and will adjust completion deadlines accordingly. A white board dry-erase wall calendar helps me to "see" what deadlines are ahead and to gauge how close I am to meeting and fulfilling those deadlines.

My writing deadlines are self-imposed, which makes the results of my efforts and the meeting of those deadlines self-fulfilled. As a writer who's goal is to write books and make a living doing the same, I wouldn't have it any other way.