Planning promotion; picture by author
Post number four. I’ve managed to keep this process going for four weeks. Yay me.
Today was slightly different, because I decided that my focus needed to be “what have I accomplished during the month” rather than just the past week in review. So I went ahead and started working on thinking about what did and didn’t work, including what roadblocks I encountered and how I could possibly overcome them.
Three pages later…wow. But there are definitely some things that need to be developed further. First of all, in order to get some of the things done that I need to get done, requires the ability to spread out with paperwork that doesn’t need to be picked up but doesn’t get in the way of accessing things like books and supplies. Somewhat of a tall order due to the current office setup. So I am looking at that and will spend time organizing it.
I need to develop a coherent promotion plan rather than just willy-nilly saying “oh here’s my latest stuff” as an afterthought.
I need to reduce stress by having my volunteer activities better coordinated and blocked out in my schedule.
I need to reclaim my sewing space, identify what projects I plan to work on, and begin creating craft items for fall online sales.
As I go about moving my backlist onto Ingram for paperback versions, I need to move those items through production, including updated interiors, continuity tweaks, and full wrap covers.
The writing has actually been making progress, though slower than I would like. But some of that is due to Caroline Starshine asserting herself more and more, almost as much as Gabriel Martiniere started to do with the Martiniere stories. I don’t think Caroline’s story is going to last more than one book, but hoo boy is it ever turning into a roller-coaster ride. It’s a much better story than the original concept I was playing with over ten years ago. However, as well as that serial is progressing, I need to get ahead of uploading so that I can turn from it to other projects. On the other hand, I seem to be doing a decent job of juggling multiple work items, so….
In a lot of ways it will get easier as we get out of winter. Right now, I need to deal with the horse about midday, which turns out to be somewhat of an organizational challenge. Weird but true. It’s a lot easier for me to work straight through until four or five, take a break to do horse stuff, then get back to it. I suppose it’s a function of darkness and so on. I just find the midday horse break to be somewhat more distracting and it shouldn’t be. It’s a matter of my head space.
What is becoming more clear is that I need to spend some time breaking down tasks that seem big and insurmountable at the moment into workable pieces. I started doing that about this time last year, and then the cataract blew that all to pieces, along with the MacBookPro teetering on the edge of collapse. Which is another factor–I need to begin integrating the MacBookAir into my writing again. The short period where I was using the iPad for everything away from the computer ended up causing as many problems as it solved, in the long run. So I need to be doing that.
The overall lesson from January? Planning and structures work, as long as I adequately break the tasks down into smaller, doable units. And, y’know, actually do the work of planning.
Well, I think I know what February is going to be all about.
