planning

Quick Link: How I Wrote Two Full-Length Novels in 18 Months

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Over at Lifehacker Nicole Dieker, who is obviously not a pantser, shares how she was able to successfully write two novels in 18 months.  She has some great tips for you to check out and see if anything is useful to you.

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How I Wrote Two Full-Length Novels in 18 Months

by Nicole Dieker

My debut novel, The Biographies of Ordinary People: Volume 1: 1989–2000, releases on May 23, 2017. The sequel, which covers the years 2004–2016, is scheduled to release in the first half of 2018.

I wrote the first chapter of Vol. 1 during the last week of July 2015. I wrote the last chapter of Vol. 2 during the last week of December 2016. Two full-length novels—roughly 90,000 words each—drafted over eighteen months, plus I was revising Vol. 1 while I was drafting Vol. 2.

If you’ve dreamed of writing your own novel(s) but haven’t yet written anything besides the first two chapters—and trust me, I’ve been there—you’re probably wondering how I got it all done, in addition to my everyday workload and all of the other stuff that goes into a life.

Some of it has to do with experience. I was able to write The Biographies of Ordinary People in part because I had already written hundreds of blog posts, online articles, and short fiction.

But a lot of it came down to structure and planning.

Read the full post on Lifehacker

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

The Author Monthly Planner: A Freebie to Organize Your Writing and Marketing Life

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This post by Toni Tesori originally appeared on Duolit on 3/11/14.

We’re stuck in this cycle where, for at least one week every month, one member of our family is sick (I blame Olivia for bringing home the germies from daycare, BTW).

While being sick doesn’t rate highly on the ol’ fun-o-meter, it did give me an awfully convenient excuse to skip out on my regular cleaning routine.

After catching Olivia practically wading through a pile of books in her bedroom, however, I decided that enough was enough. It was time to get back on my game.

So, I made a to-do list. A looong to-do list. Pretty reasonable, right?

The result? My house is still a mess.

Wanna know why?

To-do lists suck.

Listen, if you’re one of those folks who make perfectly reasonable to-do lists and attack them daily with gusto, I envy you. I wish the doggone things worked that well for me!

Personally, I’ve always found to-do lists a bit mocking. Appealing to the procrastination side of my personality, those lengthy lists just beg me to move some of the items to tomorrow’s list. As long as the tasks get done eventually, right?

Hint: those moved items never get done. Because more and more tasks are added and fewer are crossed off. Before long, I simply despise the sight of that stupid list! I become completely overwhelmed with the number of tasks, and my brain decides that surfing Tumblr is a far more appealing use of my time.

Does any of this sound familiar? If you’ve ever used such a list to keep track of your author-ly life to-do’s, I bet you’ve experienced the something similar.

 

It’s Not the List’s Fault

I’m being awfully hard on the humble to-do list, when it’s not the fault of the list itself. The fault instead lies in the to-do list process. Since the list is, by design, a running list of tasks to work on right now, it offers no perspective; it doesn’t tell me why I’m checking off the items. There’s no birds-eye view of where I’ve been, where I’m going or any kind of final destination.

This is especially important for authors: most of us don’t work on this authoring gig full-time, and jumping in and out of an ever-mounting task list is difficult/scary without an overall plan. We need a status update reminding us why we’re doing what we’re doing, where we’re trying to go and what we need to work on right now to achieve those future goals.

Basically: instead of tasks, we need focus.

 

Focus in a PDF: The Author Monthly Planner

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes a link to a free, downloadable author’s monthly planner in PDF format, on Duolit.

 

Author's Year-End Marketing Checklist

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This post, by Stephanie Barko, originally appeared on San Francisco Book Review on 11/14/13.

Do you think of your writing as a hobby or a business? If your books mean business to you, this is a great time of year to evaluate how your 2013 marketing fared. Beginning now, there’s just enough time before the end of the year to assess performance-to-goals and plan for taxes.

Here is a list of questions designed to either save you money [this year] or expose some issues to correct before [next year].

SALES

How many books did I sell this year?

Which formats sold best?

Do I want to put my 2013 title out in another format or publish my next book or both?

Did I sell branded merchandise this year? Do sales indicate that it was priced right?

Do I want to merchandise my brand next year?

 

EXPENSES

Do I have the right amount of expenses to offset sales?

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on San Francisco Book Review.